San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by sys32768 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

toomanyrichies wrote: post #356

sys32768 wrote: post #51

I thought San Francisco was a public toilet?

Rule #1 on the comments section of the Guidelines page: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." Your comment goes against several of these requirements. Be better than this.

I agree I stepped in some snark here, but this city has a human feces tracker app, which I failed to include which may have softened the blow: http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/#

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

#542

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #492

rootusrootus wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city should create encampments themselves rather than let them grow organically. Then provide security and sanitation service. Portland may actually try this, all because the city got sued for violating the ADA. Maybe someone should try that in SF.

That's such a good idea that SF already does it! They're called "navigation centers". As you might guess, where to site one is an intensely political process. Oakland tried doing one temporarily. Three months turned into nine with major drug abuse and violence problems. Further, they couldn't actually manage the shrink-the-encampment goal, so eventually they had to clear it.

Yeah, I think the only way to make it work is to provide plenty of security, right along with the social workers. The NIMBYs in Portland primarily argue against siting a homeless shelter near them because of the associated violence. If the city actually staffed the shelters with enough security, that argument could be dismissed.

Of course another argument would pop up to replace it. So the other thing we need to do is quit trying to do direct democracy at every last level of the process. We elect representatives, so we should let them do their thing. And if we don't like it, elect someone else next time.

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

#543

Post by hot_gril » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

m0llusk wrote: post #233

hot_gril wrote: post #169

Reminds me of their $2.4B bus terminal, which opened in 2018, closed a month later when they noticed structural cracks, reopened in 2019, then closed in 2020 for covid19. Had to walk under its unfinished skeleton every day going to work.

You are making light of things for your own delight and political leanings which is exactly the kind of thing that leads to all this nastiness. The station you are talking about is multimodal and is going to get Caltrain even though it takes a long time. It has a unique structure that makes it essentially a big floating barge and the problems that came with that have since been fixed. Lots of stuff got closed for COV…

There's the obvious alternative of just building a regular terminal instead of an overdone mall-like thing with an artificial park on top. What they did was excessively costly and time-consuming, and during its long construction (effectively 9 years) the area was much less ped and bus friendly. It's like they wanted an iconic transportation structure like GG Bridge, except GG Bridge's form actually serves its function.

Since $2.6B can be too big to think about, Salesforce Tower (tallest building in SF) cost $1.1B to build around the same time and in the same location. It took 5 years to build.

Why did I mention Covid, to illustrate the point that things are more valuable now rather than later, cause you don't know what's going to happen. I don't want to hear that it's going to be useful eventually when they could've KISS'd and made something useful years ago.

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

#544

Post by avisser » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #299

dekhn wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I worked in Moutain View, AKA MTV. And the SF office of Google is SFO. But nobody calls the city SFO.

Maybe you call it that if the entire point of the city to you is just the office, haha. I do hesitate to call my home city "LAX."

At least LAX is in Los Angeles. Not true of SFO.

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

#545

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #489

ceejayoz wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is it was for partisans embedded in occupied areas working in critical infrastructure and manufacturing.

The Germans held meetings where they allowed partisans to make speeches and question their decisions?

When the Germans took France and all the other countries, they didn't replace all the management and workers at the various factories there. They didn't have that much manpower; their own managers and workers already had jobs. This left plenty of opportunity for obstruction and sabotage.

For example: https://jalopnik.com/citroen-sabotaged-wartime-nazi-truck-pr...

> Of course, he instructed workers to set a nice, leisurely pace when building trucks (likely Citroën T45 trucks) for the Wermacht, but that’s fairly obvious. What was brilliant was Boulanger’s idea to move the little notch on the trucks’ oil dipsticks that indicated the proper level of oil down just a bit lower.

> By moving the notch down, the trucks would not have enough oil, but German mechanics would have no idea, because, hey, the little notch on the dipstick says its just fine. Then, after the truck has been used for a while and is out deployed somewhere crucial, whammo, the engine seizes up, and you’ve got a lot of angry, stranded, vulnerable Nazis, balling up their little fists and redly barking curses in German.

The whole thing also includes lots of non-meeting options; making sprinkler systems go off, clogging toilets, dulling cutting tools, etc.

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

#546

Post by bombcar » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #486

mjhay wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here. I've never heard Seattle described as a place where "shit can actually get done," but I suppose its not quite as bad as SF at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process

I almost spat out my drink when they said: ... and then I went to Seattle. The light rail extension fiascos are the most publicly facing examples of this. Dear god SF must be bad when Seattle looks like a well oiled machine.

Seattle did bury the viaduct and add a light rail and build a stadium, so they have accomplished more than SF has, apparently.

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

#547

Post by bruce343434 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

david_allison wrote: post #404

mym1990 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were the type of public toilets in France, it was actually very interesting to see and a bit confusing as I couldn't figure out why I couldn't go in right after another person... Wonder if it cost Paris 1.7 mil as well?

Rented for about €1200 per month per toilet. 6MM/year for 420 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette#In_Paris

6 million million?

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

#548

Post by bombcar » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

tanseydavid wrote: post #390

dekhn wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I worked in Moutain View, AKA MTV. And the SF office of Google is SFO. But nobody calls the city SFO.

>> But nobody calls the city SFO. Yes they do. And some also call it Frisco and San Fran. After 35 years in the Bay Area I have settled on calling it "The City" but will bust out with "San Fran Frisco" on special occasions to just to be irritating to those who desperately want to "fit in."

Cisco™ is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems™.

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

#549

Post by choko » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #530

rootusrootus wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absurd. NIMBY is absolutely, 100% independent of political ideology.

I agree. Free market conservatives will suddenly love zoning if it keeps a factory out of their neighborhood.

Free market conservatives don't necessarily hate zoning.

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

#550

Post by jollyllama » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #484

cycrutchfield wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you seem to believe that only manual laborers can add value?

Because in this specific case they are the only party who did anything helpful to the people who were trying to turn money into a road. I don't think he meant that you have to do labor to add value.

^^^