Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Make way for a homeless man and his cart & bags

In a fairly packed train this morning, at the West Oakland station, a homeless man squeezes himself onto the train along with a cart and 3 huge trash bags. Luckily, I was on the opposite end of the train, watching him push people out of his way with the trash bags. It wasn't too hard for people to make way for him since no one wanted to be near him and pushed themselves as far as they can possibly go, even if it was just inches.

Of course we've all seen the homeless on BART, but with a shopping cart and 3 completely packed trash bags during commute hours? Shouldn't there be some enforcement around that??

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh wow. I understand where you're coming from with this one, but BART would probably find itself stuck between a rock and a hard place if they had to defend kicking out a homeless guy with all that luggage vs. not kicking off someone laden down with a sizable amount of luggage going to SFO.

SongMonk said...

I agree with the other commenter. They need to enforce uniformly. I don't know what the BART regulations say about bringing baggage/luggage aboard the trains, but whatever that is is what should be enforced.

Or not enforced. I take it this is an isolated incident and not a regular commute occurrence. Given that, I would think they would look the other way. Even if they were around. Which they weren't.

Anonymous said...

They should declare that "large shopping carts" are in the same category as bicycles, at least that would keep them off during commuter times (should the train operator enforce it, and we've all seen train operators allow bikes on when they shouldn't)

Anonymous said...

I was on the first car of a mostly empty BART train a few years ago when a homeless man with two large black plastic trash bags of cans came on. I'd been sitting in the seats right by the door, and although there were plenty of seats, the man just stood there. After awhile, the driver stuck his head out of his cabin and asked me to move, which I was happy to do.

Until that point, it hadn't occurred to me to classify him in the "senior/disabled" category, as I just figured the guy for a guy with bags of cans. I certainly understood where the driver was coming from, though. And the guy sat down after I moved.

bartmusings said...

that's interesting. i wouldn't have thought of it that way either.

Anonymous said...

Shopping carts are not allowed in the paid area. I know at some stations this difficult to enforce, but at the West Oakland station, enforcement is not an issue. The Agent ws either not in the booth or not enforcing the policy.