December 9, 2008
Metro Tests New Wool Seat Covers
It feels like another end of an era for Metrorail: WMATA put out a press release today announcing that it is testing new wool fabric seat covers for use in its next order of rail cars. The change comes after over 30 years of naugahyde seat covers, which came exclusively in brown and orange up until 2001, when Metro first introduced blue, sand and burgundy colors as well.
“The new fabric is what we will be passing along to the next generation of Metrorail riders,” said Dave Kubicek, Metro's Assistant General Manager for Metrorail.
Luckily, for those of you who are just a little saddened by this news, the wool fabrics being tested out have fantastically silly names! To start with, there are two types, "aura" and "vigor," and each comes in different designs. The aura fabric comes in blue dots, red dots, and blue squares (pictured above). The vigor fabric comes in "balls and seals" and "gray rainbow." Too bad "unicorns" and "purple horseshoes" weren't available.
Metro also released the following soundless video images for use by the media of the seat covers being swapped out. In the video you can see all of the different designs; I think I might like the red dots the best, but will have to wait until I encounter the seat covers in person to make a final call. Right now, the new designs are only in two rail cars, #6026 and 6027, but after three months, the fabrics will be installed on two more, #6014 and 6015.
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"Aura" and "vigor?" To borrow a line from Curt Schilling, are they dancers at a nightclub?
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Won't vomit and other late-saturday-night-treasures be harder to clean out of the wool than the naugahyde? Or is that the purpose of the jazzy designs? to disguise what lies beneath...
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And I thought WMATA was trying to cut costs by ripping out the carpet in favor of hard floors? Wool seat covers seem to be more maintenance than the old plastic.
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I'm mostly let down the video had no audio. I wanted to hear all the good jokes the WMATA technicians were telling as they installed seats.
"Hey Phil, the seat don't go like that, you gotta flip 'er over."
"That reminds me of a joke I heard."
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More and more like a coach bus...
So will Metro be building a new line from Gallery Place to Chinatown, NYC?
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FUCK CATOE.
When will this prick learn that DC is not LA, and it's not NYC.
For 30 years the nation's capital has had the rolls-royce of mass transit -- Metro. Mock all you want, but the carpet and the leather-clad seats were revolutionary and have provided comfort never before seen on an underground system.
Fuck Catoe.
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I used to be in a circus/juggling act called Balls and Seals. Things ended badly when an invoice meant for the auto shop next door was intercepted by PETA. Apparently the phrase "blown seals" has different connotations from one setting to another.
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Ugh... I've thought the BART's cloth seat covers made me feel dirty sitting on them and we were lucky not to have them on Metro. Did they say why they were making the change?
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We're passing along, uh, wool to the next generation? Silly me for thinking that wool has been around for multiple generations before even us! Silly, silly.
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@phil - That was my first reaction too. Who's baaaaaaaad idea was it to use wool?
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Looks kindof 80s to me. If they want to go the maintenance-free route, why not just have hard plastic seats, and skip the fabric or vinyl altogether?
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EWW!! I detest the wool covers!! I wholeheartedly agree that they make one feel dirty! And I do not want to ride a coach bus everytime I have to go somewhere!
Only upside: more balls and seals jokes from my military friends...maybe?
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Another pretty worthless cosmetic tweak.
I'd like to see a truly NEW Metro car. Sleek and steamlined, something for the 21st century, and with more doors, and with a sit/stand configuration and decorating scheme that is final and not endlessly "tested". Make a decision!
Everytime Metro orders "new" Metro cars, they're not new. They're just replicas of the original circa 1960's design.
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Isn't "grey rainbows" kind of an oxymoron?
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I liked the deep red color version. With a little mood lighting and some leopard print velvet curtains on the windows, ooh you've got one heck of a metro ride!
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OMG, this is horrible.
visually, it looks like the whole thing is being disneyfied, which i guess, for the tourists, they'd love.
in addition, can you picture how gross these things will be when they're absorbing sweat from a large pair of thighs from indiana in the summer?
ima gonna wretch...
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Have you ever worn shorts and sat down on that type of fabric? Quite uncomfortable on bare skin (if it's the same as in some of the metrobuses).
