February 17, 2006
Carpets and Cushions: High Riding on Metro
It's the smallest things that can prove to be most expensive.
At least that's what we learned from a Post profile on WMATA's newest chief, Dan Tangherlini, who has spent the better part of the recent weeks becoming acquainted with the transit system he has been appointed to run. In an exchange with a manager for rail car maintenance, Tangherlini learned of some of Metro's less obvious costs:
During an inspection of a rail car being outfitted with carpeting, managers explain the lengthy process involved in maintaining carpeting and seat cushions. Turning to Eugene Garzone, a manager for rail car maintenance, Tangherlini asks: "Do they need to be carpeted?" Garzone smiles. "It's a great question," he replies. In some ways, carpeting does not make sense in subway cars. But carpeting and soft cushion seats, he says, are "a luxury the public is grown accustomed to."And what might those luxuries cost? The cushions, for example:
But that means Metro has to send 1,800 cushions every two to three weeks to a correctional facility in Virginia for repair and reupholstering. The cost is $27 a cushion.There is little doubt that Metro spends liberally to maintain the system so many of us use to get to and from home, work, and play. But beyond demanding that the agency's spending be better vetted and monitored to avoid excesses and waste, would we be willing to give up Metro's carpets and cushions for the sake of saving a little money? Or are we so used to the small comforts of our daily commutes that these simply cannot go?
Picture snapped by Leafblower.
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The Metro carpets are the MOST disgusting carpets around. I believe it would be MUCH MUCH easier to keep cars cleaner if they were swept and mopped at night instead of sort-of vacuumed. I'm all for getting rid of carpets on the Metro.
The San Francisco Bay Area has been switching the floors of their cars from carpet to linoleum. (Their system was also engineered by Bechtel and has very similar cars -- they are smaller, with fewer doors and you can walk between the cars by system regulation). They found the cost was so much of a savings in maintenance and that the carpet ended up looking more worn and dirtier over the lifetime of use. They did a test on a few cars before going system wide to gauge customer reaction. It's something to consider here too.
Wow! You think they will sell the carpeting if they get rid of it like they are selling the metro buses? I need to replace the carpet in my kitchen, was thinking of shag but Metro Maroon might fit in quite nice...
forget the cushions. save money. everybody that rides metro buys at popeye's so they gots cushion already.
so i say go with the stainless steel cabin, stainless steel benches and tile floors.
tres chic and modern.
It's just not dirt and wear that make the carpets unattractive, the carpets fester with mold too. Some people can't even ride Metro rail without getting allergic reactions ranging from heightened motion sickness, due to their mold sensitivity, to much more severe things.
The carpet actually limits accessibility and harms the health of some people.
Lose the carpets and cushinions, and move the seats to benches on the car walls only. This ain't a luxury liner, it's an urban subway.
I've always wondered why we don't have the stainless steel floors and harder plastic chairs like the subway in NYC. The inside of those cars seems so much cleaner and so much easier to maintain. We are already spending enough on escalators, elevators and the like. We should spend our money more wisely. Get rid of the cushions and carpets, especially on the new cars we are going to buy!
I don't equate stinky, dirty, ugly carpeting with luxury.
I'm all for eliminating the carpeting in the system. However, eliminating the seat cushions warrants much further discussion. As someone who typically rides for 2/3's of the orange line, It would be much prefered to not sit on a hunk of plastic. Is there a more economical way to do the seat cushions? A better material or better design?
Isn't it a stretch to call a $1.2 million ($27 x 1800 x 26) maintenance expense "spending liberally" and part of the systems "excesses and waste"? What's the budget, something like $500 million? What are there, like 1000 rail cars? I think 2 seat cushions per car getting jacked up every couple of weeks (or just wearing out from old age) is probably a pretty good ratio. And it's not like changing to hard seats would bring the cost to zero. I'd say the savings are pretty dubious.
But I agree with little miss thing. Let's get some Brazilian cherry hardwood floors, some black granite seat tops, stainless steel cabin, I mean, shit, we're the nation's capital for crying out loud.
It's just not dirt and wear that make the carpets unattractive, the carpets fester with mold too. Some people can't even ride Metro rail without getting allergic reactions ranging from heightened motion sickness, due to their mold sensitivity, to much more severe things.
The carpet actually limits accessibility and harms the health of some people.
I agree, there have been significant links between metro carpet mold and asthma. Hopefully, the DC council will vote on banning indoor, public moldy carpet use. It's a health issue!
www.moldycarpetfreedc.com
I am all for getting rid of the carpeting - the new red carpets seem to wear terribly, most of the time, I get on the Metro and there is carpet fuzz everywhere. Compared to other subway systems that I've used, I don't think of Metro as being more luxurious because of its carpets and cushions, and I think Metro would be better served by refitting the cars and redistributing the money elsewhere.
Wait, are there people out there who like the carpets? The cushions ar unnecessary too, I would much prefer decreased fares.
