The man who has been the voice of safety and courtesy on the TTC for nearly 20 years is retiring on Friday after hundreds of public service announcements.

Danny Nicholson, 59, will no longer be recording the reminders to riders to keep their feet off the subway seats and their cigarettes off the system.

The senior communications adviser’s face is well known to Toronto reporters who keep commuters apprised of transit issues.

But it’s his voice that causes strangers to scratch their heads, wondering where they’ve heard this guy before.

“I’ve enjoyed being the voice of the TTC, bringing public safety announcements, closure announcements to all the people who travel every day. It puts a smile on my face to know how many hundreds of thousands of people are hearing my voice every single day,” he said on Tuesday during a visit to the recording booth at the TTC’s Hillcrest complex on Bathurst St. near Davenport Rd.

Nicholson worked as a reporter in radio between 1979 and 1995. He went back to school to study corporate communications before being snapped up by the transit agency.

He had barely begun the new job when he was one of several employees asked to audition for the job of recording the PSAs.

Nicholson, who hopes to do commercial broadcast work after he leaves the TTC, was a natural, with not a single stumble in his first reading. His voice “is so assertive, yet not overpowering. He’s giving you the right information in a nice timely manner,” said Fred Sollile, the radio shop technician behind the public service announcements.

“Danny’s familiar and friendly, but authoritative voice, has been a mainstay in the subway for the last 16 years. If you didn’t know to stand back of the yellow line, mind the gap or not smoke on TTC property, you soon did after hearing one of the many public service announcements Danny recorded over the years,” said Brad Ross, TTC executive director, corporate communications.

It may not have the glamour of broadcasting, but Nicholson says he’s had a front-row seat to some of Toronto’s most memorable moments, including the Friday night in April 2008 when transit workers stunned the public by walking off the job in a legal midnight strike.

“That was quite a weekend,” he said of the TTC’s frantic efforts to inform the media and warn the public that people would be stranded when service stopped.

When Toronto businesses were suffering during the outbreak of SARS in 2003, Nicholson was assigned to line up local celebrities for subway announcements — “Go out. Go to restaurants, go to the theatre.”

“We did Michael ‘Pinball’ Clemons, Tie Domi, Ed Mirvish, Vernon Wells from the Blue Jays,” he said.

A six-degrees-of-separation master, Nicholson can cite a personal connection with virtually any known name in the city. If he doesn’t have his own encounter to relate, you can bet he’s met the luminary’s family or someone they once dated.

But it’s TTC riders that Nicholson says he will miss most. He cites being part of the TTC’s New Year’s Eve team that keeps things running smoothly at the system’s heart where the Yonge and Bloor lines meet.

“I just enjoy the atmosphere of people going downtown before the festival and rolling back out afterwards. It’s always a festive occasion,” he said.

Nicholson thinks the TTC has improved in the 16 years he’s worked there — “stations are cleaner, service has increased.”

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But throughout his tenure, he said, “I’ve heard way more compliments than any negative remarks.”

Nicholson’s voice will fade to memory almost immediately, said Ross. His announcements will be replaced by a professional female announcer.