6 ms·

On one hand I see why you are being downvoted, on the other, for people who haven't lived in San Francisco, crime on public transport is legitimately real. I pe

On one hand I see why you are being downvoted, on the other, for people who haven't lived in San Francisco, crime on public transport is legitimately real. I personally have friends who have had bikes stolen from buses and phones stolen from their hands. A lot of the stations smell like urine. There are signs of drug abuse, and some of the stops don't feel very safe at all. I've watched women be sexually harassed on busses and have had friends groped at bus stops. The public transportation experience in San Francisco is not just about the price or the timing, but about the safety and cleanliness too. Seattle buses have been known to be de facto homeless shelters, particularly the late night bus. On one hand, I understand the "what right do we have to kick homeless people off busses" argument. How are people supposed to get their lives back together in a car country if they don't have a car? On the other hand, I've been on buses with urine smelling seats or urine streaming down the bus and if I am asked to make a sacrifice by tolerating that to support another person, I will just avoid public transportation instead because I have the means to do so. The vast majority of people in west coast mega cities who can, use uber, bikes, or their own car. Public transportation in San Francisco is often seen as a last resort. In foreign countries everyone rides the public transportation, so there is public demand for quality. Our transportation situation results in the economic classes most able to effect political power uncaring about the infrastructural rot that is occurring since they can afford to avoid it and it's not a better, more predictable offering than just driving yourself.

