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

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

#461

Post by erulabs » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #326

jollyllama wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many bureaucrats and construction profiteers, not enough good laborers.

I sincerely wonder if we have 'democratized' infrastructure and construction too much. >"First, an architect needs to draw plans for the toilet, which will then be presented to the public for feedback. The Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee will be responsible for conducting a “multi-phase review” of the project, like it does for all projects on public lands. According to the Arts Commission’s website, “…

> just need to delegate authority and let them act mostly autonomously

Not to be glib, and I expect to be excoriated for such a comment, but I literally cannot think of a way to not be snarky: I believe what you're describing is called ownership.

Particularly in discussions of SF, I find this amazingly long road back to where we started: "If only there was some system where people with the most interest in a particular building could make their own choices!" - "If only people who owned land could build buildings on it!". That system exists - it's called private property.

Bureaucracy exists because no individuals have any ownership over any of this. The pipes and the surface of the sidewalk belong to different authorities - and dozens of oversight committees (the dreaded planning commission) have vague authority layered on top. If no one can own it, and we don't want authoritarian political power, then we have to accept that bureaucracy is simply the only way forward. There are no choices that are not somewhere on the line between "one person owns", "everyone owns" or "the king owns". We must make a choice - and if the choice is "libertarianism is stupid but ALSO authoritarianism is stupid" then hey, achingly slow bureaucracy is on the menu folks. We can't have our cake and eat it too.

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

#462

Post by dalyons » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #438

hot_gril wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked there in 2016-2018 and returned several times 2020-21, and yes it's been this way. It's not very difficult to deal with, just annoying enough that at some point you might get tired of it. I walked everywhere, only avoiding a few streets. You can find the cafés or even public seating areas that are hospitable, but it may require a little trial and error. The one actually hard thing is finding a bathroom. Many…

The Philippines has pay toilets ("comfort rooms") everywhere. I've always wondered why the US has capitalism for everything but toilets. It really makes things more convenient as people have an actual incentive to offer toilets to the public, and the prices are low by local standards.

there's actually bans against them in most states, from a student campaign in the 70s. Funny little piece of history: https://apnews.com/article/3b2787ac6c32405e8cd7aafe8789cd8e

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

#463

Post by ActorNightly » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #148

Is the SF Bay Area the worst managed "successful" economic urban area in the world ? It performs pretty badly on public transport, safety, affordability & sanitation. All its pros seem to exist despite the management, and not because of it. (Universities, Jobs, Weather, Nature) I thought Greater Seattle was badly managed, but it has been funding light rail, missing middle-housing and recently started reversing the cr…

No post body was provided.

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

#464

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #331

aliqot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm a simple kind of person in a small town, so to us here this is all kind of crazy. Is a city as big as SFO still governed by politicians who live in it, or at that size does local government take people from other areas? I always read a lot about SFO as being on the cutting edge of progressive initiatives usually toward humane goals. Is this common? This gives everything I've been told…

I've only visited San Francisco, but I think one thing to consider is actually that it's a really small city with just too much going for its size. It's only 46 square mile and has over 800k inhabitants. It's the second densest city after New York. The surrounding Bay area adds 6.7 million more people, a large amount of who regularly go into the city for entertainment or work. I think it's an estimated 160k additiona…

> The city is fully built as well, there's no lots left

While that may be true, a huge fraction of the city is single family homes. Increasing housing capacity would be trivial were the political will to exist.

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

#465

Post by eitally » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #202

cjtrowbridge wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In what ways is SFO right wing? I don't see much representation of that type as far as elected officials. Is this a term used in spirit or something I'm overlooking?

https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/would-you-believe-sa...

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

#466

Post by asow92 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

drewrv wrote: post #453

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.

Other comments mention that it's more visible in cities, but I'd like to add that "abject inequity and poverty" are national problems that cities cannot solve individually. Rural areas are given disproportionate political power in our national elections while cities go underrepresented. So national problems that affect cities go ignored.

If rural areas are given disproportionate political power, why can't political parties that feel this disadvantage do better in those areas? Why change the rules of the game instead of winning it?

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

#467

Post by raldi » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

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.

Show me a place that lacks inequality and I'll show you a place that drove out all their poor people.

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

#468

Post by ZoomerCretin » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #353

michaelscott wrote: post #49

> San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. The irony in this statement, given the reasons why this toilet costs so much, is absolutely unreal. I had to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn't an old April's Fools skit or something, but it seems red tape and NIMBYism have escalated to such a degree in SF that (a) securing bu…

> a far better option than actually trying to provide housing or attack more of the root causes. I see a lot of discussion among urbanists of "induced demand" when adding extra lanes to highways. Are we sure there wouldn't be induced demand from providing free housing to the homeless? Already, the Bay Area & LA are major draws to homeless populations throughout the country. [0] [0]: Yes, there are some studies that s…

If food became twice as cheap, would you consume twice as many calories?

Induced demand is easily applied to traffic because people shift consumption from X to X+Y% miles when trip times are reduced. Housing demand is finite. There is no +Y% additional housing that is being consumed when it is free, because it's only available to people who have none. Google's software engineers aren't going to be using free housing if it becomes available.

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

#469

Post by eachro » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #268

hedora wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an access road that was sized for utility trucks. We had to widen it slightly because of obscure California regulations. Widening it didn’t cost $1.7M. However, the cost per linear foot was within a factor of two of buying a line of Tesla Model 3s. This is in an unincorporated (rural) area, on a farm. The work lasted one rainstorm before needing extensive repairs. I’m completely unsurprised that building a hu…

similarly, NYC decided to pay McKinsey $4mm to answer the question of whether large, stinky festering piles of trashbags would be better in containers.

I mean the answer to this is not as simple as "yes trash belongs in trash bins". How do you organize trash pickup? Where do these receptacles get placed? How large should they be? Is this for business and residential? Do trash routes need to change as well? NYC is massive and what will probably work in a neighborhood in Manhattan may not work for one in Staten Island. It's not at all a simple exercise.

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

#470

Post by dehrmann » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

throwawaytoilet wrote: post #422

mattnewton wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, having just visited SF and then spent a week in New Haven and Hartford in CT, I can't agree. What American city doesn't have trash? I can't think of a city I have visited in the world that meets that standard. I haven't been, but maybe Singapore? The homeless problem is very bad in California and SF in particular, and it is very concentrated in a small area to the east that looks positively dystopian. But that d…

FWIW, I visit golden gate twice a week in average. I guess I’m saying something a bit different. When people visit SF from SFO they get on the 101 and within 2 hours they have a feeling of things are broken and that memory sticks. I’m desensitized to those problems so I mostly see the beauty. If people land at SFO and took 380 onto 280 thn straight to golden gate perhaps their impressions would be different.

They might have also taken Bart to the cheapest hotel they could find near Union Square.