Meanwhile, the 47 Muni bus that connects the Van Ness transit corridor to Caltrain has been “suspended” since 2020, and the extension of Caltrain to the transit center is still unfunded.
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
No
Absolutely not.
I have had enough to do with them to believe this lie.
They are broken people that are ruled by the drugs they are taking. they can be manageable when they have had their dose, but their entire life and existence is ruled by the need to find drugs for the next shot.
And believe me. When they feel that withdrawal they do not give a flying F about you or your rights. They need that drug.
People should not be forced to be around junkies
Not to get too political, but if you're right, why does it seem like societies which do not tolerate drug use have much fewer problems with rampant drug use than societies which tolerate it?
“Tolerate” is doing a lot of lifting here. You responded to someone saying treatment and support make addiction manageable. In the United States we had drug companies devising as many ways to make a profit off pain pills for years, so there’s tolerance, but when people started losing their jobs and their minds in mass due to the poison these companies were knowingly getting their customers addicted to, there was no plan or inclination for treatment or support.
Killing people as punishment for poor choices they enact on their own bodies is such a medieval take that it frankly can only be satirical or gallows humor.
But it does fit with the puritanical punishment fetishizing culture that the USA has fostered. Instead of rehabilitating people let's just liquidate them. Sure why not.
Excluding the fact that drug addicts are still humans deserving love, care and the opportunity to recuperate - fostering a clean & safe transit environment is practically a solved problem internationally.
Maybe the moral depravity of SF breeds truly irredeemable addicts, but as someone whos met a lot of troubled people and ridden a lot of public transit your statement seems alarmingly and unhelpfully critical
I live in the heart of the Mission and I endorse that quote from the parent comment 100%.
Once every few days I even share public transit with a homeless person! Oh, the horror!!
The people I see out on the street are suffering terribly, sick, unable to escape the gravity of their situations, and the vast majority are not malicious. Anyone who does not see this has chipped away key bits of their own soul.
Or hasn't been smacked in the face yet , or had someone unhinged on the nyc subway state they are going to kill everyone on the train in a manic episode.
These are not un-rare events at all, it's just in a city with millions of people, most may never have it happen but we've all seen it. Nobody wants it to be them that day.
The situation is weird. No one thinks like this, or it isn't a problem, in cities that actually have good public transport. A drug addict has never entered my mind when riding public transport in London, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, etc.
Even when a transit system is bad, you often find people use it anyway in situations where large events make driving a fool’s errand. There’s a hard incentive and comfort hurdle we’re decades from alleviating via impossible fuel prices for your average Joe
That is more mediocre versus bad. Most of the bad transit systems I'm aware of don't have service to large events at all and so it's not an option.
There are a lot of unviable transit in the US. Most transit systems have large unviable parts even if there is a viable core (generally in the city center). People often blame the unviable on lack of density, but there are examples of viable transit systems elsewhere in the world that have US suburb density.
Nothing specific, but when you look at European cities you discover many of them have areas with similar density to a US suburb and yet have good service.
I do browse on Google Maps from time to time, and I do see areas with similar-ish density. I also see a lot of cars. I've known a few people who have lived in such places, and they say their transit is near useless (poor service intervals, limited hours, doesn't go everywhere, etc) and most people drive if they can. Which will be less than in the US, as operating a car is often considerably more expensive there than here, tipping the math towards just accepting the poor transit service.
Which is why I was curious about specific experiences.
And I do say, better than many US suburbs which have absolutely no service at all.
I'm sure people in those areas do drive a lot. However, the question was about transit and from what I can tell the trans system gets enough ridership to support decent service that is a bus every 10 minutes which is not ideal but acceptable.
I definitely agree, when it comes to connecting into the larger metropolises the rail is pretty effective from what I hear from those places, and once in the big cities its usually not too bad.
Maybe with gas inching towards $9/gal we'll finally get people in the US demanding actually decent transit options.
The busses around me are either natural gas or EV, so they're pretty disconnected to the current energy crisis.
IMO the root cause of problems you guys are having is internalized classism and strong affections with the idea of natural selection. You can have a homogeneous society with good welfare and not worry too much about spoiling ourselves, a near or even actual communism with extremely subsidized educations can still have bloodbath levels of internal competitions. You can do that and then you can make it weird for tons of over/under class people with absolutely no way out to be just there in plain sight.
>fostering a clean & safe transit environment is practically a solved problem internationally.
In your opinion, what is that solution? If we take a survey of the highest ranked transit systems, it seems like most solutions involve not allowing drug users to use transit systems, whether it's the unthinkable in Asian countries or peppering the system with officers and cameras in Berlin and London. Is that really treating them with love?
