It's pretty simple - don't tolerate this sort of behavior around public transit stations. Transit riders deserve a safe and clean commute. In the absence of that, they'll retreat to the safe clean cocoon of their cars.
No one thinks “hey every place should not be safe”. That’s obviously what everyone wants. However, given that in practice we have huge swathes of places that are in bad condition you need to start by prioritizing. And it obviously makes a lot of sense to prioritize a public transit station, which not only has much higher usage than a random sidewalk, and is far easier and cheaper to keep safe because it has a much more limited geographic footprint and the major sections are not wide open easily accessible spaces but are controlled by gates that require tickets, than it is to do a wide open sidewalk.
It obviously makes sense to start with the space that gives you the most return for the lowest cost and that would be any public space that has the highest usage and density, such as public transit stations.
Even better, imposing safety in those transit stations will also have a significant effect in improving safety through the length of the actual BART train ride because access to the train is limited to the few stations.
Well the people who smoke fent off of a piece of foil aren't going to disappear so you have to put them somewhere. If you were to put them somewhere in Pac Heights where the residents actively work against public transit that'd displease them, so they go where the community is less civically engaged and less powerful, like next to public transit. In effect there's a feedback loop where the area next to BART is only going to get grimier and Pac Heights are going to get NIMBYer.
You're correct, of course, but the public good from improving the safety/cleanliness of shared infrastructure like transit has a much higher ROI than your "average" public space. Both have societal good but improving transit stops (especially rail) deserves higher priority than your average sidewalk
Our eldest (just turned 13 :eek:) walks down an "average sidewalk" to the railway station, rides a train (alone) into town, and walks an "average sidewalk" to his school, and back. Every weekday. He commented on drunks hanging around the (in-town) station in the late afternoon just a few days ago.
That's pretty much me. I tried public transport when I moved to SF (came from Europe, didn't even have a driver license) and ended up being like "nope". Got my driver license and use uber mostly. I'm not putting myself in danger, fuck it, I'll just spend my money on a car + uber.
> It's pretty simple - don't tolerate this sort of behavior around public transit stations.
IIUC, it's only that simple at a very superficial level. I.e., the complexity arises when you have to answer what you do about the offenders.
TL;DR:
(I'm not actually from SF, so apologies if I've misunderstood residents' views on this.)
Do you punish them? I get the impression most San Franciscans see drug addicts as pitiable victims of bad choices or the opioid epidemic. So behavior modification via punishment would be evil.
Do you put imprison the drug users for the safety of others? That sounds like punishment, which again most SF'ers reject.
Do you put the drug users in mental institutions / forced rehab? I suspect this reminds people of the dark days of abusive mental institutions, and is therefore rejected.
And what about people who are clean and sober, aren't homeless by choice, but for whom public housing isn't available? I.e., they're not mugging anyone, but they can't find anywhere else to sleep, poop, or pee? You have the sticky question of whether or not residents are legally obligated to have a home.
(I hope it's not seen as outrageous to suggest this, but) perhaps one shouldn't tolerate this sort of behavior anywhere, ever?
Everyone deserves safe and clean public spaces.