The requirement to actually pay will keep much of the riff-raff out. In my local bus system, you theoretically have to pay but the drivers are not going to throw you off the bus if you don't and so the buses all have a few homeless guys who just ride all day.
Don't know what town you live in, but here in Seattle, very few bus routes have homeless people who ride them all day.
The vast majority don't.
The reason transit in this city sucks (still head and shoulders above the vast majority of the US) isn't because there's 12,000+ homeless people living in it[1], it's because the buses don't run frequently enough and because all the fucking single-occupant car traffic turns what would be a 20 minute bus ride into a 40 minute slog, and because you'd be insane to bike for your last-mile.
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[1] Increasing every year, and under the current mayor's tenure, we lost a net of 200 shelter beds.
Yup. The subway works because one need not bother checking timetables. You show up at the station and expect a car. I could totally see interspersing shuttles between buses reducing latency to the point that it leads to an uptick in bus use.
The RapidRide routes actually have hit plausible frequency. I live near the newly opened G line, and can now just walk out to the bus stop assuming there will be one within 10 minutes, usually less. And they’ve given enough dedicated lane space that it is faster than traffic.
Are you assuming people share your prejudice? Who is 'riff-raff'? Maybe I think you are (and vice versa). I've never had a problem with someone who seems to be unhoused (I wouldn't know). I have had problems with people on their phones in big SUVs, or who just feel like being a*holes.
> I've never had a problem with someone who seems to be unhoused (I wouldn't know).
It's not unusual to never have problems with the homeless (especially if you rarely come into contact with them), but your personal experience here is worthless. Especially irrelevant is your experience of people in SUVs with phones. Not knowing if the people around you are homeless is not a sign of open-mindedness, it's a sign of a possible lack of sensitivity.
People who are homeless are going through issues, and are largely being shunned and ignored by the public. They often became homeless because they were impossible to live with. The ones most likely to be around you, in your space, and that you're likely to clock as homeless are the most aggressive, because homeless people with all their marbles generally make an effort not to seem homeless and don't ask strangers for anything. They die quietly, off alone in a corner, unless someone saves them first.
And rationally, which I discovered myself as a homeless teenager 30-some years ago: you'll never meet, or help, the homeless people who aren't pestering you and bothering you and invading your space.
So when visible homeless people are being talked about, there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any conclusions or making any generalizations about them. I feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based on their wealth, but there are many other homeless people in the same position as visibly homeless people, but who are not visible. Pretending that the visually homeless are completely indistinguishable from other groups of people is just a form of active neglect. Pretending not to see them does not make them disappear.
Why is yours any more worthwhile? When in cities, I regularly interact with people who you might assume are homeless. I think my direct experience is definitely valuable to the conversation - unless it disagrees with you, of course.
> People who are homeless ...
It's your narrative that is worthless.
> They often became homeless because they were impossible to live with.
Is there some data for that? The leading cause of homelessness, last I saw, was losing your home to medical bills. Anyway, I'm not living with them, just talking at the bus stop or outside the store.
> homeless people with all their marbles generally make an effort not to seem homeless and don't ask strangers for anything
That is certainly untrue. The confused and mentally ill people generally are in their own worlds. The people talking are fine. Maybe if you act with hostility or defensiveness, you get a different response, but I guarantee if you just stop worrying about it and behave decently as you (hopefully) do with anyone else, it's really no issue at all.
> you'll never meet, or help, the homeless people who aren't pestering you and bothering you and invading your space.
You're just making things up, including that homeless people are pestering and bothering me, etc. IME, which is considerable, people who seem homeless are no different than other people, except they are vulnerable and don't dress as well.
> there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any conclusions or making any generalizations about them
There are plenty of very strong reasons to avoid conclusions about people you don't know - you don't know what you are talking about and will harm the people. Generalizations do the same thing, denying people their basic freedom to be themselves and be responsible for their own consequences, not someone else you met a year ago.
It's also a reason my direct experience is valuable, and your generalizations are worthless. Any serious pursuit of knowledge - science, courts, etc. - utterly reject generalizations and require direct observation.
> I feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based on their wealth
That part is intentional and not clumsy at all. It avoids dangerous errors and protects vulnerable people. Looking at behavior today, who are the crazy ones - the billionaires or those without homes?
I think what they are talking when they say visible homeless is people that are “chronically homeless” which is people “experiencing homelessness for longer than a year with a serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or physical disability”. [1] These are not people losing their home due to medical bills. Drug addiction motivates panhandling, a way to obtain cash for drugs over social support systems that provide non-cash assistance. Serious mental illness often leads to very visible erratic behavior, either directed to “their own world” or at other people. I can’t speak to you experience, but a small percent of homeless people do harass people for money, or scream nonsense, and end up arrested or in the hospital far more than the vast majority of other homeless people. [2]
I guess I find it hard to believe that you never encounter panhandlers or mentally ill homeless people acting erratically, aggressively, or both. I don’t really understand what you mean by “people who seem homeless are no different than other people, except they are vulnerable and don't dress as well”. Most homeless people dress as well as any other lower income housed person, unless you just mean anyone who looks kind of poor. The people sleeping on park benches in filthy clothes are rarely “no different” than other people, because again, they are almost all dealing with serious physical, mental, or substance abuse problems.
