16th Street BART station still a vile mess

Not sure what BART is doing these days, but it’s not taking expert care of the beleaguered 16th Street station.

In November, if you recall, Supervisor Hillary Ronen and Bevan Dufty, a former supervisor and current member of the BART board, literally cleaned the feces- and urine-laced station themselves in an effort to draw attention to its unsanitary conditions.

Following the duo’s cleansing, the agency promised better things to come—namely, stationing two full-time janitors to power-wash it nightly.

Almost one year later, little has changed.

Heather Knight’s delightfully graphic account of what the station looked like Tuesday might be too much to bear. But you really must. In part, she writes:

The ground was littered with empty liquor bottles, broken glass, needle caps, cigarette butts and a Flamin’ Hot Cheetos bag. The brown yuckiness had been wiped from the elevator, but a stain remained. The areas around both escalators were filled with trash, including a single black shoe, and smelled like urine. At the bottom of the escalators sat more trash, including an empty cup that held instant noodles rolling around right next to garbage cans.

You know the worst part of this sordid tale? This, apparently, meets BART’s standards.

Indeed, BART claims that the station is cleaned nightly, with the two alleged janitors splitting their time between the 16th Street and 24th Street stations. Also of note, Knight’s visit follows a major exfoliation the station received just 24 hours prior. Yikes.

Meanwhile, BART made international headlines this week after anti-Semitic ads appeared at two stations in downtown San Francisco.

But the agency managed one silver lining this week: Bowing to privacy advocate groups, BART voted to keep the public involved in any future planning of surveillance proposals, as well as nixing any plans that use facial-recognition technology or cellphone tracking.

• Despite BART’s promises, 16th Street Mission plaza remains yucky [SF Chronicle]
• BART to Discuss Surveillance, Safety Plans [NBC Bay Area]
• 16th Street BART plaza closed, blasted clean with glass [Curbed SF]
• BART plaza so nasty politicians are now cleaning it with their own hands [Curbed SF]