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0 pointscletus7y ago0 comments

Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks?

It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there.

If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 blocks is an issue, you support those people directly by, say, paying for their Ubers/cabs.

Are you American by any chance? I find Americans are more prone to this particular issue of not being able to make exceptions where necessary. People can't walk 4 blocks? Make everyone wait! Have more stops! Build more stations!

I mean this is exactly why Prop 13 in California was and is ridiculous. If we're really concerned about old people being forced out of their homes by rising property tax bills, why not just give them in particular a subsidized rate? Why do houses in Malibu and Beverly Hills need caps on property taxes because of some retired person in Bakersfield?

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6 comments · 4 top-level

cgriswald7y ago· 1 in thread

> Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks?

I'd imagine for someone in a wheelchair the stairs would present a much greater challenge than an extra four blocks. On the other hand, for someone with a prosthetic leg, climbing a set of stairs while holding a railing is probably far preferable to navigating an extra four blocks of icy sidewalks and streets.

> It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there.

> If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 blocks is an issue, you support those people directly by, say, paying for their Ubers/cabs.

Since both solutions are expensive (and the latter is exposed to exploitation), I'd like to see a cost-benefit analysis (which includes the benefits to non-disabled for having more frequent stops as well).

> People can't walk 4 blocks? Make everyone wait!

It gets paid for in time or money. Maybe it's an American thing to value money more than time? I'm not sure anyone else has to wait, though. They can always walk if it is faster.

gshdg7y ago

This. I’m on crutches right now. I’ll have to take stairs to get in and out of the subway almost anywhere, but that extra four blocks takes a ton out of you.

UncleEntity7y ago· 1 in thread

> Why do houses in Malibu and Beverly Hills need caps on property taxes because of some retired person in Bakersfield?

The house my father grew up in in San Jose is now worth multi-millions but my grandmother couldn't possibly have paid the ever increasing property taxes while she was still alive and I think people would have whined about subsidies in well-off neighborhoods like you're doing now. I mean, she lived in that house since the late '40s and Silicon Valley just kind of moved in next door...

asdff7y ago

That's always the case. Parts of Manhattan used to be absolute squalor, the worst conditions a city had seen, complete slum housing packing 8 people in a bedroom. Now the area has changed and those same 1 bedrooms might go for 4k a month after a power wash and fresh primer. In Detroit, the city used to be very nice and developed instead of derelict before all the rich white people fled to the suburbs. Cities have never not changed, and it's shortsighted to think that they should exist in stasis when that's never been the case in the 10,000 years of history of cities on earth. I find it ironic that the generation which celebrated ripping out entire neighborhoods for interstates and airports and sports stadiums and parking lots complains when someone wants to build an apartment of all things in the lot across the street.

Prop 13 is a bind for people like your grandmother who live on fixed income and who anticipate living at a fixed level. This law insulated them from the housing market, yet they benefit from it's insulation from property tax when they do finally sell their 100k home, in the tax man's eyes at least, for 2m. In that case, surely it would be better to pay your back taxes when you sell, after you've realized your 2000% gain, but that just would make too much sense I guess.

rayiner7y ago

> Are you American by any chance? I find Americans are more prone to this particular issue of not being able to make exceptions where necessary. People can't walk 4 blocks? Make everyone wait! Have more stops! Build more stations!

Americans have no sense of proportionality or optimizing for the system rather than the individual. It makes living in American cities infuriating.

tomcam7y ago

From a question on the density of subway stops to a rant about Prop 13 in two steps. Impressive. Note to self: research the average number of hops from any topic on HN to Prop 13.

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