Nthing the horrible-ness factor of these being harder to clean now. Let's all stop and think about how gross the seats will be when some hoochie-mama wearing a short dress and no underwear sits down. You can't just vacuum that up.
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those fabrics are a 1985 bonanza
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Well, just as I was thinking about how boring my job was, that video reminded me that it could always be worse.
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What, we don't get enough static electricity? Also, gross!
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EWWWWWWWW, imgoph. remind me to bring my febreeze and a jacket to sit on.
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Metro is the Rolls Royce of mass transit? Meaning it's inefficient and costs a lot to repair?
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The release also mentioned that 250 more cars were getting those nylon handles. The spring-loaded ones are cool, but I hate those nylon ones. I'm tall, but shorter people than myself must have to dodge those with their heads as well as they go through the car.
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i'm glad they used the same pattern from the background of my school pics at Sears circa 1993. Except these will smell much more like shit, piss, vomit, and summertime sweat stank.
thanks metro, for spending huge sums of money on unnecessary and potentially detrimental changes during a financial crisis. if only everyone would spend so idiotically we'd be right out of this recession!
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Make your voice heard here:
http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/contact_us/ridercomment.cfm
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What crap. "Let's put in seat covers that can soak up more bodily fluids and smells." Is it any wonder that none of Metro's board actually rides Metro?
These fools just like watching us peons have to ride in smelly cars. That or they are creating "jobs" (read: wasting money) by having a material that will have to be cleaned often.
The moron that made this decision should be fired. These seats should be plastic or metal, and easy to clean.
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Look on the bright side: Now we all know how to take the seats off of metro.
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Soon you will be saying: Smells like teen spirit.
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For 30 years the nation's capital has had the rolls-royce of mass transit -- Metro.
Do you drive an overcrowded, badly-maintained Rolls that breaks down every week?
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I agree with IMGoph and jtmeyer on the whole sweat issue. Those chairs going to be absolutely disgusting in the summer. What exactly were they fucking thinking?
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I already feel the "itches" on my back. Who comes up with these ideas. FREDTERP
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Agree with pretty much everyone above - what a horrible idea. Have the folks at Metro never visited San Francisco or Philly and had the pleasure of riding in a car that is in desperate need of refurbishment? Those cloth seats definitely absorb the funk.
Why, Metro? Why?
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while i watched that video i was sad that it didn't have some Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary. it would be far more entertaining.
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also, i like the grey rainbows design. reminds me that at the end of every cloudy day, there is a rainbow, and at the end of that rainbow, is a leprechaun with a pot 'o gold.
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IMGoph - my thought exactly! And maybe I was naive, but I figured they cleaned the seats every week or two. According to their press release, they only clean the current seats every 60 days and I can't imagine that wool is easier to clean than the current material. Time to send emails...
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i live, die and get home completely smashed (affordably so) by our lovely public transit system. they don't interrogate, breathalyze, take scenic routes to run up meters, or even charge sometimes!
for this, it has my undying loyalty. if you don't like the seat covers or think they're gonna stink, offer your seat to a lady and/or invest in a nose plug. or just walk.
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cyrinaldi: sorry, i don't buy that logic. if i'm paying for the system, shouldn't i have some say? if the faux-leather whatever it is that they use has worked fine for the last 30 years, why are we changing it now. is there that much of a price savings? i highly doubt it.
besides, there are thousands of the current seat covers in use. changing them all would just be a massive waste of what we already have. it's like getting something new just to get something new. makes no damn sense.
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Wow, "Naugahyde." I didn't realize there was such a fancy name for those old-school plastic seats. I like the blue color, but they don't really appear built to last.
I mean, the NYC subway uses all plastic, and Paris has a combination of plastic and what looks like low-pile carpet. Tokyo and London have fabric, though... so I guess the question is what city we're trying to imitate?
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I don't care if they're wool or have rainbows or frickin' ponies on them! I just can't believe I watched that video of the recovering process.
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Performance-wise (strength, abrasion, cleaning, flammability), wool out-performs any synthetic material.
And it is environmentally friendly.
I'm not too keen on the patterns, but I applaud WMATA for considering our children's children.
Anyone who does not believe in the merits of wool should do some research at the Association for Contract Textiles website.
And no, I don't work for ACT.
