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.