[2] “Participants averaged five hospitalizations, 20 visits to the emergency department, five to psychiatric emergency services, and three to jail in the two years prior to being enrolled. While these are the homeless people who are the most visible to the general public, and to many health care workers, researchers said they represent only about 5 percent to 10 percent of chronically homeless individuals.” https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/09/418546/study-finds-permane...
> I think what they are talking when they say visible homeless is people that are “chronically homeless” which is people “experiencing homelessness for longer than a year with a serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or physical disability”.
I think it's a big leap to try to read their mind, or assume they had some scientific definition in mind.
> I guess I find it hard to believe that you never encounter panhandlers or mentally ill homeless people acting erratically, aggressively, or both.
I've encountered people asking for money; my point is there is no problem. They are just normal people - they might as well be asking for directions or the time. Most are even more passive: They sit on the ground - as if they need to demean themselves to assuage the fears of housed people - and quietly ask while people walk by. A few days ago someone walked up to me and said, 'I'm going to tell you straight - I need $40 for food and shelter tonight'. Again, he might as well be someone behind a deli counter trying to sell me something. And when I pulled out a few dollars and a ten dollar bill came with it, they asked for it directly. I said no, but again it was no problem at all; I never felt threatened. I think people bring their fear with them; every person generally acts like you treat them.
I see people acting aggressively and erratically, but it's to the air. I just give them a wide berth; they never bother me. I wish I could help them but I don't know how.
> unless you just mean anyone who looks kind of poor
That was the point I was making to the other commenter - I don't actually know who is homeless. I don't usually ask people for their housing information.
> The people sleeping on park benches in filthy clothes are rarely “no different” than other people, because again, they are almost all dealing with serious physical, mental, or substance abuse problems.
According to who? Also, plenty of other people deal with those things, but they have resources to support them, including family/friends and money. Lots of high-profile people have those problems.
Some billionaires are very publicly acting out on serious mental health issues.
> a small percent of homeless people do harass people for money, or scream nonsense, and end up arrested or in the hospital far more than the vast majority of other homeless people.
A small percentage of everyone is antisocial or have crippling mental illness. As I said, I've never been threatened by an apparently unhoused person, but I've been threatened by other people.
Once I parked in a spot that apparently someone else wanted. They got out of their car, flashed a badge (I think it was a fire department badge) and threatened to break my windows. Drunk people in bars can be dangerous. Law enforcement can. Another customer once hit me in nice bank office. I've seen threatening people at some sporting events. I'm pretty sure they all had homes.
Have you personally observed it, or are these stories you've heard? Beware of the latter - people love to spread this stuff around. It's like a drug, and more poisonous to the community.
> Current law allows organizations like the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) to issue prohibition orders. BART is the only such agency that has actually issued prohibitions in California, giving out 1,118 such orders from 2019-2022. About 30% of orders issued by BART in 2022 were for battery or threats against riders.
I can't imagine how this is enforced. Clipper cards and cash will get you on any bus without any sort of check to see if you're allowed. There is probably a lot of overlap of people who get banned the people who skip gates and fares.
Walmart and Target probably are a lot less concerned with accuracy than a fare collecting entity would be; any benefit from facial recognition is a plus for them even if it often either is wrong or fails to hit when it should, whereas with toll collection it has to be near 100% to replace other payment mechanism, and nearly never get a false hit (though misses might be okay) to be a convenience method when people are still expected to have a reliable method for on hand for backup.
They probably have all the tech to make them effective but don't want to turn it on for "petty" stuff like this because they don't want normal non-battery inclined customers and the general public to be aware of how surveilled they are on public transit.
I ride the bus and Bart in the San Francisco bay area and I've lived here my entire adult life. It is not fine. About once a week some kind of event happens. Off the top of my head these are things I have experienced both on Bart and AC Transit (though mainly Bart):
* I've been punched twice. Not hard, but an angry person hitting me in the shoulder and the back because they were drunk or high and I guess I looked at them wrong
* I've been shoved out of the way hard probably five separate times?
* People openly smoking crack, smoking weed.
* People high out of their mind. Just on monday some guy had his pants around his ankles high out of his mind swirling around and rubbing up against riders.
* A man shouting and punching the top of the train saying he's going to kill himself
* A man screaming profanities, calling women the c-word, sluts, saying he's going to rape people
* Multiple fights
* Someone getting their phone swiped out of their hand and punched in the head when he tried to chase them.
* I watched someone eat most of a burrito, stand up, turn it upside down and squish it onto the seat.
* I saw a man with a concealed gun tucked behind him into his belt walking around the station looking for someone.
These are definitely some of the worst events, but something on the spectrum of "bad" happens weekly.
There is a very large and rampant amount of bad behavior well below the "jail time" threshold. Even then, the police can't be everywhere all of the time.
Then your city has much larger problem. In my city, public transport is as safe as anywhere else. That is how most people get to work. And kids to school.
Sometimes I do, but its eight times the cost and takes an extra 30 minutes each way. Ideally I would love to take public transportation. I love the idea of it, the economics, the traffic reduction, and the general social benefit. Unfortunately here it comes with some big negatives and they really wear you down after over a decade of it not really changing much.
* There is an accountability component where if you behave badly you will be banned from the shuttle service