Looking at the pictures I see a potential mess: it looks like in a crowded situation, riders stuck away from the sides of train and the seating have nothing to hold on to.

Also, with the removal of the priority seating, are any of the remaining seats clearly designated as priority?

I can see it now -- when I board one of those cars and it's crowded, I'll have to push and shove my way into the side of the car to grab one of those grab bars on the wall. And if I'm travelling with my 3 year old, I'll have shove my way with her deep into the car and pray that someone will give her a seat. And if someone says I should just wait for the next train, then that's just discriminatory -- tall men can just get on any old train they like since they can reach the ceiling, but short moms with kids, well, you just have to wait because it's not designed for you. Metro is now for tall men only.

Well, I board at Greenbelt and I can't stand for 40 minutes at a time so unless I shove my way to a real seat, I will be driving. Why did they remove priority seating and would people please remember that not every handicap or condition is visibile?!? I may not be in a wheelchair or on crutches but that doesn't mean I am therefore 100% able to stand my entire trip. Dan T. says "ask people to stand up" but he lives in a universally polite world, I think.

Metro is for tall, HEALTHY men I'd say.

While I understand efforts to move people more into the interior of cars, I'm not sure if it's logical to remove devices that help protect riders from sudden stops and starts. It just seems that this is simply and ill-conceived concession to people who don't want to say "excuse me" if people are standing near the doors daring people to walk over them.

Additionally, it appears that the new configuration actually reduces the total number of occupants able to board. On crowded trains people gravitate to the doors because that's where the polls are. Without them, people have nothing to hold on to so you'll have vast empty areas near the doors with people in the aisle so tight that you can hear their thoughts or people sitting on the floor.

Lastly, in the first picture with Dan and the reporters, gee, look where they're standing...

I rode the subways in NYC for six years, with bench seating and hanging straps for people to hold onto, and I never saw a short person (or anyone else) fall. Somehow we managed and the world did not end.

I rode in those cars on Sunday. My impression is that for rush hour they are going to be counterproductive. I am 5'4" and in flat shoes could reach the overhead bar, but it was a very uncomfortable stretch, and I wouldn't want to have to stand that way for a long period of time. It's all well and good to point to the vertical poles on the seatbacks, but they are at something like four-seat intervals! Why weren't they put on the back of each seat?

I grew up on the NYC subway, too, and I was always able to use the straps. NYC cars were better.

Why doesn't Metro just acknowledge what all of us who ride MetroRail already know and accept, that it's a SUBWAY (heavy rail) system, not commuter-rail system. VRE and MARC are commuter rails. A subway system should be like it is in NYC and Boston (not the Green Line trolleys), where seating is against the walls and the suspended bars (or individual hand-holds) are low enough that someone as tall as 5'6" could easily reach them. Amazing how the Tube in London, the subway in NYC and the T in Boston can all run just as far distance-wise to their furthest out stops as the Metro and no one complains. Yet here, the people in charge of Metro cling to the notion that it's a commuter-rail type of system.

To Anonymous who posted the snide remark about the world not ending in NYC with the lack of poles but there were hanging straps:

Did you see any hanging straps in that picture??? I didn't. I've ridden the T in Boston, and while a strap isn't as comfortable to hold as a pole, it's managable. This proposed Metro setup has absolutely nothing to hang on to for anyone shorter than 5'4", but for a few grab bars against the wall and deep in the car.

By the way, 5'4" is the average height of a woman in America, so, assuming DC area women are the same, by that definition, half the women who ride Metro are going to be knocking others down when the train stops because there's nothing to hang onto.

The only exception I can think of where this won't happen is if the cars are packed Tokyo-subway style so we're all squished up against each other. (I experienced that once on BART, post-1989 earthquake, when the Bay Bridge was closed.) Maybe that's what Metro has in mind -- employ some "pushers" and pack us in.

i have a suspicion that all you whiners are the selfish annoying ones who make riding metro a pain. yes, yes, we all know you love to complain, and you complain because the world is all about you, and poor you, poor you, let's all give you attention and hear you be negative. we know how much you love standing in the doorway and blocking everyone else, because you have to hold on to that pole, because you refuse to try anything else. because you're so important.

you know what? I stand up for somebody who needs a seat. every time they ask. and you know what else? i get up and OFFER my seat to people when i see they need it. and don't try to tell me i'm the only person on metro who will do this.

and for short people with "nothing to hang on to" it doesn't take MacGyver to figure out that you can just grab on to the back of any seat.

would you please quit complaining and just give metro a freaking chance before you judge it? what is wrong with you!