I'm for removing the carpets (but keeping the cushions)... but one side effect will be noise increase. In London, where you can ride lots of different styles of trains on one trip, you become aware of how unwelcoming the all metal cars are - LOUD, uncomfortable. So with one change, we get another that folks will complain about.
As noted upthread, the cushion maintenance is running around $1.2 million a year on the high end. There are 958 cars in the system with 68 seats each. Anyone want to guess at the cost 'savings' that would come from redesigning the seats as a plastic shell and manufacturing and installing 65,000 of them?
Could we save on Air Conditioning and heating costs by putting doors on the entrances of the metro?
Just a thought.
As noted upthread, the cushion maintenance is running around $1.2 million a year on the high end. There are 958 cars in the system with 68 seats each. Anyone want to guess at the cost 'savings' that would come from redesigning the seats as a plastic shell and manufacturing and installing 65,000 of them?
Sure, it would cost SOMETHING at first to replace the cushions with benches, but if you did a 10-year analysis, I'm sure you would see huge savings as the cost of upkeep would decrease significantly.
Re: Doors on metro stations...
...That probably wouldn't save costs. Deep down underground facilities tend to attain a natural temperature constant, that fluctuates some with the seasons, like caves.
Certainly metro tweaks that a bit w/their own system.
They need ventillation though -- keeping the human entrance pathways open helps with that, in addition to the infrastructure they have in place throughout the system for it.
Carpet cost and carpet mold are probably the truly most signficant and weirdest and irrational predicaments for this system to be in. A problem that could have been easily avoided if it were for some bureaucrat's or salesman's idea of what was would be "modern" and "sleek" and befitting public transit in the nation's capital.
I'd like to see the cushions stay and the carpet go, but you know that the money they'd save would not go toward other improvements and enhancements in the system, but toward increasing the salaries of the morons at the top who are responsible for Metro's mismanagement.
if you want to see a beautiful metro system, check out the Athens metro. Though it's brand new, their trains don't have seat cushions and carpeting, it's still a pleasant ride. if you want cushions and carpeting, buy a car.
Sure, it would cost SOMETHING at first to replace the cushions with benches, but if you did a 10-year analysis, I'm sure you would see huge savings as the cost of upkeep would decrease significantly.
There would certainly be savings over the lifespan, but I don't think the differential would be huge - it's still a high-traffic surface that's going to require maintenance. Even if you're saving half over the cost of the cushions over a 10-year cycle (which I suspect would be on the high end), that's still only about $6 million over 10 years vs. over $3 billion in fares collected over that span. Not nearly enough of a factor to be worthwhile for what amounts to a system downgrade.
Not nearly enough of a factor to be worthwhile for what amounts to a system downgrade.
System downgrade is your opinion. I would view clearner, not-moldy, not-grungy hard plastic seats as an upgrade. Half the time, I don't even WANT to sit on the seats on the train because they're so grotty. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Meanwhile, I may be taking this the wrong way, but are you implying that some people will stop riding Metro is the seats aren't cushioned? I think that's not true at all.
carpets don't bother me and i like the seat cushions. i agree that noise would be very annoying if the carpeting was removed.
i think metro could make money if they rented out the cars for private use. you could throw parties in them.
what noise? get a stoopid ipod if you want to block out the incidental sounds of mass transit.
"Let's get some Brazilian cherry hardwood floors, some black granite seat tops, stainless steel cabin, I mean, shit, we're the nation's capital for crying out loud."
Hilarious.
If only we were playin' with Steven Joel Trachtenberg money!
I really doubt they'd drop fares if they took out carpets and cushions. It would save some dough though - maybe they could pay more bus drivers $150,000 like the Post reported.
Meanwhile, I may be taking this the wrong way, but are you implying that some people will stop riding Metro is the seats aren't cushioned? I think that's not true at all.
I don't think anone would stop riding Metro because of it - I'm not suggesting fare revenue would go down, just that it's a very minor slice of the budget for something that's a personal preference comfort issue - one in place for the last 30 years. And seat cushions are something that Virginia and Maryland would probably push to keep, since their riders are the ones taking most longer duration journeys.
Yes, ditch the carpet and cushions. Also, to save money and electricity: Why don't the escalators have auto stop/start sensors so they can shut themselves off when no one is riding them?
NZKiwi - Temperature constant? Have you spent much time near the gappig hole that is the north dupont entrance? The openness of the entrance most certainly makes a difference in the temperature (As well as the amount of shit that constantly gets in the escalators).
As fas as the carpet/cushion issue, both are nasty and I mostly certainly stand sometimes to avoid particularly poor looking seats.
Near the gaping hole is not down on the platform -- that's natural heat exchange, and you're only passing through there. For us humans using the system, that's a very temporal location.
And it's a natural exchange that enables cheap equilibrium elsewhere and *less* energy/money expended in ventillation, etc.