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IMGoph: yes, you do have a say.
i don't know what is enticing metro to change the seats. maybe there's a global wool surplus? maybe the entire system's upholstery has to be redone per some regulatory mandate? maybe naugahyde isn't made anymore?
metro is "testing" these. i suppose you can hope that they fail the public scrutiny test.
compared to the systems in ny, chicago, la, and atlanta, like someone said above, we are riding in style. and i'm thankful for that.
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My question: how easily do these clean if someone poops on them? Because you just know someone is going to give them the poop test.
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Boy, that's smart. Just as they're trying to get rid of the nasty carpet because it reeks and absorbs just about everything, they consider putting in wool seat covers. Maybe they should just make the seat covers out of old carpets! There's a way to save money!
I'd like to point out that this morning, a nearly-packed train on the Red Line to Glenmont had to be completely unloaded at Dupont Circle station due to a 'technical problem.' Naturally our already-packed train, which followed immediately after, was forced to try to accommodate the hoards of passengers clogging the platform.
This is two days in a row there have been major disruptions on Metro that affected my journey.
Metro is already at capacity and is desperately in need of investment and expansion. Many of the trains are reaching the end of their useful lives and several stations are falling apart. Shady Grove station alone will require millions of dollars to fix. Hopefully some of the money Obama wants to spend on infrastructure will make its way to WMATA>
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Also, I'd totally be in favor of having bucket-shaped or concave seats. They would encourage people to keep their behinds on their side of the seat.
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those fabrics are a 1985 bonanza
Try 1968 Plymouth Valiant.
This isn't a problem, it's an opportunity. Like most plush cushions, they absorb all the fart noise and most of the smell. This is a positive boon on the Red Line after the dinner rush, particularly coming out of Bethesda and Penn Quarter. If this absorbs a tenth of the Zatinya/Jaleo poogas, it would have been worth the investment. Just make sure they have some activated charcoal Odor Eaters style filter packs and mass transit wide-open-ass buttfunk will be a thing of the past.
And aren't some people allergic to wool?
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Does this seat make my ass look big?
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Oh these are going to smell horrible after a few weeks.
Hey, maybe they could test out running trains regularly?
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BIG MISTAKE
And don't think PETA and others will not ignore replacing a synthetic material with a material derived from animals.
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where are the vegans! oh boy this will rattle their carrot tops
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by the way - has anyone considered the crazy cat ladys that sit on the metro? will these seats come with complimentary lint rollers?
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WHO
CARES?
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Perhaps edible cherry flavored seats for the back row.
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I'm with all of you. If Metro is removing carpet to save the costs of shampooing, why would they go to this material for the seat covers? I HATE this material on coach buses. It's so itchy and gross.
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They already use fabric like this on some of the Metrobuses in Virginia. (Specifically, grey rainbow) They aren't itchy at all. Very comfy, actually. And they don't smell. Give em a chance, I say.
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Ummm... I'm allergic to wool. As is my entire family. Now we're not going to be able to sit on the metro?
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What a great haven for bed bugs! Let's also replace the stone benches in metro stations with wooden ones for more bed bug action (a la NYC)!
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Bedbugs can live on wooden benches? I swear I learn so much from this site.
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I'm allergic to wool, too. Fairfax Connector's buses have wool seatcovers—it took me a trip or two this past summer before I drew the connection between the bus seats and all the welts on the backs of my knees.
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Good thing people with the crabs never take mass transit. Or bathe.
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If you're in the allergic to wool camp, to us wool is itchy and gross! If you're not allergic, it's probably comfy and warm.
No amount of any well-meaning relative telling me that my cashmere sweater gift is "very soft—you'll never notice that it's wool!" has ever worked. They all feel like sandpaper.
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Two theories: 1) The sketchiness of the upholstery will encourage people to stand on trains thus distracting from the hubbub that was made over removing seats to make more space for bodies; 2) Despite the cleaning costs for the new upholstery, Metro really will be saving money because they're buying up 1980s surplus fabrics.
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I'm allergic. This sucks.
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When the inevitable rate hike to pay for these piss sponges occurs, I'll be protesting by tearing the seats off (now that we know how) and initiating an American gladiator-style King of the Mountain tournament during morning rush. As the police cart me away, I'll be the one screaming "Laser says no to woooool!!!"