This is a fail.

The scrolling marquis at Westborough train station (and many others, I suspect) loops through a series of messages as you wait for your train. Some of these are simple welcome messages, others tell you how long until your train arrives. This one tells you where to go for more information about the commuter rail. Or, rather, where you should have gone in 1987.

Here’s the problem.

I don’t carry an AM radio with me. I don’t know anyone who does. In fact, the only time I might even consider listening to AM radio is if there was a Red Sox game on, and I found myself in a place without TV, Internet, or cell phone reception. (Which, to be fair, describes a fair chunk of Central and Western Massachusetts.)

And even in that case, I’d need to be in my car. I play CDs from my laptop when the mood to listen to a CD strikes, and otherwise I’m listening to Pandora. The only place that I could feasibly tune to 1630 AM would be from the cockpit of my Jeep — where I plug my iPhone into my stereo and run through my collection of Stevie Ray Vaughan live sets, and prefer not to be disturbed.

Oh, and I don’t take my Jeep with me on the train. Just so that’s clear.

The Location-Based Disconnect

In order to follow the MBTA’s call to action, I would have to arrive at the platform, read the Marquis, leave the platform, walk back to my Jeep, figure out how to tune to an AM radio station, and then navigate to 1630. In the mean time, I would have missed my train.

That is, of course, provided I can remember the AM frequency on which these undoubtedly very useful tidbits of information are broadcast. Most days I can’t even remember where I parked my car.

Where is the Value?

And what about this information? I can’t imagine that the MBTA has enough material to fill a week’s worth of airtime. What would these updates consist of? “We have received complaints of rabid pigeons in Back Bay station. We are addressing this situation and will notify the public once the issue has been resolved.” (Okay, fine. I might actually listen if that’s the kind of thing they broadcast.)

And why couldn’t they broadcast that kind of thing over the Marquis? Is doing so insensitive to the illiterate or something? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I honestly want to know. What was the justification for creating a broadcast station for MBTA updates?

“Hey boss, I’ve got a great idea. You know how we’re having problems communicating with riders about all the various glitches and malfunctions we’ve been having? And you know how people are flocking to social media to gripe about how terrible our service is? Well I’ve got just the thing to fix that. An AM radio station.”

Okay, now I am being a jerk.

But the point, I think, is a good one. The MBTA doesn’t have any kind of responsive presence on Twitter that I know of. Their Facebook page is abysmal. The only time I’ve really ever seen the MBTA address a PR issue is through TV media. It’s not fighting the PR battle on the field on which the battle is happening. This is very much a knife-to-a-gun-fight kind of issue. We complain using the full weight of social media, and you respond with… AM radio?

Seriously?

Look, maybe AM radio is a good idea. Maybe it actually does reach a significant portion of commuter rail riders. But if so, wouldn’t the place to advertise this station be where riders are in their cars? Wouldn’t FM radio ad spots be more effective? Billboards on the roads leading to train stations? Signs in the parking lots where early birds read their papers and sip coffee before heading to the platform? Aren’t all of those better than advertising on the platform where you can be 99.9% sure that no one has or is in close proximity to an AM radio?

Couldn’t your DJs monitor Twitter? Just sayin’.