According to the pictures in this post, the new 6000 series cars have vertical poles on EVERY seat, not every 4th seat. That should help mitigate the lack of floor-to-ceiling poles.

These new metro cars are definitely a step in the right direction. People around here love to complain-they think the squeaky wheels will always get the grease. Suck it up and adapt.

Newsflash: when the train is in a station, parked, dead-still, and people are trying to get in and out of the train around/through you, you can actually let go of the overhead poles. No, really!

Dr. Gridlock is right, there are some potential problems. The new configuration clears the doorway but has wasted space.

Although they contributed to "dorking," the old vertical poles in the old configuration enabled multiple people of various heights to hold onto them. Whether the result was good or bad, more people could cluster around them. With the new horizontal bars that precede the seats, only people a single depth from the outer wall can grab them. Anyone who is short who is standing in, towards the center of the aisle in the area before the seats, obviously lacks something to grab onto.

Look at the diagram I just drew. The oo's represent seated passengers, * marks places that short OR tall people can hold onto (including the sides of the old seats), x represents standees, and s represnts clear space. The new configuration clears the way but has fewer options for short people.

I typed out some rough diagrams. Look at the first diagram below, which is the new configuration. The second diagram is the old configuration.

If a train is full, seats are taken, and the aisle next to the seats is full of standees, short passengers have fewer options for poles to grab onto. If you're 5 feet tall, and you enter the car in the first diagram, and find it full up as pictured, what would you do? Lots of "s" space, yeah, the aisles are clearer, but that doesn't help much if you have nothing to hold on to, no straps, etc. You're not going to stand and try to balance with nothing to hold on to for a 15 or 30 minute ride, that isn't realistic. This looks like a provisional or interim solution, at best.

NEW
[oo]* xx *[oo] seats
[oo] *xx *[oo]
[oo]* xx* [oo]
[oo]* xx *[oo]
[oo]* xx* [oo]
|*x sssss x *|
|*x sssss x *|
[]sssssssss [] doors

OLD
[oo]* xx *[oo] seats
[oo] *xx* [oo]
[oo]* xx* [oo]
[oo]* xx *[oo]
[oo]* xx* [oo]
| x sssss x |
| x* x s x *x|
[] x ssss x [] doors

Newsflash II: those big, rectangular things on the side of the train, that you can, y'know, like, see through? They're actually called... windows.
Even short people could be looking through them to see which doors/cars are least crowded.

These comments just prove how mean and nasty some Metro riders are. The fact is, shorter people, mostly women, will have fewer places to stand. It's not a coincidence that the men say "suck it up" -- that's what they always say when they want things to be arranged to benefit THEM, whether it's a Metro train or workplace. Selfish a-holes.

It seems like most of the complaints so far are from people who haven't ridden the cars yet, they've only seen the picutres (which don't show the whole car) or a diagram. Please, go ride the trains and then come back with your comments. I'm reserving judgment until I actually get to ride one.

yeah. metro is a sexist system.

give me a break.

It is a PUBLIC transportation system that has to fit the needs of the masses. For every 1 whiner, there will be 20 for whom the system works better. Why does everyone want their needs to be specially taken care of? The new system moves people away from the doors, that is the whole point! This helps everyone, short or tall when entering or exiting the tran. If you are short, move to a spot where you can reach. Everyone else, just be considerate and move out of the way! How many places do you go in public where people act like they are the only one there? (grocery store-hogging the aisle, in traffic-hogging the left lane, anywhere-hogging the sidewalk/road/aisle). The biggest problem in our society these days is the entitlement attitude. You aren't #1 or last in priority for that matter. Do your part and be considerate of others, particularly other whiners! Maybe then, they'll get it too.

I can't wait until more Metro cars like this are available. It is like my wildest dreams have come true thanks to fine people who design and manufacture these new trains. Keep up the good work!!!!

