NEW YORK (AP) -- Displeased transit officials are dumping a plan to make subway conductors eliminate the niceties in boarding announcements.
The idea of cutting out "please," as in "Please stand clear of the closing doors," to shave seconds off of train schedules was suggested by agency brass."It was an attempt to do a good thing but not necessarily in the best way," Transit spokesman Al O'Leary said Tuesday.
The plan ran counter to a politeness campaign in other forms of transportation. Bridge and tunnel toll collectors were ordered to say "thank you" and New York City taxis now have cheery recorded warnings to fasten seat belts.
Subways were a different matter as some conductors went a little overboard with their discourse, O'Leary said.
"If you add five seconds at every stop by saying 'please,' at the end of 60 stops, you're four or five minutes off schedule," he said.
"We had found that in some stations, in the outer boroughs especially, the announcements were taking longer to make than it took to load and unload passengers."
The plan had not pleased many.
"It's nonsense!" said Lynnette Taylor as she exited a train at Rockefeller Center on Monday. "If the conductors aren't respectful, a lot of people are not going to be comfortable riding the train."