Seats instead of a bench

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

The station replaced its long bench with separate seats. For the first time in months, I could sit without asking somebody to move a bag from the strip of wood beside them. Each seat had a visible edge and a space for one person. During the busy morning, that small division settled several negotiations before they began.

I know a bench can make room for different numbers of people. I also know that its possible extra room often disappears beneath coats, bags and the hope of avoiding a neighbour. The new seats did not make the station sociable. They made the available places easier to recognise and claim without turning a request to sit down into an argument about how much room another person needed.

I would keep some shared seating where it suits the space, but I welcomed this change on my regular journey. I sat, put my bag at my feet and read until the train was announced. Nobody had become friendlier. Nobody had been required to. A good arrangement sometimes helps strangers share a place by making the limits of each place clear.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

My two children used to sit beside me on the station bench while we waited for their grandmother’s train. One leaned against my arm, and the other spread a picture across our knees. On the new separate seats, the younger child wanted to cross the gap repeatedly. We were all seated, but the arrangement kept announcing three separate positions where we had been sitting together.

A clear seat for one person is useful, especially when a crowded bench becomes a dispute. I am not defending bags occupying half a public place. Yet families and companions do not always arrive as separate units wanting identical spaces. A bench can accommodate that shared way of waiting without asking everybody to fit the same outline.

The station could provide both kinds of seat instead of declaring one arrangement the solution to every arrival. Give individuals a place that is easy to claim and groups somewhere to remain together. The furniture is not required to make us sociable, but it should recognise that some of us are already keeping company. A waiting room serves more than one kind of waiting.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about individual seats in public waiting areas. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.