For all the people who are complaining about no straps. Bring your own.

http://www.transtrap.com/products.html

The Metro spokesperson says of seniors, "That includes older passengers, whom she refers to as "my 10 to 2 crowd," for their sensible decision to ride at off peak hours." Her comment, like many of those posted here, is premised on controllable situations and ideal conditions. Real life doesn't work that way always. My aging Mother, who happens to be short, rode Metro to the hospital when my terminally ill sister was hospitalized several times before dying of cancer. Mom lives a few stops away, it was the quickest and most reliable way to get there. She certainly could not arrange to do that between 10 am and 2 pm, some things don't work that way. When a call comes in that your child has been hospitalized, trust me, thinking whether Metro is in a peak or off peak ridership situation is not the first thing that comes to mind. And telling her to look in a window to see if the car is crowded would sound heartless. For one thing, as frail as she is, she lacks the physical ability to hurry along the platform to a less crowded car. And telling her to wait for a less crowded train is cruel, when she is trying to get to the hospital to see her beloved daughter.

Dr. Gridlock said that he is concerned about old and short people. That doesn't mean everyone looks at things through the same lens. You certainly learn a lot about the people who ride Metro by reading comments posted here. Some of you I would trust to treat my 85 year old Mom with kindness and consideration on the train, others, not so much. (Perhaps when you all are 85, your perspective will have changed.) And, as at least one person has noted, not all disabilities are visible.

When my sister took the train to the medical center while undergoing chemo, you would not have known from looking at her that she was terminal, and that standing was a hardship for her. She simply would have looked like an ordinary 50 year old woman of short stature to you. I went with her -- you don't let a sister go through that alone -- and yes, we sometimes had to stand as we rode. My thanks, however, to those of you, including Dr. Gridlock, who can project and understand conditions that affect people different and less lucky than you.

I've seen many references to whiners here. Let me assure you, not everyone who rides Metro under difficult circumstances is a whiner. In the scenario I described above, neither my sister (who knew from the time she was diagnosed that she was terminal), nor my Mom, who, as my sister was, is very strong and brave and stoic, whined about crowded trains. They hoped when they set out to ride Metro that their journeys to the hospital would work out all right. But when the trains were crowded, they simply made do, standing if necessary, although it often was painful for them. To those of you who think the world is full of whiners, I hope my story reassures you that there actually are some people who, even in the face of oncoming premature death, do not demand or feel that they deserve special treatment. My sister never did, quite the contrary, she never failed to express thanks to anyone who helped her, up to the day she died. Perhaps some of you also are lucky enough to know people like that. At any rate, some such people share your journeys on Metro with you, although you may not know who they are.

I have ridden the new cars on more than one occasion at this point and can report that the world did not end for those of us on the train. There really wasn't much visibble differnce between the new and old designs. There were more people using the poles closer to the middle of the train. An I have to admit that there were fewer people standing near the doors.

I only ride during rush hour and no one seemed put off at all about it. too bad riders are threatening to leave the system because of a design change. I really do think that most of us out there are considerate riders and if you really wanted a seat and asked, you'd get one.

Is the metro designed for short dads with kids? ;) I guess not since it was designed only for tall men. But not tall dads with kids. I'm short. I'm 5'11". That's short. Women have told me so. The metro wasn't designed for me, but somehow, I am looking forward to riding in these cars that weren't designed for me.

Seriously, I am with the pro-crowd. So standing next to the door is no longer facilitated. I think that's a good thing. Looks like there are plenty of poles in the aisles. Looks like there are more places for short people to hold on that in the old cars.

Great, now when my girlfriend and I can only find one seat and it's in the middle, I can stand next to her without fear of being thrown around (I didn't say fall down, but some of those drivers are a little crazy, like coming into a station, slamming on the breaks to a complete stop, then the slow roll for five feet to another sudden stop!)

I like moving people away from the doors, now what are they going to do about the "non-intelligent" people who like to force their way in through a mob of 20 people trying to get OUT of the train. Personally, I block them.

Hey Short Man - 5' 11" is not short. It's almost 6'. The average height for men in the US is between 5' 9" and 5' 10" - so you are taller than average.