Metro riders lose seats at busy station platform
Thursday - 8/11/2011, 4:22am ET
Andrew Mollenbeck, wtop.com
WASHINGTON -- Metro has pulled the plug on four benches and a garbage can on a crowded platform at Gallery Place-Chinatown.
"We did that to provide additional space for people walking on the platform and to prevent people from bunching up," says Dan Stessel, Metro's chief spokesperson.
The seats will be taken out of the area where subway riders wait to catch the Red Line in the direction of Shady Grove.
"It's really a unique location given its narrowness and the high volume of passengers that move by this particular location, the far east end of the platform," Stessel says.
The congestion is complicated by fans traveling back from Nationals Park or Verizon Center.
"Gallery Place platforms for a transfer station are the narrowest. Metro Center has wider platforms. L'Enfant Plaza has wider platforms."
Metro does not have additional plans to remove other benches, calling this an individual case.
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(Copyright 2011 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
