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Comment by nicholaides | Hacker News Reader

I was thinking about this same idea earlier today: Buses in Philadelphia have a bunch of "No Eating and Drinking" signs and consequently no trash cans. The result is that the back of the bus is covered in trash. If they had just 1 or two trash cans it would be a much more pleasant ride.

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I have never seen a city bus with a trash can.

Chicago's CTA busses have garbage cans in front of the rear exit doors. But then again we also have alleys so we don't have to put our garbage out on the sidewalks.

We have them in Norway

In London too

The people who throw trash on the back of a bus are not the people who would throw that trash in a bin in the bus.

I disagree. When you're on a bus for a long time and the option is either to sit with whatever trash you have on your lap/put it in your bag etc, or drop it, you may well drop it. If there's a trash can conveniently located, most people would place their stuff in it.

It's not foolproof. There are people who toss trash around regardless. It's a question of making people go out of their way to do something vs allowing them to do it easily.

Fire hazard maybe? Trash cans were removed from commuter trains in Stockholm since they were constantly being set on fire. They're on our buses though.

Go to England and you won't see trash cans in train stations at all.

In England we do have bins in stations, but now days they generally consist of a transparent bin bag with no surrounding material (e.g. held open by a loop at the top that's attached to a wall). I believe the logic is that it makes it harder to hide a bomb in them, though whether this is fact or just commonly quoted myth I have no idea.

Partly correct. Trash cans were removed to prevent people hiding bombs in them. They are now coming back, both as transparent plastic bags, and also as bomb-proof cans (which are designed to direct the explosion upwards, and resist sideways rupture).

Well, that has been the case in France since 1993 (bomb attacks in the Parisian metro).

And that was also the explanation I had been given, so I'd say it's probably true.

Last time I was flying they had removed the bins from the waiting area (because terrorists). I almost wished I left the trash on the seats or not taken care to make it easy to remove -- that is the only way they will stop doing stupid shit like that.

The solution to that is to make the driver responsible for cleaning his bus, and also to give him the right to eject people that doesn't follow the rules.

...and then when the driver of $ethnicityA kicks off a passenger of $ethnicityB, there's a lawsuit and we're back to square one.

wow, seriously? are you by chance a congressman or lawmaker of some sorts?

No, but I live in a country where this is how it works. Drivers here in sweden are responsible for cleaning the bus during the day (with a more thorough cleaning at the garage that the driver isn't responsible for, afaik), and he has enough authority to eject people off the bus if they are violating rules, or to not let them on if they would violate rules.

I like Sweden. But this has to be one of the most bureaucratic approaches to solving the problem. And it's ripe for abuse.

As I understand it, aside from the cleaning, it's the same in America. But if a driver pulled over in the middle of rush hour traffic to kick someone off a bus because they put down an empty can of soda, they'd be torn to shreds before they made it back to the driver's seat.

"they'd be torn to shreds"

Where are you taking buses that the passengers are so rage-filled?

New York City.

Drivers are not conductors and I doing one job is hard enough, now you think they should have 3?

It's probably cheaper to have a trashcan onboard than an armed driver. Yes, when you threaten people with ejection sometimes they threaten you right back.

Huh? Drivers are gatekeepers that let people onto the bus and validate that the people that enter the bus have tickets.

If people don't respect what the driver says, the driver should stop the bus, and call security and then not move until the issue is resolved. There should be no tolerance at all for people that threatens the driver.

The driver isn't a gatekeeper or tollbooth collector. They stop, you pay your fare. You don't pay the fare they aren't going to argue with you, just pull off to the next stop. Because the bus driver has a schedule to keep and if he has to stop the bus for every minor infraction (and eating on the bus is very far down that list) than the schedule becomes unreliable, people stop taking the bus, and then revenue drops.

And all of this could have been avoided with a trashcan on the bus.

If you've watched anything on youtube you'll see that people escalate a situation for some of the stupidest things. The world is full of crazy people and they drive or take the bus too.

"You don't pay the fare they aren't going to argue with you"

Where does that happen?

I see it all the time in a bunch of cities. The driver isn't going to chase you to the back of the bus if you walk by him. I've had drivers tell me to just go ahead when I didn't have the right amount of change ready.

> Huh? Drivers are gatekeepers that let people onto the bus and validate that the people that enter the bus have tickets.

There are many cities where you can enter through any of the bus' doors.

Drivers always have the authority to eject passengers. If they get resistance, they call the cops.

I'm not sure when they would clean a bus though. I'd rather have my bus driver drive than stop to pick up rubbish.

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