The much-derided wool seats on BART trains -- the subject of a notorious study that discovered microbes and fecal bacteria thriving under people's daily commutes -- are now a thing of the past, with the last wool seat swapped out for vinyl in a ceremony Tuesday.
The San Francisco Examiner notes that among the wool seats' many shortcomings was the challenge they posed for cleaners. It cost as much as $6,000 per month to have the seats dry cleaned, according to the newspaper.
BART spent $6 million on replacing the wool seats with vinyl cushions. The vinyl seats last a decade, rather than three years for wool, and the vinyl seats -- which appears to be popular with riders -- can be wiped clean with a simple cloth, the newspaper reported.
All cloth will soon be absent from BART trains, which at one point had carpeting as well as wool seats. By next summer, the last carpets will be torn up and replaced with a linoleum-like surface, BART officials told the newspaper.