hedora 4y ago
All the BART stations have public restrooms, but they closed them after 9/11 for "security" reasons. It might finally be time to consider reopening them.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- olivermarks 4y ago
  They did refurb and reopen a public rest room at the Powell Street muni/bart station in February at enormous expense https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/02/bart-reopens-bathroom-shuttered-for-20-years-bringing-much-needed-rider-relief/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/02/bart-reopens-bathroom... They are now used extensively by homeless for a variety of activities.
  - dumpsterlid 4y ago
    "They are now used extensively by homeless for a variety of activities." Good, everytime a homeless person uses a public bathroom it is a net savings on health, safety and environmental impact because many of those people are denied access to anywhere to go take a shit and turns out people shitting everywhere isn't a great idea. If some of the homeless are out of control and trash the bathroom... ok fine we are talking about people in the most tumultous and vulnerable positions in our society here. Make the bathroom like portlands public bathrooms; design them so they are hard to break and you can hose them down.
  - reillyse 4y ago
    Which is good right? Cause everyone needs to use the restroom and people are complaining about people urinating/defecating in non restroom areas? Nobody is not using the restroom by choice. Places that smell like urine or excrement clearly don’t have enough restrooms and/or don’t get cleaned enough
panick21_ 4y ago
California and the Bay Area specifically need to seriously look in the mirror and apply some basic logic to the situation. Public transport being bad and crime filled, is not the fault of public transport. Its a symptom of systematic failure to do even the most basic city planning, in fact maybe the historically worst example of city planning I can imagine. The solution is to continue to invest into walking, biking and public transport infrastructure. Continue to make it better while at the same time attempt to build real urban environments in the area. You need to build housing for literally millions of people inside of the current boundaries of the cities around the bay. The good news is that there is gigantic amount of commercial zoned land that could be turned into mixed use urban environments. Even better if you can defeat the NIMBY and rezone all the single family housing zones to low density mix use urban. Given the state of emergency, the city could even build these project and have 15% be public housing. City planners have been arguing for these basic things for 30+ years. Here is a modern take on some basic things that can be improved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4
- dumpsterlid 4y ago
  "Public transport being bad and crime filled, is not the fault of public transport. Its a symptom of systematic failure to do even the most basic city planning, in fact maybe the historically worst example of city planning I can imagine." San Francisco is home to some of the most powerful and wealthy tech companies on earth. There is unbelievable, literally unfathomable amounts of money in the city and yet there is a major homeless population that gets treated like shit and swept under the rock. If the public transit in San Francisco is as full of crime and "dirty homeless" as people say here, that clearly reflects shamefully on the companies and people who have more money than 99.99% of people on earth being incredibly cruel and hoarding it. I mean.. do rich people have no shame? How are you supposed to have pride about your city and techhub if there clearly people suffering massively right under your feet? What an incredible demonstration of cruelty and violence on that cities part not to use a tiny TINY fraction of its wealth to make sure people have basic support.
  - hayst4ck 4y ago
deepdriver 4y ago
>On one hand, I understand the "what right do we have to kick homeless people off busses" argument. Every right, take them to shelters or drug abuse centers, living like this a choice you made
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  I think there are a lot of people who would have trouble with that knowing that person could be their own child, an ex, a parent, a friend, or themself. Even if you personally believe retribution or comeuppance, I there are good faith arguments that can be made. My dad smells like he's rotting due to a degenerative condition and can no longer drive, does he not deserve the ability to get to the hospital or bank on public transportation despite an offensive odor, occasional incontinence, and a somewhat homeless look? Should family be responsible? What if the rest of the family died in a car crash? The opiod epidemic alone showed significant numbers of people trusting a corrupted system being over prescribed addictive medications leading to the destruction of their lives so some billionaire can make a few extra dollars. Situations like that mean I don't find the people in bad situations deserve their fate argument very compelling. I personally don't want them on public transportation myself, I'm even ok with banning them, but I do think society owes the unfortunate transportation, even if it is comped uber. I think good faith people can disagree on that and respect arguments otherwise.
  - deepdriver 4y ago
    This isn’t about unfortunate people’s access to transportation, it’s about unsanitary and unsafe abuse of the public transportation system, including public substance abuse and sleeping on the bus overnight. >I think there are a lot of people who would have trouble with that knowing that person could be their own child, an ex, a parent, a friend, or themself Every downward-spiraling addict has had parents, friends, and maybe children. How would they feel watching their loved one rot away on the street (or a bus) in the grip of addiction? It is inhumane to watch people shoot up heroin and drink themselves to death day after day in public spaces without intervention.
    - 4y ago
nine_k 4y ago
