Listening to music can calm, inspire, maybe even “save your mortal soul,” as ’70s pop singer Don McLean sang in his classic hit “American Pie.”
Putting aside the soul-saving aspect, music — or if it’s easy listening, Muzak — is commonly piped into stores and restaurants to drive a purchase or set a mood. It is also being used as repellent, not to draw people in but to drive them out, so legitimate customers can feel comfortable and safe.
That’s the purpose behind continuous, loud classical music blaring from the public address system this week inside LA Metro’s Westlake/MacArthur Park B (Red) and D (Purple) Line subway station. The practice — part of a set of tools adopted by Metro to bring back lost ridership — has been underway for about a month.
A man sleeps on the platform of the Westlake MacArthur Park Metro subway station as classical music plays to keep homeless people from sleeping at the station #metro #endhomelessness pic.twitter.com/y5TsqkCH36
— Sarah Reingewirtz (@sarahimages) March 14, 2023
“The idea is to create an atmosphere that is comfortable for spending short amounts of time transiting through our station, but not conducive to hours-long loitering,” said Metro in a statement about their piping of classical music into Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.
Playing out crime
Playing robust classical music, which in February included operas and marches, is one of several tactics LA Metro is deploying to cut crime and reduce loitering by the homeless and drug dealers who use the station’s dark corners for anything and everything but transportation. The hope is that if there’s less crime and less unpleasant activity, more passengers may choose to ride.
The Westlake/MacArthur Park Station, called a “hot spot” of illegal activity by LA Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins, has seen a high number of drug overdoses, calls to police from transit customers, crime incidents and a stabbing death, Metro has said. The agency reported a 99% increase in year-over-year systemwide complaints from transit riders about passengers who possess or use illegal drugs.
Wiggins said the agency has added lighting, more video surveillance, closed off some entrances to better track who is coming and going, added Metro Transit Security Officers and Metro Ambassadors and, yes, began playing ubiquitous music to encourage the unwanted to leave.
Though Metro says the volume, which they are continuously adjusting, is lower than the ambient noise outside the station on Alvarado Street, many riders experiencing the latest crime-fighting technique said their ears say differently.
“We want it off. It is driving us crazy,” said Cody Johnson, 31, who was hoisting a duffle bag while walking with a friend toward the station’s street-level exit on Monday, March 13.
Johnson said the musical choice — a robust classical orchestra involving all instruments — hasn’t changed for days. He said it is monotonous, annoying and having the reverse effect.
“Our blood pressure is going up,” he added. “People are getting more irritable with this music. I don’t think that it is working.”
Social media has been buzzing over the tactic to clean out this station and invite more legitimate riders. One Reddit user posted in late February: “I commute through the Westlake station — the music I’ve heard blasted in the station this week is opera and march-style classical. It’s obnoxious.”
Tonya, a young student who was waiting for the B Line train at the Westlake station to take her to school on Monday, said she doesn’t feel safe at this station. She carries pepper spray to ward off attackers. For safety reasons, she did not give her last name.
“To be honest, I think it (music) is a good thing,” she said. “I am seeing less homeless people here. And I am also seeing more Metro Transit Security Officers.”
Since the music and the other safety tactics were put in place in mid-February, reported crime has dropped about 20%, while calls for emergency service declined by 75%, said Dave Sotero, LA Metro spokesman, in an emailed response.
Sotero said that illegal drug activity, loitering, vandalism and graffiti in and around the station and at the fare turnstiles “has been substantially reduced and overall cleanliness has improved significantly.” Reports of vandalism and requests to eradicate graffiti have dropped by 50%, he reported.
He wrote that playing music will support more transit riders who only spend five or 10 minutes on the platform waiting for a train. “The use of music is a best practice used in many other public environments, such as shopping malls, convenience stores and airport terminals,” Sotero explained.
Music as repellent
Using music to drive away certain people is different than music used to, for example, attract customers at shopping malls, explained Lily Hirsch, a musicologist and visiting scholar at Cal State Bakersfield.
In her book, “Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment,” she cites many examples of stores and agencies using music as a negative tool, something that fits the category of crime prevention through environmental design.
An anti-homeless play list: classical music at Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station. #LAMetro #SCNG pic.twitter.com/ULt4aYo1VN
— Steve Scauzillo (@stevscaz) March 15, 2023
“Music can be used in all kinds of ways. People are always surprised by this,” Hirsch said in an interview on Monday, March 13.
LA Metro is using music to mark the space for those they welcome, namely transit riders who pay their fares, she said.
“They are trying to bother people who would stay there a long time. By targeting a specific group, they are marking that space and making only certain people comfortable, and others not,” she said.
Hirsch has learned of similar tactics used in the London Underground subway stations. The Washington Post reported in a 2012 article that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees transportation facilities including bridges, tunnels, bus depots, seaports and airports, used classical music to drive off criminals.
West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2019 blasted a children’s song, “Baby Shark” to keep homeless people away from an events center, Hirsch said.
7-Eleven stores often play loud music just outside to discourage homeless individuals who are panhandling or sleeping near the store entrance, she reported in her book.
She learned of flipping music — from luring in people in to driving them out — from a 2006 news story about a town near Sydney, Australia playing Barry Manilow songs to keep away unruly teenagers.
Music as violence
“The imposition of sound is a kind of violence,” she said. “In a restaurant, you may not like that song they’re playing, but you are stuck. It can annoy you.” The same is true inside an elevator or waiting for a train in an underground rail station, she said.
Critics of LA Metro’s tactics to make people feel safer, and their hiring of LAPD to police the subway stations in the city of Los Angeles, say this is not helping to solve the problem of the unhoused sleeping at stations and in train cars.
“The city should address homelessness and people with mental health problems. You can’t close your eyes and expect people to go away. So-called hobos riding trains is an old American phenomenon,” said Hamid Kahn, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition.
Hirsch said the use of anti-crime tactics can be seen as effective — at least in the short term. “It doesn’t solve the problem in the long run. You are just pushing the problem somewhere else,” she said.
Hirsch said in her research, classical music is used to delineate acceptance by class.
“Whenever classical music gets used, it has such strong association with the elite, with money,” Hirsch said. “They (LA Metro) want an association with a higher class, not with the unhoused.”
A person’s association with Mozart or Beethoven may be pleasant, high-brow, or something else entirely, since music is subjective.
“It doesn’t bother me very much,” said rider Tonya, regarding the music at the Metro station. “But it is a little scary. In scary movies, they usually use this kind of music for the violent scenes, you know, the scary parts.”