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Board of 2 Minds About 6-Sided Tiles
Metro put off a decision on replacing its familiar six-sided floor tiles with square ones that would be easier to maintain and less slippery when wet.
(By Larry Levine -- Metro)
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"You're talking about 18,000 to 20,000 square feet of tile on a platform. It's an awful lot of waste when you cut those corners," said John Penta, president of San Pietro Ceramics, an Argentine tile manufacturer.
Penta said he is checking to see whether a mold could be made to produce the six-sided shape.
Metro officials said maintenance was one reason to move from hexagons to squares. Fewer sides means fewer joints. Fewer joints means less water leakage damaging concrete below the tiles, said Ed Riley, Metro's chief architect.
Another reason was for the sake of passengers, who complain about slippery platform tiles more than almost anything else, officials said.
"I'm afraid more people are getting accustomed to broken tile rather than high-quality tile," said Dan Tangherlini, Metro's interim general manager.
In addition to Deanwood and Minnesota Avenue, 23 other Metro stations opened before 1984 and probably will need platform repairs, officials said.
The new tiles are larger than the hexagonal ones, more slip-resistant and less porous, officials said.
The New York City subway system has been using them for five years, officials said. If the board gives the new ones a thumbs up, Metro could "hitch its wagon" to New York and order them in bulk from the same manufacturer, Tangherlini said.
In the end, though, board members did what many homeowners do: They put off the decision for another day.
Board members authorized critical repairs of the underlying concrete at Deanwood and Minnesota Avenue. But they chose to get more opinions from the Riders Advisory Council before deciding what to do about the tiles.
"At the end of the day, it has everything to do with the shape," Tangherlini said. "It's not the original shape. It's a radical departure."
Although Metro could spend a lot of money to keep the original shape, Tangherlini said, he questioned whether that would be the best use of those funds.
"What people really want is safe, convenient, accessible and efficient transportation," he said.