I wonder why buses in NYC feel safe, as are subway trains, shoplifting is a very rare sight, and it's pretty hard to find excrement on the streets. It seems that the problem is not in density, not in the large difference of wealth levels, not in ethnic / cultural composition, etc. Maybe it's somewhere around law enforcement, maintenance of public places, etc. Something that could be even changed by voting.
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  Uber subsidized tech/finance employee commute trips for many years. Uber was frequently twice the price of public transportation anywhere in the city for a point to point trip. It was irrational not to use Uber. Many businesses (facebook/google) provided private company only commuter buses, which meant tech employees never had to face the realities of public transportation and could easily avoid it. NYC has a functioning subway system that can land you 2 blocks from just about anywhere. There are entire areas of San Francisco you have to navigate bus transfers, bus transfers that were not predictable, to get to. Bus transfers nearly always inflate trip time significantly and are subject to the unpredictable force of traffic. New York benefits greatly from economies of scale by use of NYC transportation. A subway that runs every 5 minutes is vastly vastly different from one that runs every 20 or 30. How much parking does New York provide? Because if you can pay, parking in San Francisco is not too hard. So while it wasn't difference in wealth levels directly, different wealth levels opted into different forms of transportation, leaving the public options woefully less used, and particularly less used by those with power (those with money).
  - inferiorhuman 4y ago
    NYC has a functioning subway system that can land you 2 blocks from just about anywhere. There are entire areas of San Francisco you have to navigate bus transfers, bus transfers that were not predictable, to get to. Bus transfers nearly always inflate trip time significantly and are subject to the unpredictable force of traffic. To put it politely: that's a load of crap unless you equate Lower Manhattan with all of New York City. There are huge swaths of New York that are inaccessible via the subway (primarily the outer boroughs). Go to the more suburban parts of Brooklyn or Queens for instance. Here's a Bloomberg article on what they call "subway deserts" or the "plight of the outer boroughs" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/mapping-new-york-city-s-subway-deserts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/mapping-n... A subway that runs every 5 minutes No subway runs every five minutes all day. Late night NY is every 20-30 (same as Muni), there's a wiki page for it. Per Muni's SRTP the light rail headways are b/t 12 and 20 minutes depending on the time of day. And before you complain Muni doesn't meet those standards, the New York subway is subject to human and mechanical delays just like San Francisco. Because if you can pay, parking in San Francisco is not too hard. Eh? There are roughly 500,000 vehicles registered in San Francisco and about 275,000 on street parking spots. There are residential permits in some areas to ensure turnover because, yes, it can be extremely difficult to find a spot. https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2020/01/sfmta_srtp_fy19-30_accessible_v2_0.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...
inferiorhuman 4y ago
This idea that San Francisco (or California or the whole west coast) shouldn't build transit because it doesn't meet some idealized version of transit in some other hip city is one of the worst takes I've seen. It's naive at best disingenuous at worst. The last time I checked (which was pre-pandemic) Muni carries around 750,000 riders daily – it's waaaay lower now. It's the last resort for privileged, antisocial techie types who've never lived in a city before, but is in fact the primary transit for a whole lot of people (including bicyclists). BART saw closer to 500,000 daily. Honestly I can't remember the last time I thought a station smelled overwhelmingly like urine. Seattle? Waiting in a vomit soaked line to clear immigration at the airport was up at the top of my list of unpleasant travel experiences. New York? Have any of you actually talked to New Yorkers? Or even bothered to look at a NY oriented site like Gothamist? I'm guessing not because otherwise you'd be well aware of the decrepit state of the NY subway (rats, violent crime, constant late night service disruptions, etc). Complaining about the subway is pretty much the city's favorite pastime. God help you if you end up in Penn Station (easily the most aggressively awful public toilets I've ever seen) or Grand Central and have to deal with the various infighting between the transit agencies. Late night service has been a mess for years as they try to prop up the dilapidated infrastructure. And if you want to talk expensive boondoggles there's always the 2nd Ave subway line. Paris? Plenty of junkies and whatnot when I was in Montmartre. RER out by the Eiffel Tower was equally sketchy. Frankfurt? Plenty-o-prostitutes and junkies around Frankfurt Hbf. Busted TVMs at the airport station. Want to check out the Lufthansa Technik museum? Good luck catching a train. Madrid? Easily the worst smelling metro I've ever been on. It's absolutely oppressive during the summer. Hopefully you're able bodied because the Madrid metro stations are pretty dang deep. Berlin? Graffiti covered trains. My most vivid memory in Kreuzberg was watching a zombie stumble out of the station and into the street only to get clobbered by a motorcycle. They ran away when someone offered to call an ambulance. Don't take my word for it (and, yes, Kottbusser Tor is gross). https://berlinspectator.com/2019/10/31/how-safe-and-comfortable-is-berlins-u-bahn-1/ https://berlinspectator.com/2019/10/31/how-safe-and-comforta... https://www.thelocal.de/20191031/more-people-instead-of-cameras-death-of-man-pushed-in-front-of-berlin-train-puts-focus-on-security-stations/ https://www.thelocal.de/20191031/more-people-instead-of-came... Singapore? Do you know why food/drink are banned? Because people are fucking gross. Ask a Singaporean what they think of the efforts to increase the automation on MRT lines. Osaka? Homeless guys living out of cardboard boxes. Public transit is a reflection of the society in which it's located. Unfortunately for all the handwaving, and as it turns out foreign countries are not utopias.

