The 16th and Mission BART Plaza is known around the Bay Area for many reasons — its central location and proximity to Dolores Park, that it plays host to a weekly poetry slam, and that many in the surrounding neighborhood treat it as a shared community space. Now there is one more item to add to the plaza's list of attractions: Rats.
At least according to one tipster, who sent in the above photo and the accompanying explanation that the place is "overrun."
"Haven't seen any reports on this yet," writes the concerned citizen. "But these little f***ers are all over the place at night."
The above photo depicts at least eight different rats all clustered around one tree. Although not confirmed, the scene in question appears to be located at the Northeastern 16th Street BART Plaza.
The BART Plaza, which was redone in 2006, has over the years been the focus of much neighborhood consternation, and in early 2014 became the target of a developer-backed neighborhood group by the name of "Clean Up The Plaza" which hoped to rid the plaza of its less-than-sightly elements.
If current Yelp reviews are any indication (yes, there are Yelp reviews for BART stations), then Clean Up The Plaza was not all that successful.
As far as the rats are concerned, is this a new problem, really? Well, yes and no. Every urban center is going to have an active rat population, and San Francisco is no different. That being said, ABC 7 notes that rat populations in SF have been booming along with construction work, which tends to disrupt their underground haunts. So new problem or not, we may just have to get used to it.
