My Only Complaint

Comments

Is "than" the right word to use there?

stinkbug on January 25, 2010 at 8:03 AM

The light rail cars in Pittsburgh have cushions and plastic upholstery, but the smooth plastic makes it easy to slide in your seat when you don't want to. Maybe the fabric on the Link seats is to help you stay put?

DowntownTaylor on January 25, 2010 at 8:04 AM

just be grateful we've entered the 19th century

Max Solomon on January 25, 2010 at 8:08 AM

Sounds like you should write a letter to Sound Transit! I'm sure they would be glad to have your suggestions.

Greg on January 25, 2010 at 8:08 AM

"only complaint"?
Like, in the past 15 minutes?

on January 25, 2010 at 8:14 AM

Why not save a second complaint for the design of the bike hooks? Maybe I have a tall bike (I do), but it's a little absurd to have bikes sticking halfway into the central corridor so nobody can get past them.

Eric F on January 25, 2010 at 8:17 AM

How about the fact that they don't have any way of enforcing payment rules? Oh- except that voice that reminds you to buy a ticket every five minutes at Westlake... there's always that.

UNPAID COMMENTER on January 25, 2010 at 8:20 AM

I guess Mr Savage doesn't like hard rides.

on January 25, 2010 at 8:23 AM

@ #1

Yes, his use of the word 'than' in his 5th sentence is correct. He is making a comparative statement, x vs. y, and needs to use the correct particle conjunction to make the comparison. He isn't using 'then' because that is used in conditional sentences, and would make outcome y dependent on condition x. The hardness or lack of comfort of the light rail train seats in Seattle is not dependent on the hardness or lack of comfort of the seats on the NYC subway, so he isn't speaking in terms of conditions. Rather, he is making comparison between the two.

PDX_Paulie on January 25, 2010 at 8:34 AM

this is why we can't have nice things.

josh on January 25, 2010 at 8:39 AM

@9: I know the difference between "than" and "then", I wasn't expecting him to use then there.

I think I was ignoring the "but less comfortable" bit and reading it as "They're as hard than the plastic seats."

stinkbug on January 25, 2010 at 8:49 AM

It's so people won't sleep on them.

lorax on January 25, 2010 at 8:51 AM

@9: You can't really defend the use of the word than. Take out the parenthetical and the sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

bigyaz on January 25, 2010 at 8:53 AM

How long are you going to be in NY? Are you speaking at NYU? Can non-students crash?

MJC NYC on January 25, 2010 at 8:56 AM

Dan, you've been on the el some time in the last five years, right? Their seats are also upholstered but not cushioned.

Banna on January 25, 2010 at 9:08 AM

This sort of fabric is put in to protect against scratchiti and graffiti; it's not intended to be cushioning. It's also hypoallergenic, FWIW.

on January 25, 2010 at 9:08 AM

@ 11 & 13: Granted, his sentence would have been more clear had he used a 2nd 'as' in it, after the word 'hard' before the parenthetical. And he should have used the word 'than' in the parenthetical itself.

PDX_Paulie on January 25, 2010 at 9:15 AM

The upholstery is bad enough, you don't want cushioning too, then you'd have The BART. I wonder how many OCD people refuse to ride The BART.

cheesy on January 25, 2010 at 9:32 AM

Dan said:

"They're as hard—but less comfortable—than the plastic seats on the New York City's subway train I'm riding on right now."

Now read:

"They're as hard—but less comfortable—as the plastic seats on the New York City's subway train I'm riding on right now."

ser on January 25, 2010 at 9:34 AM

Grammar junkies:

In no way would I presume to edit Mr. Savage's fine work. Having said that, I will now edit Mr. Savage's fine work:

"They're as hard as -- but less comfortable than -- the plastic seats on the New York City subway train on which I'm riding right now."

Note the subordinate clause, the removal of the possessive, and the location of the prepositional phrase.

But ya know, he done pretty good for typpin' on the trane!

Karl42 on January 25, 2010 at 10:10 AM

Are Metro's seat upholstered with fabric or with something like vinyl? If fabric, than this quote is funny to me...