I'm speaking as a mechanical (albeit, not fluid dynamics) engineer.
On second thought, replace the cushioned seats with plastic seats. And to bring in more revenue, Metro could then rent out stadium-style seat cushions out at the ends of the Orange and Red lines.
omg, the mildew smell from the carpets on rainy days is so disgusting. A friend from NY commented on a recent visit that the trains were so nice with their comfy seats and carpets. But a) we ended up almost exclusively landing new red, white & blue cars every time we rode and b)it wasn't raining.
Maybe metro should go with flooring thats more natural than carpeting, everyone knows it is tough on you knees and can lead to injuries. They did it in Bristol, I think it would work well for metro...
http://broadband.espn.go.com/players/video?skin=sc&format=wmp&rate=300&id=1208217&wmp9=false
Speaking of flooring, how about the floors in the stations themselves? Why is Metro still using those tiles that become slick as an ice rink when they're wet, as happens every time it snows or rains significantly? Presumably thousands of people have fallen over the years because of this design flaw, but they keep putting the same tile in new stations. Is someone's brother-in-law the supplier?
one word: Pergo
Has anyone else ridden the trains in Japan? The trains have metal/plastic floors, bench seating and don't smell. it's far nicer and their trains get more use.
Their escalators also have sensors to see when people are riding them. If we installed those, maybe escalators at places like Columbia Heights would be functioning 6 days a week as opposed to four of them.
How are "sensors to see when people are riding on them" going to reduce the number of escalator breakdowns in the Metro system? I don't think the problem is quickly identifying the escalators that have stopped, the problem is actually getting the repairs done in a timely fashion, and sensors won't do a damn thing to help with that . . .
THE ORANGE AND YELLOW CARPETS AND THE ORANGE AND YELLOW SEAT CUSHIONS AND THE BROWN COLORS AND SHIT IS BECAUSE THE METRO SUBWAY SYSTEM IS FROM THE 1970'S YOU FUCKTARDS
I PREFER THEY KEEP IT THE SAME AND NOT CHANGE ANYTHING
ALL YOU TRANSPLANT FUCKERS DO IS COMPLAIN ABOUT EVERYTHING
GO BACK TO WHEREVER IN THE HELL YOU CAME FROM YOU DOUCHEBAGS
Please, please let Metro ditch the carpet and cushions, the sooner the better. I've used various transit systems on two continents, and none of the ones with no carpeting and hard seats is any less comfortable than our local Metro. But the real kicker - as others have already pointed out - is that the upholstery on Metro cars is filthy, whereas in a lot of other cities the trains can just be hosed down at night.
We need a "hygenic Metro" petition! Protect America from epidemics by getting the upholstery off of those trains.
Sensors to detect when escalators are being used would help because the escalators wouldn't have to run all the time when people aren't riding them. Making sure that they aren't constantly running for no reason to would certainly reduce wear and tear and energy costs.
That is one hell of an assumption, that we are all "transplants."
I, for one, am not.
And the stuff isn't all "from the 1970s." Only the first segment was completed in the mid-late 70s and the original plan (still minus some parts, arguably) wasn't finished until 2001. Obviously, in the meantime, lots of stuff came online and it was static for quite a while.
That said upholstery did get changed out. Even on new trains there is the mold problem that makes itself apparent on rainy days.
That stuff is "old" is not an excuse.
That poor choices were made, most likely not by anyone really looking out for DC, is not an excuse and you shouldn't feel obligated to defend them.
This was another massive Becthel project with lots of federal intervention and some poor implementation (in other cases, Metro is an amazing engineering feat and I would much rather have it than not), however you see it there is much room for improvement.
Imagine if it got better.
Imagine if metro didn't antagonize the respiratory systems of a significant minority of its riders.
Imagine if you didn't take offense that people here had some interesting ideas that, whether or not they are from here, came from their experiences elsewhere in the world.
I'm happy to lose the carpeting, but the replacement flooring needs to be non-slip. Bad enough that the station tiles are made of the slipperiest substance ever -- I don't need that kind of instability on a moving train.
However, I'm not sure whether non-slip flooring really is easy to clean -- it tends to have ridges or other texture.
THE ORANGE AND YELLOW CARPETS AND THE ORANGE AND YELLOW SEAT CUSHIONS AND THE BROWN COLORS AND SHIT IS BECAUSE THE METRO SUBWAY SYSTEM IS FROM THE 1970'S YOU FUCKTARDS
I PREFER THEY KEEP IT THE SAME AND NOT CHANGE ANYTHING
ALL YOU TRANSPLANT FUCKERS DO IS COMPLAIN ABOUT EVERYTHING
GO BACK TO WHEREVER IN THE HELL YOU CAME FROM YOU DOUCHEBAGS
Not too comfortable with constructive criticisms and change, eh? You probably should never have been given access to the Internet. Anyway, JD did an excellent job rebutting you.