And what would take for it to be noticed?
No offense intended to OP, but anyone who thinks the world works this way is hopelessly naive about the system we live in.
When it comes down to it, the reason all of these issues exist comes down to Capitalism (Imperialism, Neoliberalism, Fascism, NIMBYism, w/e flavor you want).
Good public transit is a great example because there are so many reasons we don’t have it and all of them come down to Capitalism.
-
the failure of our Healthcare system for the poor, unhoused, and uninsured means that severely mentally ill people make public transit feel unsafe. Ditto for criminalization of addiction and high poverty in general.
-
The American government’s reliance on the Petrodollar to control world trade promotes oil-based transportation options, especially inefficient ones that take more oil (since the goal is increased consumption, not efficiency).
-
A general lack of tenant’s rights and a tendency for local governments to favor landholders and and business owners over working-class renters (who tend to be more transient and are less likely to buy out local politicians) means that more attention is given to individualized transport (car infrastructure) and less to transport methods more suited to higher density. Not to mention the fear the petite bourgeoisie have towards poor people, who might potentially use public transport to invade their walled gardens.
There are so many reasons even on top of these. They all come down to Capitalism; and, no, to the Liberals of Lemmy, I don’t mean markets. Markets can do a lot of good when it comes to making efficient public transport, when managed correctly. The issue is the power that those with money (and not just the billionaires; the petty millionaires who own a couple strip malls is just as bad when it comes to opposition towards public transport) exert over our lives and governments.
I have found that most of the problems that have been around for a long time and whose solutions seem “so easy if only anyone would bother to do it”, are not actually that easy once you actually think about it.
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.
Americans have been so conditioned for the car, yet don’t realize that lacking transit is one of the largest drivers of wealth inequality.
Cities are expensive, so people move to the suburbs. Suburbs though being all single family we only built roads. Roads only have so much capacity, so traffic is terrible and there’s a limit for how large our cities can get before commutes are over an hour. Prices go up because the jobs are in the city and people have to figure out how long they can tolerate commuting.
Or, we built transit, which would create more housing further away from the city with fast connections into the city. Housing near the city is of course still worth more, but people can choose to live even farther away, so there are many less housing shortages.
Vs Portland/Vancouver WA, where Vancouver WA is a smallish town on the outskirts of Portland. They need to replace a highway bridge that’s already decaying. Portland is happy to pitch in more than their share to pay for it IF they can extend their light rail network across it to connect Vancouver to transit. Vancouver is screaming they don’t want it because homeless! Thugs! (Black people). Shooting themselves right in the foot. I’ve asked them how long it takes them to five in. “Well sometimes over an hour”. Morons.
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.
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 was speaking to a local parks employee about their restrooms and since they were built 2 years ago, every door (8) has been damaged, every door latch, every hand sanitizer dispenser, half of the sinks broken off the wall (leaving water running)
Now they are putting openings in the doors, above and below eye level, like a shitty normal partitioned restroom with no privacy, because employees are being ambushed in them. Sinks are gone, heavy duty hand sanitizer dispensers installed with non alcohol sanitizer.
I’m kind of horrified about these openings because anyone can just look in and see anyone doing whatever they are doing in there, the door is to the outdoors.
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.
