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A rant on bus stops

walkingtheworld.substack.com

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Re: A rant on bus stops

#71

Post by Georgelemental »

high_priest wrote: post #33
fbdab103 wrote: post #15

>A removal of resources for the majority, because of concerns over “misuse” of less than one percent of residents. Ah yes, the American way. The same justification I have heard as to why bathroom stalls need to have gaps and be unpleasant, "What if someone were to have sex and/or do drugs in there?!" Let them do it, just let me have a minor moment of privacy while I am pooping.

Well. Allowing for 'safe haven' for drug abusers in 'private' spaces comes with the side effect of attracting unsanitary behavior aswell, not letting you have a 'poopoo-peepee' time whatsoever.

"Anarcho-tyranny" describes this so perfectly. If a tiny minority of bad behaving people of people is making things worse for all of us, we could choose to help, punish, or sequester that minority, as appropriate. But instead, it's the majority that must suffer in accommodation.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#72

Post by WWLink »

fortran77 wrote: post #39

It's infuriating to learn that LA spends taxpayer money to send bus stop designers on overseas junkets.

Sure is. I wonder how many people in MTA have actually spent some part of their life riding buses every day.

I'm a little on the fence here. Bus shelters are a mixed bag. They can be nice if they work against the wind, but on a cold afternoon they tend to feel even worse than sitting in the sunlight. Plus they're giant targets for vandalism and graffiti.

I agree 1000000% that every bus stop should be well-lit, however! And I think there should be a decent amount of room, too. Having a sign on a narrow sidewalk feels so dang dangerous when you're waiting for a bus.

One thing the article doesn't mention is the high amount of vandalism. I think the penalties for vandalizing public property are much lower than they should be. unlike, say, shoplifting some food from a store, there really isn't a good explanation for breaking a bus stop bench or a glass windshield on a bus shelter. But people are assholes and do it anyway! Then they vandalize the buses and trains too. Those things are expensive! And anti-grafitti/anti-vandalism materials make them a lot less comfortable to use.

Like, silly silly example, but if you ever take one of the retro streetcars in SF they have padded leather seats that are quite nice. Then you go hop on a newer muni train and they have hard plastic benches lol. With holes in the middle so that if someone spills something (or urinates lol) the liquid doesn't pool up on the seat. Hahaha I saw this on an AC transit bus once when I was a kid.. lol. It's actually the only time I've ever seen something like that.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#73

Post by mindslight »

Retric wrote: post #34
JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So unbridled Capitalism?

Capitalism doesn’t inherently mean companies get to alter the laws to favor themselves or government should decide winners and losers with bailouts. That’s a function of the political system involved. This is something else. In some ways it’s closest too feudalism where the rule of law is subservient to various powerful entities and limited competition exists parallel to various monopolies. Though obviously it’s very…

It kind of does? I go back and forth on this - I do hate the trope of blaming everything on "capitalism", because doing so seems like a recipe for something much worse.

But the best good faith definition of capitalism that I can come up with is that it's a framework focusing on capital first and foremost. Contrast with focusing on free markets first and foremost. A lot of people hand wave away the distinction between those two and treat them as synonyms, but they can be strikingly different and even directly opposed.

For example, imaginary property. A focus on capital leads one to conclude that creating new types of capital out of whole cloth is a good thing. Whereas a focus on free markets sees imaginary property as a market intervention (whether justifiable or not).

Similarly, capitalism would seem to include regulatory capture and other purchased legislation as a form of business capital.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#74

Post by verall »

pyuser583 wrote: post #36
ajuc wrote: post #6

Because homelessness. Because medical bankrupcy and opioid crisis. Caused by THE SAME industry. Nobody's responsible. Because USA is designed by and for small groups of people owning the companies providing for ridiculous money at insane conditions what everywhere else is cheap or free and well regulated.

Which industry are you talking about? The pharmaceutical industry is international. Many of the big players are headquartered in UK, Canada, etc. Hospitals are mostly non-profit, and mostly purely domestic.

