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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

#771

Post by zaidf »

novok wrote: post #584
_uhtu wrote: post #125

The central issue in SF really is just that all the stakeholders with any power whatsoever are highly incentivized to minimize change, because most of the voting and bribery base (I mean, political donation base) is manically obsessed with keeping housing prices as high as possible, so every department in every place in government is designed to slow and reject permits as much as possible. The incentives have been th…

IMO the higher prices for shit on the streets camp make sure that the shit doesn't end up in their neighborhood. Go to various wealthier & busier places in the city and notice the curious lack of crap on the roads, or homeless people in general.

Agree 100%. Lived in the Tenderloin for 6+ years before moving to a nicer part of SF.

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

#773

Post by no_butterscotch »

_blz2 wrote: post #442

Californians who move out, remember back test your beliefs before you force them (usually via money) where you move to. There's a reason why you're moving out and part of that reason is your flawed thinking. Doubling down on that will only lead to more 0 trust societies like SF.

Looking at you Austin.

Seriously all the people moving to the "SF of Texas" because they no longer like SF is hilarious.

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

#774

Post by no_butterscotch »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #476

Considering all the parties mentioned, from city leaders to committees etc., the massive figure makes more sense when you realize it's actually a welfare program in disguise to support a bunch of people with bullshit jobs.

Homelessness and drug-abuse employs a lot of people in SF. Many people would no longer have fundraisers, gala events, and other things if those issues were solved.

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

#775

Post by therealjumbo »

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…

This is laughable. So poking fun at a projects cost overruns and failures is actually the reason for the failure in the first place? I guess then Jon Stewart is responsible for the failures of the Bush administration then?

Why did your project take 2x as long and cost 5x as much? Because somebody on the internet made snarky comments...

No, this is grift, red tape and incompetence. Go look at other cities in the US, they don't have these costs that are anywhere near SF for the same amount of work.

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

#776

Post by d6e »

pyuser583 wrote: post #697
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?

Don’t the ones in Paris cost money?

They’re free i used one today. Some of the bathrooms in the malls are paid though. But not the outdoor self cleaning ones.

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

#777

Post by tomcam »

HWR_14 wrote: post #686
tomcam wrote: post #31

Why didn’t they open up the bids? My firm would’ve been willing to do that toilet for only $1.45 million and get it done within 18 months. Because we are go-getters /s

They are opening up the bids soon. Feel free to bid 1.45 MM, but that will probably be too high as the 1.7MM cost includes the architect, running the bid process, etc.

We obviously need to collab

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

#778

Post by microtherion »

sschueller wrote: post #154

In contrast the tiny city of Zürich Switzerland has 106 public toilet facilities. [1] Some are staffed, some cost money to use and some are open 247. Does my tax money pay for this, yes, I have used them and I am glad they exist. The maintenance of these 106 facilities cost around 6,895,000 CHF (~USD) per year. Around 40% of that is staffing costs and 23% is rent to 3rd parties. Yearly investment in upgrades etc. is…

But construction costs are non-negligible, between 300,000 and 350,000 CHF, according to the city:

https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de/index/immobilien-bewirts...

Building a public toilet that remains reasonably appealing over its lifecycle (Zürich plans for a 20 year lifetime) is a non-trivial problem and has a non-trivial cost.

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

#779

Post by Firmwarrior »

kelnos wrote: post #654
anon291 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas and Idaho have much more housing and build much more, for better or worse. And are much cheaper.

Most Texas and Idaho cities also have a lot more physical space to work with than SF does. (Hell, most cities, period, do.)

That's such a load of baloney, man. Yeah, you're right, SF is hemmed in by a bunch of natural barriers

BUT there's more than enough space and money to build some utopian high-density stuff if it weren't for the NIMBYism. You can work part time as a janitor in downtown Tokyo and afford live in a comfortable apartment within 20 minutes of your job (Comfortable by local standards, but Japanese people don't usually use couches or beds. You could afford a place comfortable by American standards with a 45 minute commute)

Man, this area makes me so angry every day. Every time I go to a store or restaurant the people working there are lazy rude slobs because they're stressed out, overworked, and underpaid. I can't even blame them for being a-holes, because a lot of them have been pushed out of their homes and have to endure hours of commute every day just to BARELY scrape by.

I'm getting blasted by political spam now, and it's all about "protecting home values". If I could somehow cause an earthquake to level this region without physically hurting anyone, I'd do it right now. I'm counting down the days until I can leave at this point.

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