You hear her every day. (Photo: Courtesy of WMATA)

The sounds of the Metro contain the roar of trains, yes, but also disembodied voices. Excuse me — is that your bag? one woman's voice asks 20 minutes after the hour. Then a few minutes later, you might hear the voice of Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn. Or maybe it's Jim Dougherty, Metro's chief safety officer. These voices come in and out of your Metro wait, reminding you about WMATA best practices, track work, safety protocol, and more, always on the periphery of the platforms.

But who coordinates all these voices and what's the voice Metro customers likely hear most often?

Meet 54-year-old Alice Riley. She works as Metro's customer communications specialist — a position with many challenging duties but most public about them, perhaps, is the fact that Riley has often been the voice of Metro since 2000. Whenever there's a major delay or other situation, she can lean forward and inform Metro customers in a soothing, thoughtful tone of what to expect and what to know, her voice mechanically broadcast out to the various stations on many occasions yet also targeted to specific stations if the need calls for it. "She has an inner zen that's just amazing," Metro's chief spokesman Dan Stessel told me when I first asked about speaking with Riley. She and I finally spoke late last week, the conversation offering a fascinating window into the woman behind the ubiquitous, ethereal voice so many of us hear every day. The amount of information she coordinates among all the Metro stations is formidable, especially as so much unfolds in real time and with a hierarchy of different people to inform one after another. How does Riley approach the microphone?

"I try to say the announcements in a low tone, in a calm voice," Riley explained to me, "but in a way to get the customers and station managers' attention ... I try not to yell."

When she first began making announcements throughout the Metro trains, the thoughtful, deliberate woman told me she was a little nervous. She used to practice her tone carefully before giving an announcement. Watch Riley at work in the Jackson Graham Building that houses Metro headquarters in this video, courtesy of WMATA. Four video screens cover her desk, letting her glimpse all the stations and all the trains. The hotlines for various emergency services are nearby. She told me she keeps a glass of water or hot tea by her desk in case her voice needs it.

But just who is this woman we hear so often? Alice Riley has some surprises, I found, as talked with Riley about what a day in the life of Metro's voice was like. Would you ever expect a woman so known for her thoughtfulness serenity to be a lover of action movies? 

Riley is a woman with many curiosities and a long history with Metro preceding the announcements she makes. She started as a Metro employee more than three decades ago, back in 1979 as a bus operator. She's also served as a station manager and a section terminal supervisor and then a passenger operation supervisor. Now Riley oversees all of that and is ready to answer any queries from the system and dispatch the necessary remedy, whether that's in the form of police or a doctor, maintenance or the fire department. 

"I open the stations very early in the morning," Riley said. "After I get the stations open, I make the morning announcements."

And by early, Riley means early. She wakes up at 2 a.m. to drive the 30 to 40 minutes from Maryland to the Jackson Graham Building in D.C. She starts work at 4 a.m. and continues until noon, Monday through Friday. The D.C. Metro itself opens for business at 5 a.m. every weekday, in large part thanks to Riley.

What she coordinates is often quite serious, and it's amazing she can maintain so consistently a thoughtful poise as she makes announcements, given the many complications that can occur on the system's trains. Her priority is always to ensure that everyone gets the help that they need. In the video above, we see her dealing with a more mundane concern: A passenger has lost his wallet. Unfortunate for the Metro rider, but it's not life-or-death. Yet on Friday, Riley did deal with a dramatic incident at the Gallery Place-Chinatown station, she told me. She received an ominous message: Someone is on the tracks here at Gallery Place. No trains were involved, Riley said, and the dangerous powers of the third rail were taken down as medical help was dispatched. The person was quickly removed from the tracks with no apparent harm reported. The stakes of such an incident are heart-pounding, no?

And in addition to coordinating all these actions among the stations, of course, Riley acts as the voice of Metro to the customers. Often she delivers messages live into the system but she's also well aware of, coordinates, and often records canned messages, such as "Excuse me — is that your bag?" (Riley did not, in fact, originally record that one when it was first done two to three years ago, but Metro has since done a re-recording with Riley's voice about a month ago). She sounded bashful as she admitted that people have recognized her voice when she journeys into the Metro system. Station managers have even been confused. "How are you on the phone and making that announcement?" one station manager asked her upon hearing a canned message in his station while on the line with Riley. She laughs about the experience of hearing her own voice now. "I got used to it," she said.

Yet Riley is far more than a voice. She loves bowling and her family in addition to her love and dedication to her fellow Metro employees. Her husband and daughter both work for WMATA as well, she told me. Movies also get Riley fired her up, and she's always ready to see "anything action-packed." She cited the Transformers movies and the work of Tyler Perry as some of her favorites. The soaps also appeal to her — she's a sucker for One Life to Live.

Remember these details the next time you hear an announcement ringing out on the Metro. A cheerful, patient woman named Alice Riley is the person behind the voice, and I came away from my conversation with her more than convinced of the zen quality that Stessel initially mentioned. Not just a voice, Riley provides the exact type of cool, collected personality a system like Metro needs in its announcement system. And next time you hear her on the platform, also remember it'll soon be her birthday — Riley turns 55 years old later this month.