I’ve had bad feet since teen years, and I’m in my 40s now, which means sitting down once in a while is no longer just a suggestion. One of my big whinges (practicing whinging in case I ever get old) is that there’s just not damn enough public benches. And I live in a city that has public benches and has brought them back. A little bit.
Hopefully it’s because they’re putting in new benches made from the bones of real estate tycoons ❤️💖
there are places where sitting on the floor is forbidden, like big train stations in germany. I think its only houserules, but security can kick you out anyway.
War on teenagers
Now there’s a war I can support
Why so much hatred?
From having to spend time with them. We need a final solution to the teenager question.
Thankfully America has been effective in reducing their numbers while in school
We need a global solution
Just remembered video
For having been a teenager for 7 long years of my life, I don’t see the issue. I’m also pretty sure you had your own teenager phase in life. Would you said you are a problem for the society?
No, I was one of the good ones
Teenagers scare the living shit out of me.
Why though?
Because teenagers are older than infants, and you can’t take away their candy as easily.
Oh Lord! Some teenager do grow up to become monsters…
Guys. I am pretty sure that is Moynihan train station next to Penn Station. People sitting on the floor are literally leaning against the stairs down to the track. Thats is where people lineup to go on the train when it arrives at the station. Of course you don’t put benches there. In this station there is a seating area where all you need to do is show your train ticket. On the other side there’s a food hall with lots of public seating. There just isn’t seating directly where all the foot traffic is. I take trains in the North East corridor on Amtrak somewhat often. There’s seats there. Just not where seating would obstruct movement on and off the train platforms.
Of course you don’t put benches there.
I’m not following. Why not? This is clearly a place where people gather and then wait for a period of time long enough to feel that sitting is necessary. Provide a fucking place for them to sit, it’s not complicated
There’s a platform for trains, with benches down the middle. But the edges are open for people to walk around
That is dangerous in NYC. Penn/Moynihan Station is a terminating station. I’m guessing over 60% of the train capacity often unloads at Penn/Moynihan Station (assuming NE corridor from DC with stops in philly and other towns along the way). You can’t have passengers waiting to board obstruct that many people disembarking on a narrow platform. You’re thinking of suburban train stations that just quickly pass through, not a major urban station. Also, because it’s amtrak there’s a lot of luggage being carried which needs more space. Not to mention room for dedicated luggage service to move bags to baggage claim.
I personally pictured the Hoboken PATH station specifically. However on the opposite end of the scale I was very surprised at the lack of seating in the new WTC station
seating area where all you need to do is show your train ticket
This is still fucked
On the other side there’s a food hall with lots of public seating.
“GIVE YOUR MONEY!”
Just not where seating would obstruct movement on and off the train platforms.
All I see is huge open area. You can even put them right on platform.
Look at a station map or visit the station. When you have 2 or more trains boarding near simultaneously the queue to get down the the platform level is pretty long and snakes. There’s a difference between waiting for a train at a terminating station where you don’t know the the track assignment vs boarding a train at a non terminating stop or minor station where the is no grand hall. Moynihan has underground non open air platforms so you need to keep people waiting above in the hall since there’s not a lot of room at platform level.
This is the map:
See that area on the right called ticketed waiting room? That is where everyone with a train ticket can sit at a bench/chair or grab a table/desk to do some work. On the other side there is a food hall. As someone that travels out of that station regularly, I think the design totally makes sense based on the size, amount of foot traffic, and etc. If I need a place to sit before my train boards, I know where to sit.
The waiting area with seats:
These are the one way escalators that you don’t line with benches where people queue to get up. You don’t want people sitting and possibly blocking the escalators either.
