Another smashed bus shelter, what more do I say. Umm, I suppose I could call it a minor inconvenience, but really it makes me mad. How could people be so thoughtless? It’s winter, that means lots of wind, rain, snow or some combination of those and other bad weather. The shelters, though not perfect, are nice little places to wait for busses… don’t be an asshole and think about other people.
—Broken Glass
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2009.
What pisses me off most about people smashing shelters is that it costs the city money every time someone does this to either fix or remove the shelter. Thanks to these vandals, there’s no shelter on Highfield St. in Spryfield anymore. The money the city spends to fix them could have gone towards snow removal, pothole repair, or just about anything else you can think of.
So why does the city insist on using glass? Why not Plexiglass?
Obviously, the people smashing shelters do not pay taxes. Their parents were not actual parents, just older people that lived in the same dwelling.
I always say the same thing , why not use plexiglass it’s more expensive but it would be a one time fix. So in the long run would be cheaper.
i smash bus shelters left right and center.
and the bus shelter on highfield was my fault … sorry
Plexiglas would be a nice idea, they use it in hockey rinks. It’ll still shatter if it’s whacked hard enough, but the fragments would be dull.
haha good point! How many thousands of panes of glass are going to be busted and fixed???
The bus shelter at the stop at the end of Parkland towards Lacewood is ALWAYS smashed. And sometimes it takes the city months to fix it. It’s annoying. It hasn’t been smashed in a while, but there’s always broken liquor bottles and whatnot near by, so you know it’s some drunken idiot out to “have some fun”…meanwhile money that could be put into other things (like plowing the roads properly!) goes down the drain because some drunken idiot with no respect for others smashed the bus shelter yet again.
SwampDonkey’s got a good point: use plexiglass, HRM — it’d probably save you money in the future and those of us waiting for the bus won’t have to get wet/frostbite because the shelter is fuck’d.
Actually the glass used is much like plexi-glass (called Lexan now). In fact the reason why they use the glass they use is due to the fact that when it shatters, it smashes into safe, rounded edges (like your windshield). It’s stronger than regular glass, but unfortunately it’s not strong enough. I think part of the reason they don’t use plexiglass is because when it shatters, it breaks into large and extremely sharp pieces. I think even though the criminals (whoops I mean kids) who smash these shelters are committing such an offense, the city would most likely be liable for any death/injury that occurred during said offense.
Liable? For the death/injury of yet another “young offender”/punk? Fuck that, give HRM a medal for having one less fucktard on the streets of Halifax.
I’m not arguing that the little shits would deserve it, but you’d know what would happen if such a situation would happen…. There would be a whiny Live at 5 human interest story, then there would be crying parents on every news channel saying stuff like: “he was a good boy, he just got mixed up in gangs” (typical response for people looking to shift blame away from themselves), followed by a formal apology from HRM along with a wrongful death settlement.
I think vandals would likely burn/melt plexiglass. Also, it’s easier to carve into and deface plexiglass.
haha dr. f: “he was a good boy until he got mixed up with gangs” = your kid died because he turned into a fucktard. Paul Bernardo could’ve found a fucking cure for cancer, AIDS and found peace in the middle east before he decided to rape, torture and murder young girls so that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a disgusting stain on humanity. I.e.: it doesn’t matter that your kid was a good boy at some point. He obviously wasn’t when he smashed the bus shelter and slit his neck on a sharp edge of falling plexiglass.
Hahaha Lies at Five human interest story. What a crock of shit those are.
PK– Ah, but you see what I’m saying nonetheless right? What the city would save in cost over time would be eaten up in a PR shit storm because one shithead punk kid did us a favour andremoved himself from the gene pool.
Good use of i.e. by the way.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying.
Doesn’t mean I like it 😛
You gotta wonder what type of parents these kids have…
Those bus shelter shields are fairly durable. You would have to throw something against it to cause it to crack, yet alone brake. It doesn’t make sense to use something that still would be broken. If a guy thrown through the stands could break plexiglass, then it could break. Use something cheaper. Because if they are looking to break it, they will and you STILL have to replace it.
The shelter in my neighbourhood was vandalized and smashed so often that it has now been removed. Not having a bus shelter is pretty awful on windy rainy days. I think concrete would be a good option, it isn’t flammable, you can’t shatter it with a rock….really the worst thing that could be done to it is graffiti, which is easily pressure washed away.
The bus shelter on Robie across from the Irving was smashed in the last few months, but I get the impression that a plow may have done it. It was smashed from the road side, and after it was fixed I was standing in it and a plow went by and the stuff it kicked up came up against the side of the shelter so hard it was kinda scary. It was only a pickup truck plow, too.
Dr. Fever – Lexan and Plexiglas(Lucite) aren’t the same product. Lexan is a lot stronger but it scratches like a bastard, and it’s fussy when heated up or glued.
Jai: the bus shelters on the corner of dunbrack and farnham gate road are concrete. They seem to work well, except for the fact that the driver can’t see who’s in the shelter and you can’t see the bus coming until you step out….other than that I don’t see why they couldn’t put more of them up.
The plow’s been responsible for smashing one of the bus shelters I use regularly…and since there were HUGE snow banks nothing was done about it until spring 🙁
I know it’s an old post but I was just using the new-fangled “most discussed” option and happened across it.
Perhaps they could have two-walled concrete shelters with the wall open on the sides facing the road+direction the bus comes. You will likely need a pole to keep the roof from tilting or caving… I dunno, I’m not an engineer. I’m just still an advocate of concrete over any glass. works for baseball dugouts… why not here?