If you've walked through 16th and Mission lately — or, let's be honest, actively avoided it — you already know the score. The BART plazas in the Mission District have become a Bermuda Triangle of open-air drug dealing, petty crime, and general lawlessness that somehow persists year after year, mayor after mayor, initiative after initiative.

Now Mayor Lurie is announcing a boost in police presence at the Mission BART plazas. On paper, great. In practice? We've seen this movie before. The city announces a crackdown, officers show up for a few weeks, the worst activity migrates a block or two in every direction, the news cycle moves on, and 16th and Mission quietly returns to baseline chaos.

Here's the thing: more police presence does work — when it's sustained and backed by actual enforcement. The problem has never been a shortage of plans. It's been a shortage of political will to follow through. San Francisco has a remarkable talent for spending money on interventions that evaporate the moment cameras stop rolling.

One local resident put it bluntly: the area around 16th and Mission has become a zone that essentially operates outside the normal rules. It's not zoned for open-air drug markets, and yet that's functionally what it is. Businesses suffer, commuters feel unsafe, and the people caught in addiction cycles on those sidewalks aren't exactly thriving either. Nobody wins.

What would actually move the needle? Consistent police staffing — not a photo-op surge. Prosecution that creates real consequences. And enough political backbone to withstand the inevitable accusations that enforcing the law is somehow unkind.

We'll give Mayor Lurie credit for acknowledging the obvious. But acknowledgment is the easy part. The question isn't whether the city can make 16th and Mission safe for the thousands of people who pass through it every day. It's whether anyone at City Hall has the stamina to stick with it past the first round of headlines.

We're watching. Clock starts now.