The real crime here to complain about is that the Old Penn Station was destroyed to put in a MSG. We have a stadium at the expense of a well designed train station. Moynihan being built next door on a small footprint really was a breath of fresh air to a terrible train station. You don’t get situations like this in Moynihan: https://www.westsidespirit.com/binrepository/576x432/0c0/0d0/none/3502612/ODJP/penn1_4-3802539_20211210112648.jpg
Instead you get this queue for 1 train boarding on track 13/14. (it is worse if there’s multiple trains boarding simultaneously):
If there are multiple simultaneous boardings, I am not sure if they use space between escalators to snake the line instead of wrapping around all escalators (at times I do see some of those lane rope things in use to encourage people to no clog up the middle to foot traffic) That does not compare to a minor philadelphia suburb platform where you wait on the platform because the already full train isn’t going to stop for more than 2 minutes to pick up a few passengers. That would be a massive safety risk to allow this kind of seating on platform in NYC rail system with underground platforms. And this is not even considering how to move people off a train before moving the next group on the train. Also crew changes since NYC is a terminating station for a lot of lines.You can have folks queuing up and still have a lot of room for people to navigate through the main hall. Probably as a much a security and anti-terrorism feature as well as a design to not obstruct boarding or create bottle necks for emergency egress.
I don’t think you’ll find many new yorkers complaining about a lack of seating in Moynihan right on the main hall where all the foot traffic is. We like it when people get the fuck out of our way while we try to get from point A to B.
Edit: also I don’t think people understand the scale of NYC’s population and train rider ship. Moynihan ridership is 8 million annually. 2nd place is DC with 3.6 million. Moynihan is a amtrak only station so it’s built for luggage, but even then Moynihan is probably a smaller station than either DC or Philly, yet has over double the ridership. I don’t think folks appreciate how much traffic goes through a relatively small train station, but I think that factors into the design of NYC stations vs any other picture you have of spacious stations that have less than half the ridership in buildings of comparable size.
Edit 2: In this thread people that don’t understand the difference between Amtrak, regional commuter trains, or subways, or the difference between urban vs suburban stations, above ground vs underground stations, and the fact that NYC has over double the annual amtrak ridership than the 2nd and 3rd most used amtrak stations. Not to mention, NYC has tons of benches and public seating. Sections of broadway are closed down with chairs and tables out, bryant park isn’t too far away with tons of public seating. Not surprised that the small train station is designed to have seating options only for riders of the train.
Instead you get this queue for 1 train boarding on track 13/14. (it is worse if there’s multiple trains boarding simultaneously):
First of, are people waiting for boarding here or what? I see all of them are in standing pose. To board a train they need to be on platform where train is, not in the middle of hall.
Edit: also I don’t think people understand the scale of NYC’s population and train rider ship. Moynihan ridership is 8 million annually.
IT IS SO TINY! Even Kursk train station had 12 million of annual “far”(national+international) ridership in 2018. You can add 59 million annual ridership of regional trains on it. Or consider Yaroslavl train station annual ridership of of 6 and 72 millions respectively.
And while seating there sucks too, at least there is no requirement to have ticket.
Edit 2: In this thread people that don’t understand the difference between Amtrak, regional commuter trains, or subways
I presume Amtrak is how americans call (inter)narional trains.
Yes, they are standing to board. Because the NYC train station is under ground (tunnels are needed to get under the river, the platform is also under ground like a subway. The platform for the tracks are very narrow. So a train will come in, it will disembark all passengers and change crew. During this time above ground passengers get in line to present tickets. They then walk downstairs to the platform and board the train. But because the platform is underground and relatively small, it is not a comfortable or safe place to wait to board while guests disembark.
Platform for amtrak at Penn Station/Moynihan:
I think that is correct about consider Amtrak like an international train like SNCF in France to TGV. It’s passenger focused, but generally for longer trips with people carrying luggage. We also have regional/commuter trains for rides less than ~90 minutes meant to get people to work in the city.
For seating, it’s somewhat limited because of the size of the station, but it’s also right in the middle of new york city. If you are looking to sit for an extended period of time and the weather is nice, there’s public seating at bryant park or the squares or blocked off seats on broadway outside of times square. But NYC doesn’t have a ton of space, and the train station is designed to prioritize the train passengers.
During this time above ground passengers get in line to present tickets.
So my first guess was correct, presenting tickets is done before even entering the platform. I can see it on regional trains with turnstyles in front of platform, but for international trains it is unusual. Usually tickets are presented on platform right in front of train.
