Washington DC Metro's new cars

[frequentflyer]

https://www.wmata.com/about/board/m...load/3A-Fleet-of-the-Future-Design-Review.pdf

Not as nice as the Stadler Cars, but a new look.

 

[joelkfla]

All seating is horizontal. I assume they meant transverse.

 

[Literalman]

The photos show both transverse and longitudinal seating. Probably they meant lie-flat seats. ;-)

 

[BlackDiamond]

All seating is horizontal. I assume they meant transverse.

More "horizontal" seating, not all seating. Apparently surveys showed that people generally would rather sit sideways to the direction of travel than backwards.

 

[joelkfla]

More "horizontal" seating, not all seating. Apparently surveys showed that people generally would rather sit sideways to the direction of travel than backwards.

Horizontal means parallel to the ground, as opposed to vertical. Transverse means crosswise, as opposed to longitudinal.

The two of us having different interpretations strengthens my point that the authors used the wrong word.

 

[Trollopian]

I usually see the term "bench seating" to describe those seats in which passengers sit sideways to the direction of travel and are affixed to the wall like, y'know, benches. Though I don't know the corresponding term for the dominant (on Metro anyway), window-and-aisle, inner-and-outer, seat pairs. They are supposedly a legacy of Metro's early years when planners envisioned GS-13s taking long rides from their bucolic 'burbs to the downtown DC office and back. They're woefully ill-suited to the large number of shorter trips to diverse destinations. Compared with many other busy systems, Metro has a lot of padded seats that require one person to move to accommodate the other, and few doorways. They become a pinch point and increase station "dwell time" significantly. I've also, ahem, noticed that doorways designed in the slimmer 1970s need to be wider today.