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

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

#631

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #107

“the committee evaluates each project’s design, scale and massing for accessibility, safety and aesthetic merit.” The review process “ensures that each project’s design is appropriate to its context in the urban environment, and that structures of the highest design quality reflect their civic stature.” This is a perfect example of why you codify requirements and any review for permitting is as objective as possible.…

Can you crap in it? Does it get crap on you? Anything that meets the description will do (doo) .

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

#632

Post by Gigachad » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #289

at_a_remove wrote: post #181

I wonder what precautions will be taken to make sure that toilet doesn't become either someone's residence or a "shooting gallery."

How the rest of the world (including parts of the US) does it - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/blue-lights-drug-users-high/st...

Honestly these just make the place feel extremely shady. Supposedly addicts just mark their veins with a pen before going in anyway.

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

#633

Post by mousetree » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

yupper32 wrote: post #536

uoaei wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you need is a PIR sensor

It's cheaper to pay someone $20 an hour 24 hours a day for 20 years than it is to pay out the $4mil lawsuit for when that sensor fails.

I'm not an American, but can/would people sue for getting washed in a self-cleaning toilet? Surely some signs and disclosures would be sufficient?

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

#634

Post by Raidion » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #425

It's simple. It's not their money. When you ask any SF Department to give you a budget for something, they will just hallucinate a number and pull it out of their ass. Matt Haney (the State Senator) asked the Parks & Rec Department for an estimate of what would it cost to build the toilet (given that the hookups are already in place). They shrugged and pulled a figure of $1.7M out of their ass. And he just accepted t…

I feel like that's a terrible false equivalency. One of the most liberal cities in the country making a bad decision over one toilet is not nearly enough to say "the whole concept of American government is too big, better reconsider my political party"

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

#635

Post by dralley » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #425

It's simple. It's not their money. When you ask any SF Department to give you a budget for something, they will just hallucinate a number and pull it out of their ass. Matt Haney (the State Senator) asked the Parks & Rec Department for an estimate of what would it cost to build the toilet (given that the hookups are already in place). They shrugged and pulled a figure of $1.7M out of their ass. And he just accepted t…

>When I read cases like these, I feel like maybe the Republicans _are_ on to something: the government has become too big.

States like Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky etc. are absolutely not immune to corruption, I assure you.

Small-government Republicanism hasn't truly existed in decades.

However, that's not to diminish blame from cities like NY, Chicago, LA, SF. They need to get their flipping act together.

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

#636

Post by feoren » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #425

It's simple. It's not their money. When you ask any SF Department to give you a budget for something, they will just hallucinate a number and pull it out of their ass. Matt Haney (the State Senator) asked the Parks & Rec Department for an estimate of what would it cost to build the toilet (given that the hookups are already in place). They shrugged and pulled a figure of $1.7M out of their ass. And he just accepted t…

> maybe the Republicans _are_ on to something: the government has become too big.

Except this is SF, not the Federal Government, and part of the reason the costs are so high is because PG&E is holding the city hostage. Republicans want giant corporations like PG&E to have more power to hold the government hostage and loot it. Why do you pay attention to what they say, rather than what they do? They never actually shrink the government; the bigger the government is, the more there is to loot, after all.

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

#637

Post by jakear » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #627

jakear wrote: post #500

The real solution to the public defecation crisis is either unlocking bathrooms at night or more “single” use plastic bags. Anyone knows dog parks have less shit around when there are bags readily available, but somehow they haven’t connected that to the city in general. It used to be you could pretty reliably find a good clean plastic bag in any trash can. Not so anymore. Problem is anyone proposing this in governme…

You're saying people who are pooping on public sidewalks will willingly choose to poop into plastic bags on public sidewalks, if only they had them available?

I can’t speak for everyone, but some of them yes! If you were homeless and needed to shit in the middle of the night (usually avoidable, but stomach bugs can screw you - and they’re more common when you can only afford bottom of the barrel food), would you prefer to do it directly on the street in the vicinity of your bed where you’ll have to smell it and look at it for weeks, or into a bag where you can properly dispose of it immediately?

Now imagine you live in a community with a dozen other hobos, what sorts of policies would you legislate?

You know we aren’t that different, you and I.

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

#638

Post by onetokeoverthe » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

dralley wrote: post #635

1024core wrote: post #425

It's simple. It's not their money. When you ask any SF Department to give you a budget for something, they will just hallucinate a number and pull it out of their ass. Matt Haney (the State Senator) asked the Parks & Rec Department for an estimate of what would it cost to build the toilet (given that the hookups are already in place). They shrugged and pulled a figure of $1.7M out of their ass. And he just accepted t…

>When I read cases like these, I feel like maybe the Republicans _are_ on to something: the government has become too big. States like Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky etc. are absolutely not immune to corruption, I assure you. Small-government Republicanism hasn't truly existed in decades. However, that's not to diminish blame from cities like NY, Chicago, LA, SF. They need to get their flipping act together.

No post body was provided.

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

#639

Post by haberman » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #435

asow92 wrote: post #160

Why is it that the deepest blue areas of the country have some of the most abject inequity and poverty? It seems that there's a fine line between compassion and enablement when it comes to the deep blue municipalities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, etc. Sure the rustbelt, deep south, and Appalachia are areas with similar problems and mixed politics, but they also somehow feel different.

The rustbelt, deep south, and Appalachia are not some beautiful, middle class paradises. They're full of towns littered with heroin and meth addicts subsidized by welfare and petty crime. You just don't see it or read about it because it's across thousands of small towns and not concentrated in major cities, where media also tends to live. These places have a lot of violence, social issues, drug overdoses, etc. They…

I just spent a few days in Birmingham, Alabama. The downtown streets were so clean you could eat off of them.

It is really hard to come back to Seattle and see all of the trash everywhere. In the Seattle airport one of the bathroom stalls looked like someone had used the floor as a trash can. There were orange peels, discarded shoes, and various other trash sitting on the floor next to the toilet.

Social problems exist everywhere, but that's no reason to give up on having pleasant and usable public spaces.

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

#640

Post by jakear » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #624

jakear wrote: post #500

The real solution to the public defecation crisis is either unlocking bathrooms at night or more “single” use plastic bags. Anyone knows dog parks have less shit around when there are bags readily available, but somehow they haven’t connected that to the city in general. It used to be you could pretty reliably find a good clean plastic bag in any trash can. Not so anymore. Problem is anyone proposing this in governme…

I don't think it's even possible to solve the public toilet problem without first solving the drug abuse problem. Everyone agrees it would be ideal to have toilet access to everyone, but no one has an answer for how you design a toilet that's impossible to abuse.

Folks abuse drugs right on the street in SF. I don’t see why they’d prefer to take up a stall, where you’re much more likely to get noticed, complained about, and “handled”.

If not a doggy bag supply outside locked bathrooms, a roomful of toilets with no doors/walls/etc would be better than what we have now. Down with the idea that defecation is a naughtily private affair, bring back public bathhouses!