F*** the customer: complaints about transit service announcements in Spanish

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Originally uploaded by ajbrown.

I wanted to use this image, but it's not polite.

I have a better understanding of how difficult it is to do things, while managing a public agency, over the grousing in the "Sprawl and Crawl" column in the Examiner, about hearing announcements in Spanish on the subway cars.

The first letter a few days ago recounted hearing such an announcement, and that the rider has been on many other subway systems in the U.S. where s/he never heard announcements other than in English. Hmm, I can name two: NYC Transit; and Portland Oregon's Tri-met; but maybe we travel in different places.

The point is that it depends on the demographic distribution of your market.

Wednesday's paper has a long comment from someone else, that is pretty ethnocentric as well, including a complaint about having Spanish language messages on buses.

Clearly that person doesn't ride buses, or would understand that a major segment of the market is Spanish-speaking (and reading). Ride the S2 or the 70s or the H8, cross the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard, etc., and you will have a much better understanding of this. And don't forget Arlington, and even other parts of Prince George's County have similar and growing enclaves.

The reality is that this shouldn't be political. Don't you want the transit authority to be responsive to customers? And it's about significance--size of the market.

Few businesses build success by ignoring significant chunks of the market.
I'm sure this "customization" to better explain which turnstiles to use isn't encouraged. Because the system's workforce is unionized, and because the first general manager was from the military, there is a very militaristic and management vs. union orientation.

It makes for a hard environment to be successful in. And that doesn't even include the college student that I witnessed throwing up in the New York Avenue station last night... (and it happened far too fast for me to be able to photograph it).

Index Keywords: transit