It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…
> The homeless will continue to do whatever they can get away with, and those of us with higher incomes will grumble a bit and pay the taxes. The only solution I've seen that has a chance to change this is to come down hard on poor public transit behavior, perhaps by putting actual people on the buses with the specific job of cracking down on the drunk/high/piss soaked/etc types, in an effort to improve the quality o…
We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
211–220 of 344 posts
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems disingenuous at best. Why are you commenting on HN when you could be out helping these homeless anyway? Is your time, happiness, etc, really worth more than their lives? https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
That's not what GP is saying. GP says that public transit is transit with your neighbors. If your neighbors are smelly junkies, then something is wrong with your community. Shoving people into cars to avoid the homeless is orthogonal to solving crowding issues. This issue only comes up in SF because of the large wealth disparity between the upper-middle class and everyone below them. Here, the upper-middle pays for t…
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm saying citizens should solve the problem. And I know it's not your job. It's nobody's job. That's why nothing has been done. I mean, the stupidest thing about this is this isn't that hard a problem to solve. Homeless people are just regular people with a problem and no resources to fix it. You provide them resources and help and they are no longer homeless and no longer a nuisance. Instead, people see them li…
It seems a bit bizarre to imply that individual citizens have the responsibility or even capability of meaningfully solving major public welfare or health issues. Surely no one would imply the same for, say, crime or disease epidemics.
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. If this were stopped, then it might be better than being in a car.
>> As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. Excuse me, but- where does that happen? I mention in another comment that I live in a town in England, where I've never had any problems with homeless people in public transport. I also work in London, travel by rail across Europe and often use public transport in three different European…
Trains are mostly fine, but I won't take a bus or a tram if I can avoid it. If I can get somewhere by train or bus, and the train would be 10 minutes slower, I'll take the train.
The other day on the tram I had to deal with drunk ex-con listening to his bluetooth speaker and verbally abusing a poor Asian lady to the point she had to get off the tram. I was disgusted, but I wanted my teeth to remain in my mouth, so I couldn't do anything.
I've had to deal with plenty of abusive arseholes on the bus too. And even just people being noisy, like South Americans treating the bus like it's a nightclub (which I personally don't mind) or just drunk people yelling at each other because they've forgotten their inside voice.
Then some people treat public transport like it's a landfill. Especially on a Friday or Saturday night, public transport will be filled with beer bottles.
The drivers don't care. They sit in a little perspex box so that they can't get assaulted by the passengers and just drive the bus or the tram around.
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#215It seems this discussion comes up fairly often, and the solution is almost always some variation of "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit". On the surface that kind of makes sense, using a large stick to strongly encourage change, but I think at its core it misses a huge portion of the problem, which is that bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bi…
> bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft. How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affe…
Buses and trams are slower as they're still in traffic, and now have to stop every 500 m to pick up or drop off passengers.
I'll usually take an uber if I actually need to get somewhere on time and it's not near a train station.
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
In your example a corner to corner trip would take ~90 minutes by scooter, considering the 20 mile Manhattan distance + stoplights. A ring highway would get you there in 15-20 minutes. Even a set of properly timed lights would allow 35mph traffic to cross the width in ~20 minutes - which notably can't be (or just never are?) efficiently timed for pedestrians/scooters. for the extra hour+ that scooter would take (give…
In a walkable city you don't need to go from one end of the city to the other. 10 mi. is insanity. You should be able to go a maximum of 2 mi. and find what you're looking for. I'm in a biking-density neighborhood, and have multiple grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, and furniture stores within 1 mi. of me. In a walking density neighborhood, I would expect that to all be available within 0.5 mi. of me.
Now I'm all for effective public transit and dense neighborhoods, but walking and/or biking are simply worse for a lot of use cases.
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mass transit is a viable solution to people only when it's more convenient than cars. When the hassle of driving and finding parking is less than the extra walk/transfers/etc of taking transit, most people will drive. If you have mobility issues or have cargo you need to haul back, you're even more likely to drive. Here in Seattle our roads are at capacity and the city is actively working to increase density, creatin…
Why would you need to transfer to bus? Wouldn’t link go from UW straight through to the airport?
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. If this were stopped, then it might be better than being in a car.
>> As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. Excuse me, but- where does that happen? I mention in another comment that I live in a town in England, where I've never had any problems with homeless people in public transport. I also work in London, travel by rail across Europe and often use public transport in three different European…
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm saying citizens should solve the problem. And I know it's not your job. It's nobody's job. That's why nothing has been done. I mean, the stupidest thing about this is this isn't that hard a problem to solve. Homeless people are just regular people with a problem and no resources to fix it. You provide them resources and help and they are no longer homeless and no longer a nuisance. Instead, people see them li…
It seems a bit bizarre to imply that individual citizens have the responsibility or even capability of meaningfully solving major public welfare or health issues. Surely no one would imply the same for, say, crime or disease epidemics.
We also require they call the police when a crime is occurring. And the fire department when a fire occurs. And the city's department of works when a water main breaks. We also require they follow minimum driving standards and laws, take a test to certify they can drive, and make sure their vehicle passes a regular safety inspection.
"Public safety" in America is funny sometimes. In the rest of the developed world, produce and eggs don't usually come pre-washed, and you can even buy unpasteurized cheese and milk. But we Americans take so little responsibility for our own welfare that we literally force our society to protect us in every possible corner case, because taking the time to protect ourselves is too much to ask.
Except when it comes to necessities, like guns. Then we'd much rather be dead than safe.
Another fun example of how it's a citizen's responsibility to help: ending unjust laws that unfairly target people with no ability to defend themselves. Like the homeless. In many cities in America, it is illegal for a citizen to give a sandwich to a homeless person. They also are banned from many public spaces, and pushed out of the few places that they can actually have a space to rest or sleep, like highway underpasses and abandoned train tracks. They can't form a coalition and petition the city on their behalf; they don't have the resources. But we do.
We also have the resources to vote to install more shelters, more food banks, more outreach programs, more clean needle exchanges, more job programs, or hell, even just a place someone can have a shit and a shower. We have the resources to vote for programs to help hire homeless people, and to vote to expand low income housing. We have the resources to vote to distribute blankets and food during the winter, and expand safe spaces for more vulnerable homeless like women, children, LGBTQ youth, and so on. There's a lot of things we could do as citizens that wouldn't require you to actually do anything other than check off a box on a ballot, and maybe fork over an extra $1.50 in local taxes.
That's the least a citizen could do, but I don't see that being done either.
Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
It already is better than a car. It has a higher throughput and lower cost. If you value luxury, pay more for private transit. This isn’t contrary to a city that invests in public transit. SF is practically undrivable during the week rush hour because people prioritize comfort over economy. So the only knob a city has is to increase expense of driving, or to make public transit more comfortable. I don’t see any human…
High throughput and low cost are not the only metrics that commuters care about, clearly, or else they'd be riding public transit. If you offer to PAY ME a dollar to ride on BART next to a smelly, loud homeless person for an hour, versus me PAYING $10 in gas to drive to work, I'll pick the latter without hesitation.