How much of my tax dollars are being spent refitting glass panes on shelters broken by thrill-seeking glass breakers? Same bus shelters in my neighborhood get vandalized at least once a week. I’ve been told by one person with HRM that the bus shelters get vandalized for a various of reasons across the HRM . . . WTF does that mean?
—Wang Bang
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.
There is a woman at the market who makes jewelry out of the shards from smashed bus stop shelters. I found that incredibly interesting and creative.
…Mind you, I doubt she’s the one doing the smashing.
Can’t they make them out of some sort of unbreakable plastic / fibreglass material?
As long as those other materials are not flammable it might be a good idea Fish.
They would also have to be scratch proof.
Perhaps the PMMA they use for the spectator’s protection in hockey rinks? Apparently, it’s a lower cost than glass.
Wiki can be wonderful 😉
But, like Miles said, it’d have to be scratch-proof. NYC subway windows are made of that stuff, and some are scratched so badly you can’t see a damn thing.
I hate vandalism.
How much of [your] tax dollars are being spent… about the same number of tax dollars paid to police to prevent such crime.
3M may produce some pretty neat stuff in terms of plastic and coatings… and it’s ALL really BAD for the environment.
What cost-effective means to expect the police to use to prevent bus shelter vandalism Kay? I suspect replacing the broken glass is the cheapest option.
They should rig them with trip mines to send a message
I know of at least one shelter that used to be concrete/stone/metal and now they replaced it with a glass one that is smashed every two weeks. What’s the point in that?
Sagi – I’ve often been tempted to take home a few shards of broken bus shelter glass. It looks all wierd and honeycomb-like.
Yeah, it’s really neat. It’s designed so that it won’t shatter into big sharp shards, but instead breaks into little round-ish pieces. I think it’s pretty. I’ll have to look for this jeweler!
I didn’t catch the name of the jeweler, but I got the impression that she vends there every week. Should be pretty easy to find. 🙂
Transparent aluminum has been created – thinner, stronger, lighter than glass. Going to be a while before it makes it to market, though. Great implications for car windshields, etc.
Transparent aluminum only exists in science fiction. You’re probably thinking of aluminium oxynitride, which is a ceramic, and costs $20k per square metre.
Well, transparent aluminum does exist. Or… should I say “did” exist, for about 40 femtoseconds when they did the experiment. I wouldn’t bet on it becoming a reality anytime within the next half decade…
http://www.physorg.com/news167925273.html
Thank you BF. I know about the Star Trek reference, nova00, but this is real, albeit brief. Old-school Star Trek (pre-Enterprise) always used conceptual or emerging science as the basis for their gadgets and theories.
usually these assholes don’t take a bus. just wanna be a little wangsta is all. and of course we, the taxppayers suffer through this shit. i say if anyone here sees a punk ass doing damage, if they have a camphone, take their pic, while calling the cops. and if possible, maybe even take the piece of shit out, before said cops arrive.chalk it up to, HE WAS COMING RIGHT AT ME. a well placed kick in the nuts or snatch should do it.
Nova00, shelters are almost always made of a transparent material not only to see the bus and be seen the driver, but also to allow people to feel safe sitting in them – a three-walled concrete bunker would be fairly vandalism-proof but also terrifying to sit in at night, especially in a sketchy neighborhood.
It’s really just an unfortunate situation, and as Miles already said, replacing the broken glass is definitely the cheapest option. I somehow can’t see ‘transparent aluminum’ bus shelters in the city’s budget for a while…
You would think plexiglass would make the most sense, even if it could be scratched. It would take alot longer to scratch a full piece of plexiglass to the point where it would have to be replaced, as opposed to the 5 seconds it takes to smash out the glass.I am sure the powers that be have thought about the plexiglass option, cost has got to be the deciding factor.
Cost and safety are the factors, and safety glass wins out. Pisses me off that people smash them and waste our money. All I can say is report them if you see them.
Plexiglass is highly flammable so thats another reason it’s not used for shelters. I noticed another trend is the burning of the corrugated plastic roof sheeting on the shelters. The first one to get a mouthful of burning plastic will serve as the poster-child as to why you don’t do these stupid stunts.
not all the buss shelters are being vandlized. i was driving up quinpool one day and watched one of the pans of glass shatter due to the wind. i watched it bow out then i seen a waterfall of broken glass. it looked really cool. and i know it was windy there cause my poor car was getting blown all over the road.