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San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

sfchronicle.com

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Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#261

Post by PuppyTailWags »

giantg2 wrote: post #242
glacials wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born and raised in SF. NIMBYism is indeed a huge problem. It’s the hidden underbelly of a city with otherwise modern and diverse thinking. I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here.

How would the NIMBYism contribute to that cost? I can see construction costs being somewhat higher with COL and regulations, but you could solve this problem with one of those toilet trailers or a porta-john (or cinder block and other materials are relatively cheap). Seems like they want a certain "look".

My understanding is that NIMBYism also takes the form of adding multiple barriers to changing the neighborhood. Environmental permit, safety permit, approving architectural proposals prior to implementation, limitations on who does the construction, how the materials are sourced, approvals on construction times and schedules, etc. The people building it might need to hire lawyers to draft proposals formally to local committees to do multiple rounds of approval at multiple stages. These all have the intention of liberal policies (better materials for the environment for example) but the effect is that the community is conservative with development.

[eta: I'm not making an opinion about what is good/bad/should be done. Just expressing what I understand is happening.]

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#262

Post by TeeMassive »

aliqot wrote: post #202
cjtrowbridge wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In what ways is SFO right wing? I don't see much representation of that type as far as elected officials. Is this a term used in spirit or something I'm overlooking?

Replace "right" with "those who doesn't want to do the right thing" and most political speech kinda makes more sense.

The Left/Right split of viewing politics is a false dichotomy that made sense only about a century after the French Revolution, in France.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#263

Post by borissk »

lr4444lr wrote: post #224
mattnewton wrote: post #206

One of the reasons this toilet is so expensive no doubt, is that the new SF public toilets are self cleaning and will have attendants on duty to try to prevent this. The one on golden gate park and Haight closes after each visitor to spray the inside down like a dishwasher, and has an attendant on duty to make sure no one is inside while it does that (and to generally discourage people from shady stuff). It's not per…

They have to pay an attendant hourly just to be sure no one is in there while the self clean runs? Why can't it operate based on a weight sensor?

Because somebody will step on the sink or somehow else avoid the sensor and then sue for a round sum.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#264

Post by cdot2 »

hexator wrote: post #255
cdot2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think calling them "progressive in name only" is a bit of a "no-true-scotsman"

There is nothing progressive about literally stopping progress on housing affordability.

They could certainly make arguments about "urban beautification", "community involvement", and other "progressive" causes. Unless of course those arent true progressives.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#265

Post by Kalium »

aliqot wrote: post #174
glacials wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born and raised in SF. NIMBYism is indeed a huge problem. It’s the hidden underbelly of a city with otherwise modern and diverse thinking. I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm a simple kind of person in a small town, so to us here this is all kind of crazy. Is a city as big as SFO still governed by politicians who live in it, or at that size does local government take people from other areas? I always read a lot about SFO as being on the cutting edge of progressive initiatives usually toward humane goals. Is this common? This gives everything I've been told…

SF is governed mostly by the people who live there.

The core of the problem is that SF has spent decades investing in giving every person, block, and neighborhood ways to participate in planning and changes. Generally this means giving out some kind of veto. So when the time comes to do something "Yes, but do it somewhere else" is the predominant response.

To put it another way - everybody wants more shelters for the indigent, nobody wants one near where they live. The planning system is structured around enabling this.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#266

Post by itake »

lr4444lr wrote: post #208
bongobingo1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not unreasonable to attack effects of homelessness as well as the cause. Some problems are really hard and some are just hard . In other places where it wont cost 1.7M to build one public toilet, this wouldn't be seen as such a failure or mis-step, just extending public services to people in crisis - as long as it's not seen as "fixed" by doing so.

I think the OP wanted you to consider the benefit that 1.7 million could have had in providing direct aid to preventing homelessness, e.g. rental assistance or job training.

I'd think increasing demand would hurt everyone's bottom line, since non-assisted renters have competition with assisted renters for the same set of properties.

Is there any data on how rental assistance impacts market rental prices?

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#267

Post by roguas »

system16 wrote: post #164
Bilal_io wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like when an org needs to add a button to their website and it takes 20 meetings to get the okay. It's inefficient, ineffective and definitely not cheap. When many hands, many meetings, and definitely many layers of middleman are involved, it'll cost millions to build a single toilet.

You're not even exaggerating. I worked as a contractor some time back for a major Canadian telecom company that no longer exists. I remember spending hours of meetings on calls with no less than 10 stakeholders (and in some meetings senior management) "circling back" to get a decision on button position. Not a single one of these people were a designer/UX person. I'd imagine it's even worse in the public sector.

There is probably some fallacy to explain this. My intuition tells me that if you have meaningless job (or you feel as if) you tend to make big deal out of small decisions, assert your territory of control/reign etc.

This leads to what you described. I guess it also offers an easy cop out for them if the button will be placed in the worst possible way. "Since Jerry was also on the call and I always thought he has final say."

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#268

Post by collegeburner »

hedora wrote: post #135
michaelscott wrote: post #49

> San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. The irony in this statement, given the reasons why this toilet costs so much, is absolutely unreal. I had to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn't an old April's Fools skit or something, but it seems red tape and NIMBYism have escalated to such a degree in SF that (a) securing bu…

We have an access road that was sized for utility trucks. We had to widen it slightly because of obscure California regulations. Widening it didn’t cost $1.7M. However, the cost per linear foot was within a factor of two of buying a line of Tesla Model 3s. This is in an unincorporated (rural) area, on a farm. The work lasted one rainstorm before needing extensive repairs. I’m completely unsurprised that building a hu…

similarly, NYC decided to pay McKinsey $4mm to answer the question of whether large, stinky festering piles of trashbags would be better in containers.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#270

Post by sbmthakur »

michaelscott wrote: post #49

> San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. The irony in this statement, given the reasons why this toilet costs so much, is absolutely unreal. I had to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn't an old April's Fools skit or something, but it seems red tape and NIMBYism have escalated to such a degree in SF that (a) securing bu…

Is there any state that has laws to prevent NIMBYism?
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