BART's Fare Evasion Crackdown Exposes the 'Deadly Elegance' of Hostile Design
kqed.org
kqed.org
Arguably a design that permits a chunk of downtown to turn into a homeless encampment is "hostile" to the original purpose of a bench downtown, which is to be sat on by a range of different people in the course of the day.
If those BART gates are anything like the ones in Sydney, though, they are a substantial risk. During the roll-out of our "Opal" card system I got my leg slammed - hard - by the gates doing that thing where the mechanics are a little too slow to keep up with the electronics and a bunch of people are going through one after the other and largely keeping the gate open. To be clear, I'm talking about walking through the gate only after having the comforting little noise that said "yes, I scanned your card and you're OK" - not me trying to race through the system regardless of status.
I lift weights, am a fairly healthy middle-aged man, and am large (6'2.5", 235kg) and getting hit by that normal gate hurt. I cannot imagine what the consequences of this kind of paranoid design - especially amp-ing up the gate with more nasty stuff - would do to someone who is older and frailer (but perhaps not old/frail enough to feel like they have to use the special wide gate). It is completely unreasonable to endanger more vulnerable legitimate transit users to get a little more compliance, especially where the biggest scofflaws will still just vault the gates or 'draft' through behind others.
am large (6'2.5", 235kg)
If you are a city official, and you know that you have a significant homeless population that would like a place to sleep that's safer and more comfortable than the ground, which is the more hostile course of action?
a) Propose changes that would result in there being fewer homeless on the streets, or even fewer homeless overall (eg, more & better shelters, providing them with free housing as has been proven to work in multiple places, etc)
b) Propose changes that make your area unfriendly to the homeless so they go elsewhere and lower someone else's property values
c) Do nothing whatsoever
Blithely talking about the "original purpose of a bench downtown" ignores the fact that there are real people suffering, not just because of the policies that replace more standard benches with anti-homeless benches, but because of the mindset that underlies them: homeless are a plague to be driven out, rather than human beings who deserve our compassion and help.
It is a position of privilege to be able to sit and talk about "the original purpose of a bench downtown" as if that's much more important than people's suffering.
I don't think SF is going to be in a great position to implement any of the steps in (a) if they lose a giant whopping chunk of jobs, revenue and tax base when those 'rusted-on conferences' finally get scared off and move to other cities, or when tourists decide SF is Just Too Damn Sketchy.
Am I a curmudgeon, or is the level of concern shown in the article a legitimate thing?
Would you endorse a law that would break bones or crack skulls for fare evasion? Would you consider that just? I’m not asking whether you endorse fare evasion, just whether that punishment is proportional.
In this case, the state is effectively promulgating such a policy - without bothering to even get it through the legislature.
And that sort of thing - disproportionately punitive policies without even the superficial glance of legislation - tend to only fly when aimed at disenfranchised groups. Eg, poor.
That’s the anti-poor part of these designs. If you’re wealthy enough for a car and speed fast enough to risk killing a human being, you owe the state 200$ and all is well. If you’re poor and try to stiff the state for $2 at the BART, we’ll take a shot at cracking your skull.
If a private property owner has trouble with people loitering or sleeping on their property, what options do they have? Call the police or hire a security guard, who will use [threats of] violence to solve your problem. Or using "hostile design" that non-violently but clearly communicates the desires of the property owner, thus avoiding any potentially lethal confrontation.
It seems obvious to me that "hostile" design is in fact the humanitarian approach.
Is your argument that making a barricade harder to bypass is responsible for causing injuries to fare evaders? Would the same hold true for any more effective barricade? I can punch right through a hollow core door, but I'll break my hand if I try it on a solid core door. How much blame should the design of the door get(or the people that chose to put the specific type of door there) when I break my hand?
These don’t just make it harder to kick your feet over. I strongly recommend to google a video of these in action.
It is a much more human situation than designing urban architecture that can physically hurt people (particularly if they’re old/in a wheelchair/etc).
My favorite solution I’ve seen in Tokyo: gates that are open by default to optimize passenger throughput, but close down if you don’t present proper fare (and adequately staffed to boot).
