Actual construction on the Golden Gate Bridge took about 4 years. But that’s not a fair comparison, as this story is about the entire process of design and reviews that precede construction.
The Golden Gate Bridge began in 1919 with the search for an architect. The first design proposal was completed in 1921. The state legislature created a special district for it in 1923. In 1925, voters decided to join the district. In 1930, there was a bond measure to finance the work, but, initially they had trouble finding the necessary financial backing given the economic depression. Construction began in 1933 and it opened in 1937.
So it was actually about 18 years. Whether it’s a bridge or a bathroom, public works are tricky.
There are also still closures at 12th St./Oakland City Center, 16th Street Mission and 24th Street Mission.
It’s nice that some of the other restrooms have reopened but really there’s no excuse for keeping any of them shuttered for over two decades. That’s longer than it took to design and build the BART system in the first place.
Public toilets simply don’t work in places with a large homeless presence. They end up being used for camping, prostitution and drug use, and typically someone (whoever is strongest) charges rent / access fees for them. They need to have a full-time security guard present for it to work. This is just reality. They need to either spend whatever it takes to provide housing, mental health and other services, and then public toilets will work, or budget full-time security, or just don’t put a toilet there. The reason for all the fights over them is because this is how it is. Surely this $1.7 million toilet will not last long.
I personally think SF has enough money they should just spend infinity dollars on mental health services to see how much spending it takes to finally solve the problem. The hundred million or so that SF is spending is not enough.
Honestly, having read the full article as well as some others on the same story, I don’t find the headline to be misleading at all. Most municipalities don’t need to spend anywhere near this amount of money in order to add a small, single-commode restroom to a public area, as was explained by the various experts interviewed for the story. I seriously doubt that the facility will be heated, and the site already has provisions for the plumbing as this restroom was always part of the plan for the public square.
I’ve worked for a municipality myself and was part of a park restroom remodeling effort. This kind of expenditure is not normal, nor should it be. Serious reforms to the processes that the city follows for projects like this really need to be enacted if the city is going to be able to keep functioning.
And an update on the situation: Gov. Newsom flushed the toilet by withholding state dollars. Seriously, if you have a situation where the governor of the largest state in America is getting involved in the construction plans for a single municipal commode… something is wrong with that situation on many levels.
It’s simply impossible to build public toilets in SF. Here’s the press release from the company that has been trying to provide this service since 1995. It just isn’t going to work, no matter how much money the city / state spends on them. Meanwhile, in the Tokyo subway, the bathrooms are spotless and in perfect condition all the time and the entire system is safe, clean and orderly. We should find out what their secret is.
I’ve used public toilets in San Francisco many times and I say that you’re full of shit—much like the sidewalks and gutters in areas where homeless people are denied access to restroom facilities.
Yes, there are too many hurdles for building and maintaining public toilets in San Francisco. No, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have public restrooms in places where homeless people exist.
Kind of a weird take. Are you saying that the ends (like the 10 dead workers, or the environmental impact past, present, and future) justified the means because those involved didn’t have to deal with any red tape?
Also, failing to acknowledge the rampant NIMBYism in SF that makes toilets and housing for the homeless so prohibitively expensive that in the few cases they are actually built there’s no money left over to properly maintain or secure them plays right into the same old neoLiberal just-so stories about government being unable to provide solutions.
The “secret” is that they value the idea of common spaces and the concept of society actually existing in a way that Americans and the British haven’t since Reagan and Thatcher.
That’s also an aspect of recognising everyone is part of their community and society. Not like the U.S., where a lot of right-wingers balk at washing their hands (or sometimes wiping) after taking a dump because “f*ck everyone else”.
NIMBYism is a real issue but I don’t think the 20-year closure of the restrooms in major BART stations was caused by that. BART itself says it was due to “safety concerns” following 9/11.
In the case of the toilet in the Noe Valley public square, I haven’t seen any mention of NIMBY pushback against such a plan in any of the reports I’ve read. There’s already a port-a-potty there and the community was mostly strongly in favor of a permanent facility, which is why that assembly member had set up the “celebration” for the funding approval that attracted all the media coverage in the first place.
So, we should close all bathrooms in dance clubs then? Because those are pretty common in clubs that are full of employed and housed people out for a good time on a Saturday night…
How about we accept that human beings NEED to use the bathroom and ensure that all people have access to them? That would be a start to treating unhoused people like human beings.
Yes. The BART restrooms are supposed to be for everyone, not just the homeless. It’s a different kind of failure delivered by American right-wingers.
For Noe Valley, the NIMBY issue was not one of residents pushing back but one of fear that they would. Even in the best-case scenario the multi-phase review (which takes into account legitimate concerns) costs more than it should in California because a large part of the public outreach aspect involves numerous attempts to avoid the objections of potential NIMBYs. That alone might have added five or six figures to the total cost.
What do you all do? Never leave home? There must be a shitload of kidney failure there.
Remember when SF’ers thought they could do things and were leaders in the country? That’s long gone- it’s just full of rich, whiny, libertarian techbros who complain about living there. But never move.
But still try to hang on to their relevancy - like Al Bundy and his touchdown record.
I assume the idea that it could be something a cop checks now and then along their beat is unworkable, because it would take them away from harassing minorities, and they’d probably do the same to the people who need it anyway.