Considering how much often I smell alcohol and weed in Waymos, maybe it's actually the most tolerant solution.
London's public transport was safe before the cameras became common. Its something everyone used, and everyone let their kids use, decades ago. Affluent people commuted from the Surrey "stockbroker belt" to London at least as far back as the 70s. Kids used trains and busses to go to school- some of my friends did at least as young as eight.
Loving or caring for someone is not giving their addiction a Carte Blanche, it can often be to allow them access to treatment and a path out of their situation.
No, I was asking what you think should be done. I have legitimately talked to many people to whom that is the answer and I find their views dispicable.
I don't know what the "tenderloin" refers to, but I guess it is a part of a US city.
That's generally the point I am trying to make. By letting these people suffer from addiction and homelessness, not offering good medical and social care, you are not caring or loving them, which is a kind of cruelty.
FWIW if you search "tenderloin city" the answer appears immediately.
It's a big internet, sometimes people will mention neighborhoods or customs you're unfamiliar with. In my experience, the polite thing is usually to take 3s to make the Google.
This is the problem with context and language and assumptions and algorithms. Even with that I get two restaurants and one Wikipedia article on meat before I get anything resembling a city district in my search results.
They can access treatment. There are a lot of options. The question is should we force treatment at some point.
Use the veil of ignorance to answer that.
Suppose your loved one was one of these afflicted individuals literally killing themselves on the street. Would you want to force them to get clean or would you want to make their lives "easier" by giving them some "harm-reduction" that will allow them to persist in their zombie state?
Or what if you were in the grips of this lifestyle. Would you want someone to force you to get help or facilitate you killing yourself?
Can we really blame individuals when we have recorded, legally admissable evidence of corporations knowingly pushing the over-perscription of extremely addictive drugs while claiming they are safe and non-addictive?
Yes. I don't think the typical homeless drug user is relying on pharma provided research on the substances they're ingesting when deciding to pick up the habit in the first place.
dcrazy · · focus · HN ↗
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
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May you never see progress on such a horrifying goal.
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We could move the entire population of San Francisco into full time care for very little compared to what we're spending on AI.
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UnfitFootprint · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe the moral depravity of SF breeds truly irredeemable addicts, but as someone whos met a lot of troubled people and ridden a lot of public transit your statement seems alarmingly and unhelpfully critical
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archagon · · focus · HN ↗
Once every few days I even share public transit with a homeless person! Oh, the horror!!
The people I see out on the street are suffering terribly, sick, unable to escape the gravity of their situations, and the vast majority are not malicious. Anyone who does not see this has chipped away key bits of their own soul.
wallst07 · · focus · HN ↗
These are not un-rare events at all, it's just in a city with millions of people, most may never have it happen but we've all seen it. Nobody wants it to be them that day.
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bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
When transit is good everybody uses it and normal people are the vast majority so you rarely see or notice the bad people.
The percentage of bad people is about the same in both cities overall
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vel0city · · focus · HN ↗
Which is why I was curious about specific experiences.
And I do say, better than many US suburbs which have absolutely no service at all.
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vel0city · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe with gas inching towards $9/gal we'll finally get people in the US demanding actually decent transit options.
The busses around me are either natural gas or EV, so they're pretty disconnected to the current energy crisis.
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cyberrock · · focus · HN ↗
In your opinion, what is that solution? If we take a survey of the highest ranked transit systems, it seems like most solutions involve not allowing drug users to use transit systems, whether it's the unthinkable in Asian countries or peppering the system with officers and cameras in Berlin and London. Is that really treating them with love?
Considering how much often I smell alcohol and weed in Waymos, maybe it's actually the most tolerant solution.
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They are not hotels, homes, rehab clinics, or personal drug use pods.
Cigarette smokers manage to ride trains and buses without lighting up. We should expect the same of everyone.
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SF and CA have a very liberal tax policy, maybe dedicate some of the funds to get them treatment.
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That's generally the point I am trying to make. By letting these people suffer from addiction and homelessness, not offering good medical and social care, you are not caring or loving them, which is a kind of cruelty.
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It's a big internet, sometimes people will mention neighborhoods or customs you're unfamiliar with. In my experience, the polite thing is usually to take 3s to make the Google.
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bko · · focus · HN ↗
Use the veil of ignorance to answer that.
Suppose your loved one was one of these afflicted individuals literally killing themselves on the street. Would you want to force them to get clean or would you want to make their lives "easier" by giving them some "harm-reduction" that will allow them to persist in their zombie state?
Or what if you were in the grips of this lifestyle. Would you want someone to force you to get help or facilitate you killing yourself?
I know my answer
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