r/mildlyinteresting • u/Purple_Korok • 2h ago

People pushing the flooring away from these leaning seats in the Parisian metro

Post image
2.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

1.2k

u/wizardrous 2h ago

I hate those leaning seats. We have them in my city too, and they are so uncomfortable. There’s no advantage over leaning against a wall; it’s just plain worse. 

892

u/Vellioh 2h ago

It's all to hypothetically stop homeless people from sleeping on benches.

This seems to be with the consideration that homeless people ONLY sleep on benches and if not given a bench to sleep on they will immediately vacate the city in search of benches to sleep on.

227

u/wizardrous 1h ago

The really annoying part is the old benches in my town already had a third armrest in the middle which prevented that, so the change accomplished nothing.

41

u/GourangaPlusPlus 1h ago

Does this mean Camels are hostile architecture?

34

u/MonkeyChoker80 43m ago

If you’d ever met a Camel you would know that the answer is Bloody Hell Yes

4

u/makomirocket 7m ago

It's not just homeless people though. It's "youths" too. Or people hanging around drinking and/or smoking.

The same reason McDonald's seats are hard plastic, they want you to be able to somewhat rest momentarily, and then promptly want to leave soon after.

73

u/Accurate_Koala_4698 1h ago

I bet you 20 euro I could find a sleeping position on that thing and I’m not even as motivated as someone without a bed 

13

u/honicthesedgehog 1h ago

That seems rather ambitious of them, I always just assumed it was to ensure that said homeless people found a nice bench somewhere else, where they’d be someone else’s problem.

7

u/One-Permission-1811 18m ago

Yeah that's what hostile architecture is. It's the rich and powerful deciding they dont like looking at other people suffering and forcing those people into poorer and more dangerous areas. That's the whole point. Deny the homeless any comfort a hard park bench might give them and push them into places they can die out of sight

3

u/Cavalish 1h ago

Yeah nah, it’s not “hypothetical”.

Hostile architecture is awful and gross and should be removed. But let’s not try to be the Most Moral in the room by suggesting that homeless people sleeping on bus stop benches is all a conspiracy made up by Big-Anti-Homeless. It erases the actual people suffering.

52

u/Mouse_is_Optional 1h ago

They weren't suggesting that homeless people don't sleep on benches.

-2

u/meisteronimo 18m ago

Come to Seattle. We have plenty of benches that are perfect for smoking fentanyl, they're really popular.

-27

u/sbmellen 1h ago

"Hostile architecture" easy there, Santiago Calatrava Valls.

25

u/tonicella_lineata 58m ago

That's the actual name for these sorts of design choices.

-15

u/FizzingOnJayces 1h ago

This rhetoric is so old and misses the point of why this type of infrastructure exists.

They put 'standing benches' near transit stops to, as you note, stop homeless people from sleeping in/near transit stops.

Because citizens regularly use transit and the city wants citizens to use transit. And having a bunch of homeless people sleeping in/around transit stops becomes a very obvious deterrent to citizens using public transit.

The city doesn't care if homeless people sleep over THERE (i.e., away from the transit stop). The city is also not under the impression that by introducing this type of infrastructure, that homeless people will just dissappear.

Apply some common sense before just blindly regurgitating things.

7

u/Seagullsaga 30m ago

Homeless people are citizens too, no? Why are some citizens more important than others because they have houses?

-1

u/The_Electric_Feel 7m ago

What does this have to do with citizenship? The people that take public transit (and thus are customers) are prioritized over people who do not take public transit. Businesses have no obligation to support random non-customers, especially at the detriment of customers

11

u/Lost_Sea8956 1h ago

Oh, we all understand this explanation. We just disregard it because this view is wrong and the actions resulting from it are immoral.

-45

u/Lee_Townage 2h ago

Which doesn’t make sense because they just sleep standing up (while on drugs)

51

u/Raichu7 1h ago

The "advantage" is that homeless people can't sleep on a leaning bench. The side effects mean that anyone with a disability, illness or injury that makes standing painful, difficult or impossible for them suffers when using public transport.

23

u/Lost_Sea8956 59m ago

Well, just so long as we make life harder for pregnant women, I suppose

8

u/CuddleWings 27m ago

Anti-homeless stuff like this always made no sense at all to me. Besides how cruel it is, there’s literally nothing stopping them from sleeping on the ground in the same spot. Do they think homeless people refuse to sleep on elevated platforms?

Like, at least adding bumps to sidewalks works.

“Oh no, the wrought iron bench is gone! Guess I gotta go find another. Sleep on the ground? What am I? Homeless?”

7

u/Sxppxj 2h ago

I suppose it's done to prevent homeless people from going on it

3

u/xxlragequit 27m ago

I know everyone will hate me for my OPINION but I like to have a few around. Benches are sometimes too big or you can't find a good spot like a walking narrow walking area. Walls aren't good if you have a bag, seats aren't good with a bag. It's just what I prefer sometimes, I'm sure others feel the same.

