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Would it help if we actually locked up the people committing the crimes?
No, because you all consider drug addiction a crime and not something that people need help with, so you throw them in the slammer and make it worse. The punitive approach to petty criminality (let’s be abundantly clear, I’m not talking about serious crimes like homicide, rape, assault, etc.) has been a total failure.
IBJ – would you dig into the money spent on street homelessness to date in 2024 and 2025? (The $20 million package was initially made up of a $10 million commitment to a citywide initiative to end street homelessness)
Why was so much money unspent??
How much of this money was actually spent on homelessness in 2025? (Federal officials approved the city’s request to redirect a $5.9 million grant that had been intended to build permanent supportive housing to the citywide Streets to Home initiative. Hanson said city officials made that request after it was clear that the housing development would not come to fruition in time for the city to fulfill the grant’s requirements.)
Can we start with NOT installing the new blue line bus islands that not only take up 3 of 5 traffic lanes, but are RIDICULOUSLY dangerous for pedestrians getting from the sidewalk to the MIDDLE OF THE STREET to catch the bus? Oh, wait–there aren’t many riders, so let’s just scratch that project alltogether and reallocate that money to a project that would be helpful to someone! (“In this budget process, we’ve heard pretty clearly of needing a focus on pedestrian and traffic safety,” Nielsen said. “We’re making a million-dollar investment in that, plenty more to go.”)
And what happened to the new downtown tax-fee approved last year, to partially fund homeless and shelters?
1) Blue Line dollars can only be used for Blue Line. It legally cannot be used for any other purpose. Federal funds are non-fungible and I really don’t understand why Conservatives can’t wrap their head around that core concept. If we don’t use it for Blue Line, we send it back to the Feds and get nothing. Washington Street is also one of the worst offenders for pedestrian safety, so we would lose out on millions of dollars in safety money, too.
2) The BRT system has been operational for six years, and opened a second line, and so far, the number of fatalities for people reaching the median BRT stations is zero. People have to cross the full length of the street to get to the bus stop on the opposite side for the majority of routes, is that also a problem?
3) 200,000 riders per month on just the Red and Purple Lines is pretty far from “not many riders.” Are you sure you don’t mean, “not many riders that I deem acceptable and participant members of society”? You smack of classism.