Platform for amtrak at Penn Station/Moynihan:
Interesting… Looks smaller than I expected.
Moynihan train station
Man, there’s an entire article about how there’s not enough seating there.
“not enough” is completely different than saying non existent. Moynihan is the most trafficked Amtrak station in the US with more ridership than DC and Philly combined. Yet the size of the station is comparable to the stations in DC and Philly. Thank you MSG for destroying the Old Penn Station.
I think the answer, as an engineer, is to sit and observe the station at busy times, take note of where people are sitting, and put some benches there.
But the post is really about the disappearance of benches from public spaces in the U.S. as a whole, with the intended effect of keeping the homeless population out of view. Instead of facing the root cause of the homeless epidemic, we’re merely brushing them aside, out of the way, where we can pretend they don’t exist. It’s really awful, and further traumatizes an already at-risk population by reinforcing the idea that they’re not wanted, don’t matter, and aren’t worth helping. They’re people, we should be doing more to help them. The benches aren’t really the issue.
Nice thing about NYC is that housing is a right based on the Callahan v. Carey ruling. Every person that asks for temporary shelter is supposed to have access to it. It’s not perfect, doesn’t have the funding or capacity to deal with the bussed in migrants, but it’s better than most cities/states. And it does more to address the issue directly than viewing benches as a crutch for the problem.
But re the engineer question, I think Moynihan probably had a lot of engineers. And safety, security, egress, congestion, etc were considered in the design which is why they put seating around the perimeter and not the center of the hall.
30th St Station in Philly, and I’m sure many other train stations in the world, has a similar layout with stairs down to the tracks. And has benches along the railing. The benches don’t obstruct the movement of people going up or down the stairs, but start from the top of the stairs and sit along the unused space to the sides of the stairs. The line to show tickets forms to one side of the stairs so that while passengers leaving the train can go up the stairs on their right the passengers joing can go down on their right. If you are early to your train, you can sit right there in the front of the line on a comfortable bench, and the line can form behind you.
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The layout is different in philly. Train stairs are on the sides of the main hall, not in the center of it. The center of the main hall is clear of seats to allow traffic to come through. The design of moynihan puts the stairs to the tracks in the middle of the hall, not the sides of the hall. So the seating options are put near the side to allow more flow of traffic in the center of the hall. I’m also pretty sure this is also a result of modern anti-terrorism design to be easier for security as well. Seating exists for waiting. At Moynihan they don’t really announce what track your train will be on until like 5 or 10 minutes before boarding starts. So there’s not really a way to know where to wait for ‘your’ train even if benches were next to the tracks.
Also, 30th St Station in philly has less than half the annual amtrak ridership as Moynihan, but roughly the same size building.
As far as restrooms specifically, we need to solve a few other issues to make that one work. Drug abuse, antisocial behavior, and mental issues. If we have public restrooms but someone has smashed the fixtures, smeared shit on the walls or is passed out in there from an opiate overdose, it’s not actually better than not having a restroom.
This is your brain on America
Uh, what? My brain is “on America” because I said we should work on drug abuse and overdose prevention and treat mental conditions, plus the conditions that make people engage in antisocial behavior? Or that I don’t want to go into a restroom with someone passed out on fentanyl?
I’d add, maybe you haven’t lived in urban areas with drug problems and seen this personally, or maybe you just want to be a Redditor and insult people. Idk. I had a gf who worked at a Starbucks in downtown Denver and they regularly had to figure out wtf to do with a person who had been in the bathroom for an hour and a half, and it usually turned out to be someone who had ODed on opiates. That was 10 years ago. It’s worse now.
Ok but why do people here WANT park benches to become homeless encampments? I don’t get that, that’s not what they’re for
Maybe the solution has nothing to do with park benches. Maybe if people had homes, they wouldn’t have to sleep in the park.
So why all this bitching about benches then???
There are more empty homes than homeless people. There is no housing shortage, it’s a myth. Put benches, public transport, walkable infrastructure, bike infrastructure, etc everywhere. And then when those dastardly evil homeless people show up and dare to use your person-centric infrastructure to exist, that’s when you ambush them with a house. What better way to punish them than to strip them of their homeless identity? We’ll brutally steal their homelessness from them, feed them, clothe them, and then they won’t feel any need to sleep on our nice benches ever again.
