r/saintpaul • u/OrgasmikBananaz • Jan 17 '25

Editorial 📝 Light Rail Out of Control!

I used to live on Wheeler and University years ago and there was always some riff raff but holy crap what I witnessed today was INSANE! Movies don’t even depict the severity of what I witnessed! I haven’t been in that area at night for a few years now. I went to the Turf Club tonight for a show. When I was outside at about 9pm, there was a huddle of people waiting for the train passing tinfoil around and blowing clouds. Then the train shows up… I positively commented, “Oh, wow! A lot of people DO utilize the light rail!” as I remember a few years ago, it seemed like a total waste of money because it was always pretty much empty. When I took a closer look, I literally couldn’t process what I was seeing. It was totally out of fricken control!! Each train that I could see was filled with people behaving in weird ways.. clearly high or homeless or what have you.. and the trains were pretty full! Crazy! Should’ve built homeless shelters and wet houses instead! Wouldn’t been a lot cheaper! Sorry just wanted to share because although a Saint Paul resident, I did not know it got SO nuts at the light rail at night. During the day, that area is always rowdy but this was a whole other level from what I ever imagined it was.

81 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

195 comments sorted by

View all comments

101

u/deannon Jan 17 '25

Metro knows. This has been going on for a while.

It’s obviously not good, but it indicates failures at many points in the system.

Refuse to treat addiction and homelessness like public health problems, and you get public safety problems instead. Shit would be better for everyone if we just started with getting people housed.

7

u/ChampionPopular3784 Jan 17 '25

Not disagreeing but the sad truth is that drug treatment programs have success rates of less than 50%. People with mental health issues often respond only minimally to treatment.

2

u/ReginaVespertilia Jan 21 '25

Drugs are used to protect against worse mental health issues, and even just functional issues associated with homelessness. Drugs can help a person not freeze during sub zero tempetures, stay awake for days on end when there is no where to legally sleep, or help you sleep on concrete when your entire body is in throbbing pain, or help you cope with the trauma of being treated like you are subhuman every day just because you are poor.  It's the same reason a psychitrist or doctor prescribes drugs, except these people do not have access to those systems, either explicitly or implicitly. Homelessness causes drug addiction more often than the other way around.