Sticky particle solutions to the one-dimensional pressureless gas dynamics equations can be constructed by a suitable metric projection onto the cone of monotone maps, as was shown in recent work by Natile and Savaré. Their proof uses a discrete particle approximation and stability properties for first-order differential inclusions. Here we give a more direct proof that relies on a result by Haraux on the differentiability of metric projections. We apply the same method also to the one-dimensional Euler-Poisson system, obtaining a new proof for the global existence of weak solutions. © 2015 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.