Does this framing help you understand or does it have to actually involve violence against the downtrodden for you to be on board?
You’re free to open your yard to homeless who want a safe place to sleep, heck you can open your couch for say least one right? Go find a homeless person and give them a place to sleep in your home… But I know you won’t
There’s a big difference between wanting benches more than not wanting homeless encampments and actively wanting benches to become homeless encampments.
Having public facilities that are actually useful is worth the “risk” of someone sleeping there because they have no where else to sleep. Fix homelessness by addressing the causes. Comfortable benches don’t cause homelessness.I come from a country where all the public parks have been turned into permanent shanty towns. I have no idea why anyone would want that
Sounds like we need more benches then
You can let a homeless person sleep on your couch if you actually care. Wanna do it and prove you’re not full of it?
I’ve done you one better;
my community and I have gotten together and funded local orgs that house and give homeless people basic amenities. Even safe places and tools to use drugs without harming others or spreading disease. We even gave them exemption from police searches while using these services so the government thugs can’t harass or batter them just for being homeless or addicted to drugs.
I have also personally let a homeless person use my shower and sleep on my couch, but I have no way of proving that to you.
They’re humans, they have basic human needs.
The park in my parent’s neighborhood got rid of all the benches
This might not be some nefarious government plan, though.
Just this past weekend, I came across a fairly popular bench on a local bike path that was completely destroyed by someone who had to break it in half.
A few weeks back, another bench was burned up.
And at another local resting area, their (plastic?) picnic table was also defaced and unusable.
A park I grew up near was completely torched one day (all wooden structures), and it took years for metal equipment to go up in its place.
People who vandalize and misuse these fixtures are the reason why they end up being removed 99% of the time. And it’s unfair to everyone else.
Hell, we’ve had entire sheltered bus stops have their glass destroyed, and they just take the whole thing down and don’t replace it. As a taxpayer, I can understand not wanting to flip the bill for another thing for someone to destroy, but it still frustrates me that people can’t behave.
Some people just need their kneecaps broken to learn how to live in society
It doesn’t excuse it but in my town there is literally nothing (free) for teenagers to do besides one lowly skate ramp. Bored kids find their own fun and some of the blame for their destructive behaviour must lie with the town planners who ignore the younger population.
I really agree! Every time my municipality asks for public feedback on new parks or parks they plan to update, I always make it a point to make sure that all age groups (including teens) are covered.
But even in areas where teens are expected to be using the space (bike parks, skateboard ramps, basketball courts, etc.), they need to stop vandalizing those spots, or else they will simply not be built anymore. We’ve had basketball courts, soccer nets, and baseball diamonds destroyed by “bored kids”, and there’s no incentive to pay tens of thousands to fix the damage, just so they can do it again.
We had a new waterfront park built just a year ago, and within days three teens caused over $50,000 damage to it. Like, WTF??
It’s like taking certain types of painkillers that gets rid of the pain - you don’t feel it anymore, but it is still there hidden from you. The thing causing it is still there as well. We need the anti-inflammatory equivalent of dealing with homelessness.
I wish society would put more into making the world work better for rule followers instead of focusing so much on punishing rule breaking (which often punishes everyone).
I don’t think being poor should be cause of being seen to be a rule breaker.
Agreed, imagine if instead of tearing down benches so people couldn’t sleep in the park, they instead added bike lifts to help people get up a steep hill in the park or maybe a sprinkler system for the kids to play in… actually adding value and stuff
You target poor/homeless with laws aimed to “prevent loitering”. The “rule breakers” are the people who simply are affected the most by the laws. Being poor shouldn’t cause you to break rules but think about it, overdraft fees, late fees, etc all targeted at the poor. Like someone else said earlier the punishment is aimed at a symptom not the problem. It’s why we’re all here lamenting about how ridiculous it is.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
The word humanity or even the derivative humane, are complete falsehoods. This is humanity, cruel and selfish,dumb and easily motivated towards violence and hatred. We suck as a species.