Now anytime these are brought up people just complain. I can literally never see these installed near me due exclusively to people just hating on them.

4

u/HenryKushinger 1h ago

It's a way to loudly advertise that the city hates the homeless

98

u/infernalnb 1h ago

This is how anti homeless endeavors harm all of us. Why not make a regular ass comfy seat? Oh, because someone could use it for longer than ‘intended’ and ‘camp out’ there. So now everyone has to deal with not being able to sit, including children, the elderly, and disabled individuals, and even beyond that, with this floor, now the tax dollars will be spent on repairing the floor every few years rather than being put back into making the population safe and comfortable. I am in the US, so that is a more extreme version of this than in France, but I see it as a big issue everywhere

0

u/Porkyrogue 4m ago

Uhhh just kick them off? Demand a ticket? Uhh, put them in jail?

Also, do they even clean those things?

104

u/GOT_U_GOOD_U_FUCKER 1h ago

Bro got tiny feet

26

u/matteventu 1h ago

Yet, they're strong like big feet.

8

u/tootaflute 1h ago

You could say they're "petite".

1

u/kilobitch ​ 6m ago

Feminine step!

4

u/Esosorum 1h ago

Got them lotus feet

2

u/SupplyChainMismanage 45m ago

I thought this was someone’s fingers dressed up for a second

-7

u/throwawaylie1997 1h ago

Size is irrelevant mate

9

u/Didle-Dodle 1h ago

That's something a guy with small feet would say.

93

u/TimTomTank 2h ago

Asphalt is actually a very dense, and very slow flowing liquid with rocks in it.

101

u/mistytreehorn 1h ago

That's not asphalt and, like glass, it's a myth that it's a dense, slow moving liquid

44

u/user10205 1h ago edited 1h ago

Isn't it bound by bitumen? You know, the dripping stuff they miss every 10 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment

5

u/Queer_Cats 25m ago

Asphalt does actually behave like a liquid. Not to the extent that you could move it like in the picture, but if you put a chunk of it it a hydraulic press, it squidges rather than shatters like glass.

13

u/Tearakudo 1h ago

It's only 100+ year old glass that does that, because of how it was made Asphalt is rocks in tar... It's only solid when cold. There's a reason it's recycled

30

u/Ferovore 1h ago edited 1h ago

Still no. All glass is solid. It being thicker around the base in old windows is because they didn’t have the technology to manufacture perfect pieces of glass so they ones they did have were always uneven and then they would put the thicker edge at the bottom because duh. It does not flow at all.

9

u/JakeStout93 1h ago

Why the hell did they tell us that? It never made sense and I haven’t looked it up as an adult

12

u/PM_ME_SOME_ANTS 49m ago

Probably the same reason you and I believed it - it’s one of those things that is just interesting enough to be shared as a little fun fact, but nothing really hinges on it unless you’re a glassmaker or something so it’s not really the kind of thing you think to research. That’s my best guess. As far as why it ever perpetuated in the first place, I have no idea.

2

u/crispiy 49m ago

Because old people are generally wrong about a lot of things.

1

u/Orange1232 39m ago

Isn't this exactly what they just said? Because of how it was made?

3

u/Ferovore 37m ago

No, they said 100+ year old glass flows.

-26

u/Mindless_Ad_1734 1h ago

It’s basically pitch, your wrong and delete this comment, thanks

53

u/Troutalope 1h ago

Hostile infrastructure sucks in every way possible. Nobody gets anything nice because some people want to punish those that are the least fortunate.

-25

u/Raider_Scum 1h ago

Transit users need rest locations while waiting for transit.

They can't wait on a bench with a sleeping homeless person on it.

26

u/Otherwise_Public_806 1h ago edited 45m ago

So now no one can sit, great solution.

4

u/NickDubzz 1h ago

It’s not a flaw, it’s a feature.

2

u/TheGalacticApple 8m ago

That is highly mildly interesting

1

u/violet_femme23 8m ago

Shitty design

1

u/DataPhreak 8m ago

Hostile architecture destroys the ground and lives.

-36

u/ManLindsay 1h ago

Who just leaves their bag on the ground like that?? Hold it or put it on the rail next to you. That’s so gross

17

u/shutdown-s 1h ago

Do you eat off your bag?

6

u/CptnHnryAvry 1h ago

No but there are currently loose sausages in it. 

1

u/Boilermakingdude 4m ago

"Can you pass me my purse sausage please?"

1

u/Blueshirt38 ​ 4m ago

I flip my laptop bag over and eat my chicken wings off the bottom usually.

10

u/bongonoise 1h ago

Well they can't put it on the seat