[jon-wood]

I consider these pointless announcements to be a form of auditory pollution, they do nothing but make you tune out all announcements, making it more likely that you'll miss the occasional useful one. I'm in the UK, rather than NYC, but our rail system is full of useful warnings such as "Don't leave your belongings unattended, they may be taken", and "It's been raining, so the floor might be slippery".

Seriously people, if you need warning of those things maybe just stay at home until you've grown up a bit.

[crottypeter]

It's not just the sound, the departure boards (which are supposed to tell you which train(s) are next) spend a lot of time with those useless warnings showing instead.

[joncrocks]

Ugh, I hate the tube for this. And I've noticed that that the 'importance' of the scrolling text has gone down over the years.

When I'm on a tube platform, if I'm looking at the upcoming trains, I don't need to be reminded that I shouldn't smoke or that there's Rugby coming up at the weekend.