Removing public amenities is just the first step. The next step is to erect fencing around public parks and other spots where people like to enjoy themselves. Source: living in Dublin “the city centre is for working and shopping only” Ireland.
Fuckin trashbag the more you read about him.
Motherfucker purposely built the bridges for local streets going over the highways much lower than avg to prevent buses (and thus poorer folks) from being able to get to Jones beach: https://www.nycurbanism.com/blog/2020/7/28/robert-moses-low-parkway-bridges
Freedom before capitalism happens.
Free dumb after capitalism happens.
My city removed the basketball hoop and concrete pad that was there for it. Two years later they put in a pickleball court for the old folks. Want to guess why?
Want to guess why?
I am sure we can all guess, but make sure you call the city and kindly ask them to explain it. Then when they give you some bullshit excuse you can politely call them out. No swearing, no anger, and be brief.
Governments? Well, if you assume governments are controlled by wealthy people who don’t want to pay taxes and dislike the poors hanging around, sure.
All those public items cost tax money to maintain, and taxes are evil. Also, you can’t have the poors and rabble lazing about. They need to be making more money for the rich. So no benches or other leisure spaces for you.
Make the rich richer and don’t make them pay for it.
Rather than just help them (which is cheaper btw) they take services away from everyone in an attempt to make their area shitty enough they’ll go somewhere else…
Completely ignoring that they’re making it shitty for the people they want to keep too, which makes people want to leave and depressed selling prices, which can easily lead to a panic and flight from an area destroying the community.
Even from a purely selfish capitalistic perspective, it’s best to just have a fucking safety net. Beyond all the ethical reasons we should, there’s not a single logical reason not to fucking help people.
The problem is that when you do help people, more people keep showing up who want help too. There’s a good reason why a couple hundred thousand migrants have come to NYC (where I live) and that isn’t because there’s no “fucking safety net”. Frankly, I want less of a safety net here so that these people leave and the rest of the country has to do its share. I feel absolutely no guilt saying that I want either those benches a person can’t lie down on or no benches at all in the public areas I go to.
There are help-the-homeless-even-more advocates in NYC so I’m not saying everyone is a hypocrite, but I expect that the overlap between “complains about measures to deter homeless people” and “lives in a neighborhood with a lot of homeless people” is small.
There’s always some place that’s worse. What you’re arguing for here is a race to the bottom, where everyone tries to be worse than their neighbours in order to get the undesirables to go there instead.
In essentially “the tragedy of the commons” but in an opposite sense. If everyone gets worse in an attempt to get rid of “undesirables”, you just end up with everywhere being worse, and the “undesirables” still being around. What we need is for everyone to build safety nets together. That might actually improve the situation.
I recognize that this is a tragedy-of-the-commons scenario (although if everywhere is worse then at least people will stop coming from other countries to be homeless in the USA) but local action can’t prevent the race. It can only determine winners and losers.
Nobody is coming to the US to be homeless. That’s not a thing.
We’re shitty enough to our own citizens to make plenty of our own folk homeless.
You are closer to living on the street than you realize.
Nobody is coming to the US to be homeless. That’s not a thing.
They don’t intend to stay homeless permanently, but they come with no money and use the social services available to homeless people.
We’re shitty enough to our own citizens to make plenty of our own folk homeless.
There are many hard-working poor people who experience temporary housing insecurity, but they’re not the ones living on the street long-term. The ones who are usually have serious mental problems that make becoming a productive member of even the most generous society very unlikely. (They’ll also often refuse to go to a shelter because they won’t be allowed to do drugs there.)
You are closer to living on the street than you realize.
My family was poor when I was a child, although government assistance made it possible for us to pay for a place to live. (Note that I am not opposed to all government assistance.) We were close to homelessness then, and I really don’t want to end up in that situation again so I have taken many precautions. I have enough savings to live on for a long time. If I lose those, I have six people (mostly relatives) who would let me live with them for as long as I needed to. If they don’t, I have four more who would let me live with them for a few weeks. I think I could only become homeless if I got addicted to drugs or developed a mental illness that made me unbearable to be around. That’s not impossible but it is unlikely.
