So many great opportunities for light rail around here, especially because of the geographical constraints. If there were big subsidies for doing it, I think the city would get interested.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Motornormativity. Not all of it, it's a huge problem, but there are so many really small bits that could easily be addressed. Like get rid of slip lanes, and make corners into side streets sharp right angles. When you've got a bike path (yes, putting in the bike path at all is one of those big difficult problems, but when you're getting that done anyway), making sure it has clear priority when it crosses side streets through the use of wombat crossings and road markings.
I dunno how to get it noticed. Half the problem is getting people to acknowledge it even is a problem when it's directly pointed out to them. Half the people are so deep in carbrain they refuse to acknowledge there's even a problem with everything being centred around cars. And most of the rest buy into the neoliberal "pErsOnAL reSpONsiBiliTy" nonsense and blame crashes (or "accidents", as they invariably call them) entirely on the bad driving (or worse—victim blaming it on the cyclist or pedestrian), rather than being willing to acknowledge that bad driving is inevitable and designing so that (a) bad drivers have other viable alternatives to driving if they want, and (b) the infrastructure could be designed to be forgiving of bad driving and reduce the likelihood and severity of crashes.
With 7 billion current humans, and many more dead, it is unlikely any problem was not noticed.
Sometimes it was intentionally setup to be a bother, other times the fix takes more resources than a single person can apply.
/lecture ended
imho people notice the problems; it's getting the people with power to care enough to do something about the problems.
Public restrooms are essential. Just because one isn’t available doesn’t mean people won’t go whenever or wherever they need to. I’ve seen at least five people defecate on the walls at a bus stop, and every corner reeks of urine.
Providing free train or bus tickets for unhoused individuals would help keep them warm and could prevent some from dying. I’ve never seen any of them cause problems; they simply ride the trains all day. In contrast, the only people I’ve seen regularly cause issues are usually those who appear to be well-off.
I’ve never seen any of them cause problems; they simply ride the trains all day.
Maybe this is dependent on country or region, because I see wildly different behavior between the unhoused in NYC and Manchester, in the UK, for example. In NYC, I've personally seen them pull a knife on random people, masturbating in the middle of the day on the train, two blind guys panhandling try to beat each other with their canes, each accusing the other of faking it to invade the other's territory, smoking crack in the middle of crowded cars and plenty of other problematic behavior.
When I've been in Manchester, they've always been pretty reserved, just trying to do their own thing and get through the day without doing anything to draw unwanted attention to themselves. You wouldn't even know a lot of them are there, unless you're out after the shops close, and then there's suddenly a bunch of people in sleeping bags in the doorways, just trying to sleep out of the wind and rain in a spot that might be marginally warmer.
Our society would rather put people in prison for far more than the cost of just housing them.
I'll say, I've never seen a homeless person cause issues in public transport either.
Drug addiction. Its not necessarily easy to fix, but we know how to treat it and take care of our vulnerable, we just don't: social workers, public services, shelters, safe drug sites with drug counselors. We've become so numb to the mass suffering on a societal and individual level.
Personal anedcote, a year ago, a man was dying of an OD next to our Tim Horton's drive thru, splayed out in the middle of the road, and the dozens of people driving by cared more about getting their coffee and getting to work than to even call an ambulance. I went to the pharmacy down the road and got a narcan kit and administered it, but Jesus Christ I lost a lot of trust and faith in my fellow man that day. Not enough people care; even people I love and respect say disgusting things about homeless people.
Too many people just view scientifically sound treatment as drug addicts getting stuff for free, and get pissed off that someone else gets a "benefit" that they aren't entitled to. They completely ignore the knock on effects that drug addiction has to those around someone going through it and just focus on what they perceive as unearned rewards for bad behavior.
I kind of think that a lot of people would be in favor of the same programs if they were pitched without being centered on the person getting treated for their addiction. Like, instead of saying, "This plan represents the best method we have to get people off drugs," some of those same people that are totally lacking in empathy would be in favor of it if it were put forward as, "This is a way to get all those druggies off the streets and trains where they bother you, and it's actually way cheaper than putting them all in prison, so it works out that we spend less of your tax money and save you in the long term." Which is a pretty damning indictment of those people.