Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
It's good to see the City/Police taking action. It may not solve the big-picture problem, but things have been getting really out of hand, and it's important to take a visible stand for public safety.
I do fear a lot of damage has already been done, but public safety needs to be the absolute priority for the City/CT moving forward, especially if they want to keep building a more urban/green city. The stuff that's been happening lately has the potential to really erode the reputation and trust of the entire system, and will probably take years to build back to what it was.
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Fully agree. I think that "we" have probably made the big picture problem worse (by closing safe consumption sites, for example, among other things), but there still needs to be visible, enforceable actions.
Without exaggeration, in just a few months, my wife has directly and regularly witnessed open drug use, violence, people encamped in stations (she boards in Tuscany at 5:45, which is an ungodly hour already, and there are regularly overnighters still sleeping in there), passed out people in the middle of stations and platforms, and more. And these aren't one-off events - they happen regularly, and until about 1-2 weeks ago, it was actually getting worse even as ridership returned to pre-pandemic levels.
So yes, it is complicated, and while I am very much a "address the root causes" sort of guy, visible enforcement is overdue. Root causes take time, money, and wherewithal to improve. In the mean time, people riding the train have a right to feel safe.
And not to keep anecdotally bringing up my wife, but she recently accepted a new position closer to home that avoids the whole "train and downtown" issues. And while not the only reason, not having to deal with that stuff was absolutely a factor.