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> And public transportation won't be viable in the US until cities finally wrap their head around the reality that you need basic security checkpoints at entran

by w4 5y ago

> And public transportation won't be viable in the US until cities finally wrap their head around the reality that you need basic security checkpoints at entrances to discourage riff raff from getting in (like in China). It seems like you're in SF. The bad experiences you have had there do not generalize to all other cities. I've lived in several US and foreign cities that have safe public transit without security checkpoints. Omnipresent security forces shouldn't be necessary if other city and state services are functional.

b9a2cab5 5y ago
US cities I've been to: East Coast city 1: no light rail, buses come every 45min East Coast city 2: no light rail, buses come every 30-45min, but at least they were free West Coast city 1: no light rail, buses come every 45min and cost $$$ if you want to take an express route SF Bay Area: BART is a disaster, CalTrain only works well during peak hours and only if you live in the Peninsula. I literally watched a group of 2 teenagers hop the fare gates, get on, then get off the station before the fare checkers got on. Every station smells like piss and most of the ones in SF proper have shit in them too. BART East Bay -> Fremont/SJ is easily a 2 hour ride because the train moves at sub-30mph in residential areas. Chicago: Trains still move pretty slowly but don't have piss and shit all over them at least. From what I can tell, buses are also not viable for reasonable transportation. Boston: Decent trains in most of the downtown/Cambridge area, but suburbs were pretty much a non-starter. In comparison: Shanghai/Beijing: security checkpoints at subway entrances, getting on/off trains is orderly and trains are clean. Trains run fast because authorities don't care about making too much noise, so you aren't better off driving because the train was running at 25mph. Trains come every 5mins or more often. You can get across the city in under an hour. For the US cities that had light rail, the issues were clearly not due to lack of funding but due to NIMBYism limiting speeds and a refusal to enforce any level of security (in the case of SF). I bet you can get BART to come every 5 mins instead of every 20mins with the same number of trains if you 4x'd the speed to 80-100 mph. BART already does over that speed in long stretches like the Bay tunnel or the long stretches in Fremont so it's not like this requires any sort of re-engineering.
- namdnay 5y ago
  > I literally watched a group of 2 teenagers hop the fare gates, get on, then get off the station before the fare checkers got on Wow… what a dystopia! More seriously, is this really a huge issue? You can see that all day long in Paris, it doesn’t stop the transport system from being OK
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    Replace 2 teenagers with "homeless guy that shit himself" or "criminals" [1] and you have a different story. If you have proper security this sort of class of behavior is entirely prevented. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5...
    - hkt 5y ago
      Just a thought, but maybe a social safety net would be more effective in preventing the homeless from getting into the kind of state where they do that? Rather than more security. Just thinking laterally about the problem here..
      - lolpython 5y ago
        We can do both at the same time. We can help the homeless and also prevent people from shitting or littering in public transportation vehicles and on boarding platforms.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    Teens are relevant here mostly as a test of the system’s ability to exclude. A system excluding people sounds a little mean, but it is important if you want to have a transit system that is actually fit for transit. When there’s a homeless man shooting up with some drugs on the narrow platform at Bleecker St while a crowd of people try to get off the train and get out of there without tripping or provoking a confrontation, and that’s “normal” for the city subway, the people may decide the system is no longer fit for transit. Fortunately that’s still “slightly extraordinary” for NYC and not quite “normal” (I only saw him once) but it’s all very unfortunate.

by w4 5y ago

b9a2cab5 5y ago

US cities I've been to: East Coast city 1: no light rail, buses come every 45min East Coast city 2: no light rail, buses come every 30-45min, but at least they were free West Coast city 1: no light rail, buses come every 45min and cost $$$ if you want to take an express route SF Bay Area: BART is a disaster, CalTrain only works well during peak hours and only if you live in the Peninsula. I literally watched a group of 2 teenagers hop the fare gates, get on, then get off the station before the fare checkers got on. Every station smells like piss and most of the ones in SF proper have shit in them too. BART East Bay -> Fremont/SJ is easily a 2 hour ride because the train moves at sub-30mph in residential areas. Chicago: Trains still move pretty slowly but don't have piss and shit all over them at least. From what I can tell, buses are also not viable for reasonable transportation. Boston: Decent trains in most of the downtown/Cambridge area, but suburbs were pretty much a non-starter. In comparison: Shanghai/Beijing: security checkpoints at subway entrances, getting on/off trains is orderly and trains are clean. Trains run fast because authorities don't care about making too much noise, so you aren't better off driving because the train was running at 25mph. Trains come every 5mins or more often. You can get across the city in under an hour. For the US cities that had light rail, the issues were clearly not due to lack of funding but due to NIMBYism limiting speeds and a refusal to enforce any level of security (in the case of SF). I bet you can get BART to come every 5 mins instead of every 20mins with the same number of trains if you 4x'd the speed to 80-100 mph. BART already does over that speed in long stretches like the Bay tunnel or the long stretches in Fremont so it's not like this requires any sort of re-engineering.

namdnay 5y ago
> I literally watched a group of 2 teenagers hop the fare gates, get on, then get off the station before the fare checkers got on Wow… what a dystopia! More seriously, is this really a huge issue? You can see that all day long in Paris, it doesn’t stop the transport system from being OK
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  Replace 2 teenagers with "homeless guy that shit himself" or "criminals" [1] and you have a different story. If you have proper security this sort of class of behavior is entirely prevented. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5...
  - hkt 5y ago
    Just a thought, but maybe a social safety net would be more effective in preventing the homeless from getting into the kind of state where they do that? Rather than more security. Just thinking laterally about the problem here..
    - lolpython 5y ago
      We can do both at the same time. We can help the homeless and also prevent people from shitting or littering in public transportation vehicles and on boarding platforms.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Teens are relevant here mostly as a test of the system’s ability to exclude. A system excluding people sounds a little mean, but it is important if you want to have a transit system that is actually fit for transit. When there’s a homeless man shooting up with some drugs on the narrow platform at Bleecker St while a crowd of people try to get off the train and get out of there without tripping or provoking a confrontation, and that’s “normal” for the city subway, the people may decide the system is no longer fit for transit. Fortunately that’s still “slightly extraordinary” for NYC and not quite “normal” (I only saw him once) but it’s all very unfortunate.