Photo by Mr. T in DC.

As a Metro rider of several years, I always have a strategy whenever I find myself waiting on a train inside the often-bustling Gallery Place-Chinatown station: shuffle all the way down the platform, then try and find a comfortable seat. Looks like I’ll have to switch up my strategy when hopping on the Red Line there — WMATA has removed benches from the Red Line platform in Gallery Place in order to reduce congestion during peak travel times.

“By more evenly spreading customers along the Gallery Place platform, Red Line trains can load and depart faster, resulting in more reliable service,” said Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel.

About two weeks ago, four benches and one trash can were removed from the far east end of the Red Line platform for trains heading in the direction of Shady Grove — “the location where people tend to bunch up,” says Stessel. The transit agency has also started stationing personnel inside the station during particularly busy times — say, before and after a baseball game at Nationals Park, or when there’s something going on at the Verizon Center — to encourage people to not jam the platform.

Of course, like anything involving Metro, everyone’s got an opinion about the removal of the benches. Some people praise anything that will alleviate, even slightly, the sardine packing cross-traffic during rush hour; others bemoan the fact that some people (like pregnant women) need to sit down and that the benches are part of the general Metro station character.

Do you care about the benches? Let us know in the comments.