The case against BART expansion is made by the experience & externalities of existing BART.
- frequent drug use - frequent drug sales - congested and filthy station entrances/exits - zonked out naked dudes starting fights on the platform (yes more than once or twice) - liquid poop on station stairs
I wish I was exaggerating but... this is just how it is around those stations.
I’d call that bad. I’m with you - we need more public transit in the bay. But there’s a huge swath of people where that Bart experience just isn’t going to work.
I witnessed one in a bus near tartine in the mission. Safety is really this thing that only becomes an issue after you witness it or become victim of it.
I'm not familiar with that area but I can infer that it must be pretty miserable for people who care about their surroundings, respect public spaces, and work hard to maintain a high standard in the environments they occupy. More power to them.
(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.
Everywhere should be safe.
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.
This is not true of a random sidewalk.
There is a cost to this and that cost includes the coercive use of force to prevent that behavior.
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.
SF residents don't have an aversion to funding transit and transit projects, see measure L that just passed with 2-1 support.
> walk anywhere in SF near a BART (subway) stop and you face open drug use, trash, and other problems nobody wants in the neighborhood they call home
Singling out BART subway stops in your anecdote is disingenuous when you consider that there are only 8 BART stops in San Francisco, 3 of which are similar to what you describe, but there are _113 MUNI stops_. Additionally, MUNI has ~90 million annual riders while BART only has ~27 million while covering a geographic area 10X the size of MUNI
If you go to an average BART station, say, Balboa Park, or North Berkley they are completely fine, not noticeable different then other areas in the same neighborhood. If you go to a newer stations (say Dublin / Pleasanton) this is even less so.
And for that matter I’m not sure your parent is actually providing any correct insights. I’m not aware of much backlash from immediate residents against new transit projects in their neighborhood (such as the muni realignment near SF state or the Van Ness BRT lane).
The Geary Bart extension was famously killed by local opposition. Although that was more a reaction to the store closures caused by the market street subway construction, not drug use or crime.
Is there any evidence these problems are actually related to BART? The Tenderloin district has equally bad or worse sections away from the Civic Center station. Market Street as a whole below Castro has had serious issues for decades.
I wouldn't say so, the homeless crisis is very much a US issue
what you're describing is a you problem. SF residents who are well served by transit overwhelming favor transit expansion, it's the residents who are underserved (sunset, outer richmond) who oppose
In my daily experience, BART station QoL issues reflect the neighbourhoods they are in.