All that fabric is going to do is absorb and retain... god... knows... what... and then unsuspecting passengers are going to come along and plop down on hard, uncomfortable, damp hot-zone upholstery. Plastic seats get wet too, of course, but they dry faster and if there's something pooling on one, you can see it.

... because I'm sure Dan has no problem sitting down on Metro's seats without first checking for god... knows... what...

Matt from Denver on January 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM

Regarding Dan's grammar, it's always atrocious. He must just be in such a hurry to share his thoughts that he can't be bothered with proofreading. That's okay, though, because whether he's right on or way off, he's always interesting and the grade-school mistakes don't detract from that.

Matt from Denver on January 25, 2010 at 10:13 AM

Transit seats in Toronto are upholstered. I think it does help you stay put (we still have some trains with vinyl benches from the 70s and you slide around way too much). They're also padded. The padding does wear out, but I've been on newly stuffed seats (which are so awesome) so they do replace it.

You'd think it'd be a problem with hygiene, etc. etc., but it doesn't seem to have come up. Maybe we're all blissfully unaware of just how much coffee/pop/urine/jizz we've been sitting on/in.

Gloria on January 25, 2010 at 10:25 AM

Upholstery is more pleasing to the eye, warmer than hard plastic which can be marred with graffiti. And I'm willing to bet that the fabric is stain-resistant, but it is harder to keep clean that plastic or metal. Dan's right; you could wind up sitting in a pool of piss or worse. Aren't the DC Metro seat padded with plastic-covered foam? I remember them being pretty comfortable.

Bauhaus I on January 25, 2010 at 10:41 AM

There probably is a thin pad under the fabric, but it's not meant for cushioning. It's there to insulate you from the cold metal frame. So this design should be more comfortable than a hard, cold plastic seat.

on January 25, 2010 at 10:50 AM

@22,

They're vinyl.

Upholstery = bed bugs to my mind. I wonder if the spread of bed bugs is going to necessitate ripping out all those seats and replacing them with plastic.

keshmeshi on January 25, 2010 at 10:52 AM

I'm sick and tired of all the anti-rail people boarding the trains with fake passes.

I think the seats were made for when they get blasted on cheap booze and spew on the seats.

Will in Seattle on January 25, 2010 at 10:54 AM

23
Matt, it's time to pull your face out of Dan's ass for a moment- your showing symptoms of brain oxygen deprivation...

on January 25, 2010 at 11:13 AM

@25, DC's seats are very comfortable--nice soft cushions with vinyl covers. Although for some reason they're introducing wool upholstery to some trains, which I'm sure are less comfortable and harder to clean. Also a problem for those of us with wool allergies.

julia in dc on January 25, 2010 at 11:21 AM

@ 29, you've got it backwards. I'm not saying always good (this post is a case in point, and is actually par for the course when he's talking about anything outside of gay rights or relationship advice). But there's a reason why he's the only one to have all the "most commented" slogs on several occasions, and why the "most commented" slogs have always had at least one post by him at all times.

Matt from Denver on January 25, 2010 at 11:36 AM

@ 27, thanks. It's been a few years since my last Metro ride and I couldn't remember. I just knew they weren't as awful as RTD's buses in the 80s (RTD being Denver's bus system).

Matt from Denver on January 25, 2010 at 11:48 AM

The floors of BART trains are carpeted. Eww. I suppose it makes the ride a tiny bit quieter, but eww.

john t on January 25, 2010 at 12:07 PM

31

...deep breaths...

on January 25, 2010 at 12:08 PM

I wish they had put in ceiling racks so that you can put luggage there to keep it out of the way when you are riding to/from the airport.

AK on January 25, 2010 at 12:40 PM

fabric is just a mistake on public transit of any kind. i ride bart, and i can attest to the wisdom of going with pleather-ish stuff or just molded plastic. it should be constructed such that a maint tech can come in and just hose the whole thing down on a regular basis. otherwise, over time....ick.

ellarosa on January 25, 2010 at 1:15 PM

The light rail seating is more uncomfortable than any mass transit seating I've been exposed to.

