The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
BART police on Monday began enforcing a ban on sleeping, lying or sitting with legs extended at the busy Powell Street Station and said they plan to expand the crackdown systemwide.
The enforcement action, which involved as many as nine BART police officers Monday, is a safety measure intended to ensure that stations can be evacuated in four to six minutes in an emergency, said Jeffrey Jennings, BART's deputy police chief.
Jennings said the campaign is not intended to target the homeless, though BART police are aware that's how it may be construed.
"Everyone's going to spin it as an attack on the homeless," he said. "It isn't. It's about getting everyone out in an emergency."
BART police became concerned with the growing number of people sleeping, lying down or sitting with legs extended in downtown stations with long corridors. State law requires BART to be able to evacuate stations promptly in emergencies, Jennings said.
I have reported on the Powell Street homeless before. SEE: Welcome to San Francisco.
-RW
How does this affect mobility-challenged people? In particular, I'm thinking of people using walkers or wheelchairs and the horribly slow BART elevators
ReplyDelete**** I hate political correctness. Why do they have to lie? Everybody and their mother knows that this is about getting the filthy bums out of the station, not about fire safety. Just say so!!!
ReplyDeleteThat will happen as soon as they admit government meddling (local and otherwise) in the housing market and economy in general is responsible for many people ending up homeless.
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