Are ads about to make the NYC subway noisier?

by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition

Photo credit: Vinícius Pimenta

Published research documents that New York City’s subways are noisy, as loud as 112 A-weighted* decibels (dBA) inside subway cars. Will they be made noisier by commercial announcements, as recently suggested in a typical faux outrage article in The New York Post?

The story states that the Metropolitan Transit Authority is piloting station audio advertisements, “turning select subway and commuter rail stations into test labs for paid 30-second ads that can play as often as once every 10 minutes, according to an agency memo.”

MTA officials insisted that the sound levels for the advertisements will be capped at 75 decibels, but a 2021 Lion King platform ad that the MTA claimed was 78 decibels was measured by the New York Post at 99 decibels.

I’m not certain New York City’s subway riders would be able to hear a 75 decibel announcement over the noise levels in most subway cars, but they might be able to hear a 99 decibel announcement. Ninety-nine decibel sound is loud enough to bother most people, although the decibel scale is logarithmic, so 75 or 99 decibel sound would make a minimal increase to a 112 decibel sound.

MTA Chair Janno Lieber told the New York Post that the MTA will use customer surveys to gauge riders’ opinions of the subway ads. Rather than worry about sounds of commercials, I think it’s more important for the MTA to focus on making subway platforms and cars quieter, as is done in other cities. The subways of Seoul or Singapore  show that quieter mass transit is achievable.

Quieter subways, as part of a quieter city, will be a better and healthier city for all.

*A-weighting adjusts sound measurements to approximate the frequencies heard in human speech.