They also packed the seats too close, so if you happen to be over 6 feet tall, enjoy eating your knees.

xopherg on January 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM

And vandals with sharp objects can cause more damage to fabric than hard plastic. Mass Transit should be utilitarian.

dwight moody on January 25, 2010 at 2:14 PM

The lightrails in Minneapolis have the same seats.

on January 25, 2010 at 3:07 PM

The fabric is sort of like velcro. It keeps people from sliding out of their seats when the idiot bus driver slams on the breaks.

jimmy on January 25, 2010 at 3:47 PM

your chairs look more comfortable then ours in Chicago, and ten times cleaner too.

Freche_Lola on January 25, 2010 at 4:42 PM

Oooo, that sucks. The seats on MAX here in PDX are pretty comfy. Better than BART seats in SF. They're just standard public transportation seats, I assume it's that they're shaped really well.

Chris in Vancouver WA on January 25, 2010 at 6:44 PM

CTA trains and buses in Chicago have those kind of upholstered seats (cloth but no padding) but the designers had the decent sense to shape the seats roughly to the contours of the generalized human backside.

Dunno what Freche_Lola's talking about. I've never seen anything too bad in the transit system, even in moderately-to-heavily sketchy neighborhoods.

venomlash on January 25, 2010 at 7:28 PM

@ 1, 9 The line should have read something like "They're as hard as — but less comfortable than — the plastic seats on the New York City's subway train"

Soci on January 26, 2010 at 1:38 PM

They appear to me to be a compromise solution to the needs for durability, comfort, and aesthetics, and like most compromises, they are the worst solution possible, far worse than if any of the individual necessities had simply been met without much regard to the others.

Of course, I bet they were cheap, so there's that. Cheap always trumps design.

balderdash on January 27, 2010 at 4:51 PM

For what it's worth, you can stand and hold on to something if the seats bother you that much. The ride is smooth and brisk.

brendan on January 28, 2010 at 2:40 AM

@21, I sincerely applaud you.

brendan on January 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM

You know, they actually design seats for light rail that way on purpose.

They don't want you getting comfortable. You're not supposed to be on it for that long.

Will in Seattle on January 28, 2010 at 11:51 AM

The seats are fine - leg room is lacking in some seats, but the seats themselves are not worth complaining about. They look nice, are easy to maintain, and generally completely adequate. I've experienced much worse public transit seats, taxi cab seats, etc.

If you want to complain about something, start with the somewhat violent "shimmy" that seems to be particularly acute near the articulated sections of the cars. Down towards the airport, at high speeds, it is unnerving. I've heard they're trying to fix it, but the rail grinding didn't seem to help.

on January 30, 2010 at 10:05 AM

Transit seats should be covered in a hard, impervious surface, with a deep contour -- maybe like a taxi driver's bead seat cover, or maybe like a dense array of pencil points. This would provide channels for all the urine and dog-anus-scrapings and what-not to run down into, so even sitting on a freshly-befouled seat would not get one too wet.

The worst seats are on Sound Transit buses -- deeply padded, covered in custom-woven cloth, each one smelling like homeless man buttcrack sweat.

Foaming Solvent on January 30, 2010 at 11:07 AM

Here's where they came from:
http://www.americanseating.com/transport…

Also, an upholstered seat is much harder to write my name in it like the plastic chairs (or the back window on just about any bus).

I'm a stranger on January 30, 2010 at 1:21 PM

I'm a stranger on January 30, 2010 at 1:22 PM

I think the adjective "savage" describes your level of whining. Either that, or "tiresome." Dude, it's not that bad.

I commute to the airport a lot, and can't figure out where to really stash my luggage. But it's so nice to have light rail, I really don't care about the inconvenience.

trob on January 30, 2010 at 2:07 PM

@18: I have OCD. I always stand on BART. But at least BART has standing room.

I also always stand on Metro. Usually this means standing in the back stairway. Which Metro drivers hate. So sometimes I wind up in the ridiculously miniscule aisles. Rather than sitting in miscellaneous seat stench, I get dirty transients directly squeezing by my crotch.

Metro has less standing room than any transit system on earth. If they're going to force everyone to sit down, couldn't they at least clean the damn seats once in a while?

d.p. on February 2, 2010 at 3:48 AM

My Only Complaint

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