Sights first — an extension of the west-side parking garage is well underway. I almost had some choice words for Denver International Airport when the entry signs said the west-side garage was open, but all the entrances were marked full-full-full … until the end, with the loop back into level 1. Adding the new structure will probably just about make up for the loss of parking spots post-9/11 when anything next to critical parts of the building was barracaded off.
But it’s the sounds I’m more … befuddled by. In particular, the PA voices and music for the trains. They’ve been completely changed. The music is different (alternating jazz-piano train music and energetic western guitar), and the voice-over is both different voices and different text. In particular, the word “concourse” has vanished — I suspect people have been confused about “concourse” vs. “terminal” for some time (esp. since I’ve seen other airports use the words differently). Now all the train info talks about “gates” — “Stand here for train to A, B, and C gates.”
The system is clearly still being debugged — the arrival v/o was truncated at both the A and B concourses, and the “Please stand clear of the doors — this train is proceeding to the B gates” only came after the doors were closed and the train was starting to move.
If the music was tied to the voice recordings, then if the redid one that’s why they had to redo the other. A shame though — I won’t miss the mildly irritating female voice that was used, but I will miss the kind of funky tonal music cues for boarding and destinations and all that — especially since it’s likely I’ll never hear them again, which in this digital-recording world is something of a shock.
Yes, sadly they changed them from Reynelda Muse and Pete Smythe to Roach and Adele Arakawa last month. Yes the term Concourse tended to confuse folks from both coasts, though to me Terminal denotes a Seperate building….oh well, at least it is clear for someone and not the locals I guess.
I will see if I can find the Rocky Article about the change over.
The article is here.
Interestingly, I’m not enough of a local news or sports maven to have recognized either the old or new voices.