It was great until someone really sketchy sat across from you. I remember riding during the pandemic and some guy sat across from me and started smoking crack. I guess that could happen with any seating arrangement, but it was particularly uncomfortable sitting right across from me and facing me.

That’s a bigger problem than seating arrangement I guess.

The original Bart had wool seats and carpet. It is too bad that we need vinyl everything now or people will destroy it.

You don’t have to be intentionally destructive to destroy fabric seats on a train. The number of peoples moving through every day (especially coming in from outside) will do a lot of damage on its own

japanese metro trains with crazy high ridership numbers still have fabric seats (the yamanote line in Tokyo for sure), with swift and certain enforcement of existing rules, the US could have nice things again too

Sometimes you still get sketchy passengers sitting across from you: https://twitter.com/PrectiveGallery/status/17667709878137695...

(Tweet about bedbugs on the yamanote line)

Bedbugs love fabric for hiding…many good reasons for the switch.