I think I could only become homeless if I got addicted to drugs or developed a mental illness that made me unbearable to be around. That’s not impossible but it is unlikely.
Please say this is self-deprecating irony.
It’s funny that my views are apparently extremely unpopular around here because they seem fairly mainstream IRL even among my friends who are all going to vote for Harris. I don’t think I would offend anyone by saying something similar at a group dinner (though some people might disagree) but I would be a little more circumspect and feel out the audience first if there were people I didn’t know. Different bubbles, I suppose…
The answer to the mentally ill homeless problem is not enshittification of cities, it’s the creation of high quality government run long term care facilities with approprate action taken against those who abuse the residents in these facilities.
Which is helping more. It will also be cheaper than enshittification in the long run. But you liberals will never understand that sometimes you have to actually spend money on social programs instead of running to the right whenever the republicans say boo.
All your arguments are running to the right. Reagan would have been proud.
We need a system that does not rely on threats of homelessness to motivate people.
As it is there will always be undesirables, even if the have/get to move the goalposts.
Do you know how much your government spends on helping private companies, instead?
I’m not in favor of that either (with a few exceptions related to national security).
Oh god forbid we create a society where thousands of people don’t need help!
I say this the respect you are due. Fuck you.
The problem is that when you do help people, more people keep showing up who want help too.
Which is why if it happens on a federal level, then people don’t congregate in the few places that aren’t as worse as possible.
If we handle it on a city or even state level, then people spit out by the worst states will always migrate, subsidizing the cost of the policies for those shitty states. And providing the incentive to be as cruel as possible.
That’s the thing with the logic against it, you end up arguing that it should be done on a federal level and agreeing with the person you’re arguing with.
Always worth the time for a reply tho. Hopefully it sticks.
I agree that it should happen on a federal level, although I don’t think it will as long as cities like New York and San Francisco are paying for it. I’m arguing against people who think that New York and San Francisco shouldn’t be creating any public areas that aren’t for homeless people.
You’re pathetic. I hope that if you ever need help, you never get it either. Absolutely pitiful.
“Pitiful” implies that people would have sympathy for me. I think the word “despicable” might better express what you intend.
No, pitiful is exactly what I intend. I feel very bad for people like you.
No? Have a safety net? The more that die, the more theoretical wealth becomes available to them. Even if it’s homeless.
It reaches the same goal for them. That’s why it’s selfish and capitalistic, it works. It just sacrifices everything that isn’t I. It’s that doomer mentality, of why bother helping. world’s dog shit, so be dog shit.
Live your life one of two ways, how the world wants or how you want the world to be.
I want this world to be better, so I do what I can to make it how I wish it was. Trying to quit a weed addiction, so I do small shit like not litter butts, or pick up garbage I think might be cool, help animals in danger, do something when you can.
Just talk. Capitalists however profit from any social benefits because they’re pathetic cowards that need daddy’s wallets until they’re decrepit middle age men.
Ps. This is just something that makes me feel special and I don’t have many friends. The other day on the train an old black guy and an old white guy were talking about how the world is ass. There hasn’t been a good president since George Washington, not the time to enlist cause what are we fighting for. I was tired, but eventually asked why is now the wrong time if tomorrow is worse. There’s never a good time, because you aren’t trying. Anyways, an EVEN older black man standing next to me says, something about back in his day even hoodrats tried to help. Everyone was quite.
The problem is that businesses see it as a way to drive customers into their stores where they can then demand they either buy something or leave. This is end stage capitalism bullshit where they’re trying to wring blood from a stone.
Yeah, but Republican voters want to hurt people who aren’t like them. How will your proposal help them do that??
But have you considered that maybe my good and just God has given me a mission to make everyone else suffer?
I’m sure it’s written somewhere in the bible. Idk I’ve never read it.
Neither have most Christians.
The boring-dystopia solution: a company that rents out chairs, and records everything that happens around those chairs for training AIs.
Shhh. Don’t give them ideas
Their excuse, ‘for the safety of children’.