The goal seems to be stop fare evasion, but merely as a cost saving measure, not as a moral imperative to be achieved at any monetary cost.
It isn't about fare evasion, it's about how a given society perceives its more disadvantaged members: some want to help them, others want them to just die off.
Oh please, as if it that dichotomy were only true.
BART runs a massive deficit each year, and yet you think there should be no deterrents to evading fare? The BART barely collects on the tickets it issues as is[1]. Plenty of people who are able to pay and are of sound mind hop the turnstiles. If you want to subsidize the travel expenses for a certain group, fine, but why promote even more lawlessness in an already terrible system?
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Almos...
Every dude I see jumping the gates arriving in the city has $200+ sneakers and/or huge screen smartphones.
Anti-homeless because they're poor.
Abelist? I don't know, either.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/fare-evasion-crime-pover...
BART service has a fare, gated by turnstiles. People try to steal that service by jumping over those turnstiles. So BART has modified them to make it harder to steal.
Of course the design is hostile - it’s trying to prevent theft!
Am I missing something?
The marginal improvement in the security that adding nasty new bits to the turnstiles increases the chance that less able or unlucky users will get nailed by the turnstile - the young, the old, the frail, the plain old disorganized. There are plenty of people who don't perceive themselves as so disabled as to need the special 'wide gate' but who are put at risk by a system tuned for preventing jumpers and 'drafters'. As I said elsewhere on thread, I've been nailed by a similar turnstile in Sydney (without the extra stuff on it) - while using the system correctly - and it hurt like hell, and I'm a large, able-bodied man. I think the same hit on a 105lb female friend of mine would probably stop her from walking for several days.
It's just not worth it. Want to stop jumpers? Get your security guys off their asses and patrol the goddamn trains.
Junkies defecating in the train station discourages me a hell of a lot more than "hostile design", which for the most part is purely decorative from my perspective because my perspective is not that of somebody wishing to do precisely that which the "hostile design" is meant to encourage.
"Hostile design" is in fact defensive design, designed to protect the common people from the anti-social and frequently hostile behaviors you frequently see on public display in Californian cities. We need more of it.
(Note also that "hostile design" does not focus just on the homeless, but in fact encompasses a wide range of techniques aimed at addressing a wide range of anti-social behaviors. For instance, skate boarders can be discouraged from playing in crowded areas where they present a risk to bystanders with use of furniture and structures specifically designed to discourage skateboarders. This addresses the problem of skateboarders causing property damage or frightening bystanders without threats of force (e.g. property owners calling the police or hiring a security guard) or any other form of confrontation. Isn't that better, or at least safer, for everybody involved? Similarly, "hostile" design allows property owners to discourage the homeless without instigating a confrontation between the homeless and police officers.)
And example, I took HWY80 to work and paid nothing for the pleasure. Why should the AC Transit or BART riders have to pay a fare when the freeway commuters don't?
Except gas tax.
And registration fees.
And toll if you were crossing any of the Bay area bridges.
And additional fees to use any of the Bay Area express lanes.
Car travel is not free of government charges, even if the externalities aren't fully internalized.
Allowing people to use public spaces in safety and comfort doesn’t preclude addressing homelessness by other means.
Hostile architectural features actually cost more to install.
Solving homelessness through the political system is DRASTICALLY slower.
I thought this was the best line of the whole thing. If you can't pay for it then how can you be alienated? If you are paying for it then isn't the so called "hostile" design no longer hostile?
> BART
> San Francisco
> Fruitvale
Ok
Positive Train Control doesn't work right and is causing delays, the readerboards are accurate to within 10 minutes (but don't display info about trains when they are over 10min away).
Walking across the street to a store that had a bathroom almost got me killed by an SUV. In Seattle I can count on Sound Transit having restrooms at any station they've invested millions of dollars in.
We all have the urge to go, why should I be forced to cross a hostile road and pay multiple dollars just to not piss in public?
Whoever is running the transit agency down here is trying to drive away anyone who can choose not to ride.