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I’m having a lot of trouble with this article. It’s conflating a park bench with armrests or a ledge with spikes (both, I think, at least legitimate points of d
by nlh 7y ago
I’m having a lot of trouble with this article. It’s conflating a park bench with armrests or a ledge with spikes (both, I think, at least legitimate points of discussion when it comes to hostile design) with something designed to prevent people from stealing service.
BART service has a fare, gated by turnstiles. People try to steal that service by jumping over those turnstiles. So BART has modified them to make it harder to steal.
Of course the design is hostile - it’s trying to prevent theft!
Am I missing something?
- glangdale 7y agoYes, you are. Those turnstiles have always been more or less symbolic - they are designed to make it obvious that people are fare-evading, not to stop them. If you wanted to stop people fare-evading you would have floor to ceiling turnstiles that are literally turnstiles. The marginal improvement in the security that adding nasty new bits to the turnstiles increases the chance that less able or unlucky users will get nailed by the turnstile - the young, the old, the frail, the plain old disorganized. There are plenty of people who don't perceive themselves as so disabled as to need the special 'wide gate' but who are put at risk by a system tuned for preventing jumpers and 'drafters'. As I said elsewhere on thread, I've been nailed by a similar turnstile in Sydney (without the extra stuff on it) - while using the system correctly - and it hurt like hell, and I'm a large, able-bodied man. I think the same hit on a 105lb female friend of mine would probably stop her from walking for several days. It's just not worth it. Want to stop jumpers? Get your security guys off their asses and patrol the goddamn trains.