The pharma-hospital-insurance complex. The same non-profit hospitals in which at least one person you're seen by will be out of your insurance network because it makes more money for the hospital. The same pharma companies which evergreen and lobby for drugs to be ruled unsafe once patent rights run out. The same AMA that limits the number of doctors and ensures they are paid more than any other country while patients wait months for availability. The same insurance companies which intentionally hide their deals with hospitals to obscure the true cost of Healthcare services.

It's not a shadowy cabal deciding to make medicine worse to profit more, the sociopathy is efficiently diffused between everyone involved, many of whom work their asses off in incredibly stressful environments for a tiny share of these profits, powerless to change anything about the system.

But for purposes of discussion, it's one industry and it's fucking broken. It is impossible to fix anything by changing only one piece of this.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#75

Post by ajuc »

wilg wrote: post #28
ajuc wrote: post #6

Because homelessness. Because medical bankrupcy and opioid crisis. Caused by THE SAME industry. Nobody's responsible. Because USA is designed by and for small groups of people owning the companies providing for ridiculous money at insane conditions what everywhere else is cheap or free and well regulated.

As I posted elsewhere in this thread, not a good diagnosis of homelessness. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

Houses per capita: https://imgur.com/oS9d2kf from https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-cons...

Homeless per 10k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho...

Notice that USA has more houses per capita than countries with homeless populations that are significantly smaller.

People can move between American states easily. If there's a state where living as a homeless person is easier - people without homes will move there. Which will cause the problem to grow there and decrease in the origin state. If you really wanted to only compare American states - at least split the states by "homeless produced" vs "homeless exported". Otherwise it's just propaganda. Also - why would you only compare American states? Seems very manipulative. Like you wanted to ignore the possible causes of the problem that are shared by all American states.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#76

Post by samstave »

nine_zeros wrote: post #55

Oh yes, the old, "Everyone gotta have ID because what if there is voter fraud"...even if it eliminates the right to vote for some people. "Everyone gotta get preauthorization from insurance because what if there is insurance fraud"....even if the delay kills someone on the hospital bed. "Everyone gotta carry REAL ID because what if some people are illegal"...even if the delay in getting REAL ID causes legal people to…

>"America is a country based on denial of rights"

"America masquerades as a country based on Freedom, where a democracy gets to vote on politicians whose sole purpose is personal wealth-growth and/through the denial of others' rights ; to protect the former"

Re: A rant on bus stops

#77

Post by psychlops »

esafak wrote: post #62
psychlops wrote: post #26

The US doesn't have a homeless problem, California has a homeless problem.

Because the rest of the US sends them to California. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

I know I'll only get downvoted by more californians, but can't resist the relevant southpark link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsrBlKpbBS8

Re: A rant on bus stops

#78

Post by ajuc »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #21
ajuc wrote: post #6

Because homelessness. Because medical bankrupcy and opioid crisis. Caused by THE SAME industry. Nobody's responsible. Because USA is designed by and for small groups of people owning the companies providing for ridiculous money at insane conditions what everywhere else is cheap or free and well regulated.

So unbridled Capitalism?

Capitalism is ok, as long as it's regulated by democracy.

Oligarchy is the problem.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#79

Post by kika »

nine_zeros wrote: post #55

Oh yes, the old, "Everyone gotta have ID because what if there is voter fraud"...even if it eliminates the right to vote for some people. "Everyone gotta get preauthorization from insurance because what if there is insurance fraud"....even if the delay kills someone on the hospital bed. "Everyone gotta carry REAL ID because what if some people are illegal"...even if the delay in getting REAL ID causes legal people to…

Line 5 and 6 seem to contradict each other. From 5 it looks like you want to more "gun licensing" and in line 6 you want not to "deny rights". Whereas gun licensing (any licensing, technically speaking) is the denial of right. And any argument (of which there are many valid ones) for gun licensing is precisely what you're arguing against: "Everyone gotta have The Gun License because think of the children" ... even if it deprives someone from the right to protect their life.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#80

Post by Georgelemental »

esafak wrote: post #68
koreth1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Istanbul is flourishing because it's the Turkish capital The capital of Turkey is Ankara, not Istanbul.

And Turkey is definitely not a high trust country. https://ourworldindata.org/trust

Those one-question surveys are often too simplistic, don't reflect people's real attitudes or behavior wrt trust.
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