MTA Considering Flip-Seats For Rush Hour

There is a report that suggests that the MTA is looking at creating seat-less trains during rush hour.

This way, officials hope to squeeze more people -- as many as 18 percent more -- inside such cars.

NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said the seats would be unlocked after rush hours.

The program starts in five to seven months. No word yet on which subway lines will get the retrofitted trains.

Officials told News 4 New York that prior to putting these cars in service, they would conduct a public information campaign spelling out how the trains will operate and how customers should ride the cars.

While some folks think that this is a bad idea and will push the NYC subway system in a direction of looking like Tokyo's subway system - complete with people pushers, I think this has the potential to be an excellent idea.

The MTA is straining to carry more people on the same amount of track and subway cars. There is only limited real estate within each car, and if you flip seats up, you increase capacity. On some lines, the MTA is already exceeding its guideline capacity and there is no relief in sight as construction of new capacity is not possible.

The Paris Metro system has had flip seats on many of its subway lines for years. Mrs. Lawhawk and thought it was an interesting idea when visiting Paris last year. During rush hour, the seats flip up, but at other times, you could sit there without any problem. The seats weren't locked in place either, and it was subway courtesy to raise the seats generally if the car was busier. However, if there were elderly folks on board, they could still keep the seat down. The main drawback is that I'm not sure that the courtesy would be extended in the New York City subways, but people could always prove me delightfully wrong.

I think that is a direction worth pursuing.

Two other ideas worth considering by the MTA and the Port Authority on their new cars is that they should look at moving where the vertical bars are placed so that straphangers are forced to move away from the doors and into the interior positions rather than blocking the doors. That would increase the number of people on each car as well. And instead of the standard single vertical bar, they might look at replacing it with a triple bar, similar to the one used in Paris, which enables more people to hold on - a safety issue.