hedora 4y ago

All the BART stations have public restrooms, but they closed them after 9/11 for "security" reasons. It might finally be time to consider reopening them.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
olivermarks 4y ago
They did refurb and reopen a public rest room at the Powell Street muni/bart station in February at enormous expense https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/02/bart-reopens-bathroom-shuttered-for-20-years-bringing-much-needed-rider-relief/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/02/bart-reopens-bathroom... They are now used extensively by homeless for a variety of activities.
- dumpsterlid 4y ago
  "They are now used extensively by homeless for a variety of activities." Good, everytime a homeless person uses a public bathroom it is a net savings on health, safety and environmental impact because many of those people are denied access to anywhere to go take a shit and turns out people shitting everywhere isn't a great idea. If some of the homeless are out of control and trash the bathroom... ok fine we are talking about people in the most tumultous and vulnerable positions in our society here. Make the bathroom like portlands public bathrooms; design them so they are hard to break and you can hose them down.
- reillyse 4y ago
  Which is good right? Cause everyone needs to use the restroom and people are complaining about people urinating/defecating in non restroom areas? Nobody is not using the restroom by choice. Places that smell like urine or excrement clearly don’t have enough restrooms and/or don’t get cleaned enough

panick21_ 4y ago

California and the Bay Area specifically need to seriously look in the mirror and apply some basic logic to the situation. Public transport being bad and crime filled, is not the fault of public transport. Its a symptom of systematic failure to do even the most basic city planning, in fact maybe the historically worst example of city planning I can imagine. The solution is to continue to invest into walking, biking and public transport infrastructure. Continue to make it better while at the same time attempt to build real urban environments in the area. You need to build housing for literally millions of people inside of the current boundaries of the cities around the bay. The good news is that there is gigantic amount of commercial zoned land that could be turned into mixed use urban environments. Even better if you can defeat the NIMBY and rezone all the single family housing zones to low density mix use urban. Given the state of emergency, the city could even build these project and have 15% be public housing. City planners have been arguing for these basic things for 30+ years. Here is a modern take on some basic things that can be improved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtdFbK4YG4

dumpsterlid 4y ago
"Public transport being bad and crime filled, is not the fault of public transport. Its a symptom of systematic failure to do even the most basic city planning, in fact maybe the historically worst example of city planning I can imagine." San Francisco is home to some of the most powerful and wealthy tech companies on earth. There is unbelievable, literally unfathomable amounts of money in the city and yet there is a major homeless population that gets treated like shit and swept under the rock. If the public transit in San Francisco is as full of crime and "dirty homeless" as people say here, that clearly reflects shamefully on the companies and people who have more money than 99.99% of people on earth being incredibly cruel and hoarding it. I mean.. do rich people have no shame? How are you supposed to have pride about your city and techhub if there clearly people suffering massively right under your feet? What an incredible demonstration of cruelty and violence on that cities part not to use a tiny TINY fraction of its wealth to make sure people have basic support.
- hayst4ck 4y ago

deepdriver 4y ago

>On one hand, I understand the "what right do we have to kick homeless people off busses" argument. Every right, take them to shelters or drug abuse centers, living like this a choice you made

hayst4ck 4y ago
I think there are a lot of people who would have trouble with that knowing that person could be their own child, an ex, a parent, a friend, or themself. Even if you personally believe retribution or comeuppance, I there are good faith arguments that can be made. My dad smells like he's rotting due to a degenerative condition and can no longer drive, does he not deserve the ability to get to the hospital or bank on public transportation despite an offensive odor, occasional incontinence, and a somewhat homeless look? Should family be responsible? What if the rest of the family died in a car crash? The opiod epidemic alone showed significant numbers of people trusting a corrupted system being over prescribed addictive medications leading to the destruction of their lives so some billionaire can make a few extra dollars. Situations like that mean I don't find the people in bad situations deserve their fate argument very compelling. I personally don't want them on public transportation myself, I'm even ok with banning them, but I do think society owes the unfortunate transportation, even if it is comped uber. I think good faith people can disagree on that and respect arguments otherwise.
- deepdriver 4y ago
  This isn’t about unfortunate people’s access to transportation, it’s about unsanitary and unsafe abuse of the public transportation system, including public substance abuse and sleeping on the bus overnight. >I think there are a lot of people who would have trouble with that knowing that person could be their own child, an ex, a parent, a friend, or themself Every downward-spiraling addict has had parents, friends, and maybe children. How would they feel watching their loved one rot away on the street (or a bus) in the grip of addiction? It is inhumane to watch people shoot up heroin and drink themselves to death day after day in public spaces without intervention.
  - 4y ago

nine_k 4y ago

I wonder why buses in NYC feel safe, as are subway trains, shoplifting is a very rare sight, and it's pretty hard to find excrement on the streets. It seems that the problem is not in density, not in the large difference of wealth levels, not in ethnic / cultural composition, etc. Maybe it's somewhere around law enforcement, maintenance of public places, etc. Something that could be even changed by voting.

