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0 pointsstrken1mo ago0 comments

People use a train station for travel. We don't allow people to sleep blocking a road, because that would obstruct travel, even though a road is a public space. Likewise, we shouldn't allow people to sleep in a train station where they'll obstruct travel, even though it's a public space.

I agree that the two aren't exactly the same, but public transport users have a right to safe, comfortable, unobstructed travel. There's a difference between preventing a class of people from using public transport to travel, vs preventing everyone from using public transport to sleep.

I also note that the case of long distance travel is an exception, because you might legitimately need to sleep at a station between legs. I'm talking about people who sleep in train stations with no intent of travelling anywhere.

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Defletter1mo ago

Sorry, I'm still failing to see how someone rough-sleeping on a bench is in anyway comparable to blocking a road and obstructing travel. The actual equivalent would be laying across the track... which is not what's happening. I have seen disturbing images of places who so acutely fail to support their homeless populations that they have no other choice than to sleep in the roads, but even then they're up against the curb, not actually blocking the road.

At this point, I'm beginning to think you consider the mere presence of a rough-sleeper at a train station to be blocking the use of that train station, regardless of what it is they're actually doing.

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