Thank you for your quick response, however, your answer to my suggestion to consider an alternate bench shape gives me pause. It is extremely rare to not evaluate how anything is performing after even a single year— let alone after 20 years! So ergonomic design improvements don’t warrant consideration? Resident comfort doesn’t matter?
Let’s say, hypothetically, that someone recommended more energy efficient building component changes — such as different windows, would you say the same thing—we’ve had the same windows for 20 years—so even if the city would save money New Haven would keep using the same ones? I could give many other examples to make my point.
I would have greatly appreciated if you said instead that we have bench inventory to use up but would consider looking into alternative designs for future consideration & cost/benefit comparisons—without promising to make a change. City choices should take into account the residents and taxpayers it serves, not just what is expedient or habit.

Sorry - that is not how I intended my comment. Its not just what is expedient or habit. There is an efficiency to having a standard type of bench in terms of maintenance and parts. There are HUNDREDS of benches within the system and you can't predict where one may be damaged and we do have an inventory of those which match. I'll never forget an accident at Wooster Square shortly before the Cherry Blossom festival where we had to go scrounging through the system to find something close enough to match the set there since it is a slightly different structure.
We do review cost differentials and design periodically and are actually contemplating changing our similarly aged trash can standard for operational and efficiency as well as to reduce the overflow and vermin/bird issues. Yours is the first comment on the comfort of the current bench standard - most complaints are from locations that have yet to be replaced by it. Your input has been forwarded to the Parks Landscape Architect so that its taken into consideration in balancing these multiple factors.