hayst4ck 4y ago
Uber subsidized tech/finance employee commute trips for many years. Uber was frequently twice the price of public transportation anywhere in the city for a point to point trip. It was irrational not to use Uber. Many businesses (facebook/google) provided private company only commuter buses, which meant tech employees never had to face the realities of public transportation and could easily avoid it. NYC has a functioning subway system that can land you 2 blocks from just about anywhere. There are entire areas of San Francisco you have to navigate bus transfers, bus transfers that were not predictable, to get to. Bus transfers nearly always inflate trip time significantly and are subject to the unpredictable force of traffic. New York benefits greatly from economies of scale by use of NYC transportation. A subway that runs every 5 minutes is vastly vastly different from one that runs every 20 or 30. How much parking does New York provide? Because if you can pay, parking in San Francisco is not too hard. So while it wasn't difference in wealth levels directly, different wealth levels opted into different forms of transportation, leaving the public options woefully less used, and particularly less used by those with power (those with money).
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  NYC has a functioning subway system that can land you 2 blocks from just about anywhere. There are entire areas of San Francisco you have to navigate bus transfers, bus transfers that were not predictable, to get to. Bus transfers nearly always inflate trip time significantly and are subject to the unpredictable force of traffic. To put it politely: that's a load of crap unless you equate Lower Manhattan with all of New York City. There are huge swaths of New York that are inaccessible via the subway (primarily the outer boroughs). Go to the more suburban parts of Brooklyn or Queens for instance. Here's a Bloomberg article on what they call "subway deserts" or the "plight of the outer boroughs" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/mapping-new-york-city-s-subway-deserts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/mapping-n... A subway that runs every 5 minutes No subway runs every five minutes all day. Late night NY is every 20-30 (same as Muni), there's a wiki page for it. Per Muni's SRTP the light rail headways are b/t 12 and 20 minutes depending on the time of day. And before you complain Muni doesn't meet those standards, the New York subway is subject to human and mechanical delays just like San Francisco. Because if you can pay, parking in San Francisco is not too hard. Eh? There are roughly 500,000 vehicles registered in San Francisco and about 275,000 on street parking spots. There are residential permits in some areas to ensure turnover because, yes, it can be extremely difficult to find a spot. https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2020/01/sfmta_srtp_fy19-30_accessible_v2_0.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...

inferiorhuman 4y ago

This idea that San Francisco (or California or the whole west coast) shouldn't build transit because it doesn't meet some idealized version of transit in some other hip city is one of the worst takes I've seen. It's naive at best disingenuous at worst. The last time I checked (which was pre-pandemic) Muni carries around 750,000 riders daily – it's waaaay lower now. It's the last resort for privileged, antisocial techie types who've never lived in a city before, but is in fact the primary transit for a whole lot of people (including bicyclists). BART saw closer to 500,000 daily. Honestly I can't remember the last time I thought a station smelled overwhelmingly like urine. Seattle? Waiting in a vomit soaked line to clear immigration at the airport was up at the top of my list of unpleasant travel experiences. New York? Have any of you actually talked to New Yorkers? Or even bothered to look at a NY oriented site like Gothamist? I'm guessing not because otherwise you'd be well aware of the decrepit state of the NY subway (rats, violent crime, constant late night service disruptions, etc). Complaining about the subway is pretty much the city's favorite pastime. God help you if you end up in Penn Station (easily the most aggressively awful public toilets I've ever seen) or Grand Central and have to deal with the various infighting between the transit agencies. Late night service has been a mess for years as they try to prop up the dilapidated infrastructure. And if you want to talk expensive boondoggles there's always the 2nd Ave subway line. Paris? Plenty of junkies and whatnot when I was in Montmartre. RER out by the Eiffel Tower was equally sketchy. Frankfurt? Plenty-o-prostitutes and junkies around Frankfurt Hbf. Busted TVMs at the airport station. Want to check out the Lufthansa Technik museum? Good luck catching a train. Madrid? Easily the worst smelling metro I've ever been on. It's absolutely oppressive during the summer. Hopefully you're able bodied because the Madrid metro stations are pretty dang deep. Berlin? Graffiti covered trains. My most vivid memory in Kreuzberg was watching a zombie stumble out of the station and into the street only to get clobbered by a motorcycle. They ran away when someone offered to call an ambulance. Don't take my word for it (and, yes, Kottbusser Tor is gross). https://berlinspectator.com/2019/10/31/how-safe-and-comfortable-is-berlins-u-bahn-1/ https://berlinspectator.com/2019/10/31/how-safe-and-comforta... https://www.thelocal.de/20191031/more-people-instead-of-cameras-death-of-man-pushed-in-front-of-berlin-train-puts-focus-on-security-stations/ https://www.thelocal.de/20191031/more-people-instead-of-came... Singapore? Do you know why food/drink are banned? Because people are fucking gross. Ask a Singaporean what they think of the efforts to increase the automation on MRT lines. Osaka? Homeless guys living out of cardboard boxes. Public transit is a reflection of the society in which it's located. Unfortunately for all the handwaving, and as it turns out foreign countries are not utopias.