Recent comments in /f/CambridgeMA

Master_Dogs t1_itpmfsc wrote

I said Sweden, not Denmark. But regardless Sweden's Capital of Stockholm actually has a lower temperature than Boston, while Copenhagen has roughly the same average temperature as Boston.

If you want another example, see how Montreal (a city a few hundred miles north of us) actually clears their bike lanes at the same time as they clear the streets: https://montreal.ca/en/topics/cycling-and-bike-paths

Again: IT'S INFRASTRUCTURE AND MAINTENANCE. You may personally be a wimpy car driver but there's plenty of people out there that will bundle up and walk, bike or transit if we fucking bothered to clear snow off our sidewalks and bike paths. Those people may be car drivers today who add to traffic when they'd be perfectly fine using an alternative if we bothered to build and maintain it year round.

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ooolooi t1_itown4w wrote

Look at it. Your house would be a waste of space for a childless couple. Most families are one couple in the city and a small cat or dog. You have to ride your "luxury" car prone to explosions and deal with the distance and the traffic while I have the luxury of my cool bike and getting exercise while I commute in Cambridge in my prime-location 1000 sqft condo.

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ooolooi t1_itow0rp wrote

Look at this:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/41-Somerset-Ln-Holden-MA-01520/57600118_zpid/

Looks garbage

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3-Crawford-St-APT-9-Cambridge-MA-02139/56430820_zpid/

Majestic and beautiful

While you have to see your ugly and crappy too-large house in nowheresville and being broke from rising gas prices, I get to do a monthly payment on this beautiful condo, ride my bicycle and commute less than 30 minutes, and still pay less than your suburb house and car and gas payments. I even get to not create meaningless e-waste

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ooolooi t1_itov5eq wrote

I live in the Boston area and love Cambridge as not only is houses there so great location, they also have very good public schools, apartments of many sizes depending on your need, bikeway access to Somerville, Boston, and Brookline, close to Boston, close to work, as well as having a lot of decent parks and walking spaces and biking spaces.

Why would people buy a house in Holden, MA that is way too big for them, takes forever to clean and to mow the lawn, and that has 100 rooms they’ll never use since all their friends live 50 miles away? Instead they could live in a walkable, center of industry, easily maintainable condo in the Boston suburb of Cambridge? In Cambridge, you basically get nearly the same benefits, but even more so including the fact that there is a better public school system, bigger houses, more bike paths, more walkability, fresh air, close to the city, close to work, close to the highway, as well as no need to own a car, so no need to worry about parking meter maids. Also, there is that place in Central i forget the name of as well so you could buy organic food without having to worry about Whole Foods being expensive and Holden, MA ditching all mom and pop food stores in favor of Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart.

Holden is too overpriced, given it is a wasteland of suburban sprawl and the public school is absolutely trash, parking is expensive, prices are so damn high for housing, it has no fresh air, nothing. No reliable old cars, only spending $2k/mo on a new car payment, while in Cambridge (Boston suburb), people get a cool 1996 Honda Civic.

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j_parkour t1_itor0tp wrote

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j_parkour t1_itoqu78 wrote

There are plenty of homes in Cambridge which have off-street parking if it's important to you. Or you can rent a space. Or you can decide to deal with street parking.

With this change, there will gradually be a little more competition for street parking in certain areas. If that's a problem for you, feel free to rent an off-street space.

Meanwhile, the city gets more housing for people who don't require off-street parking.

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Master_Dogs t1_itom06g wrote

Blue Bikes System Data shows year after year of growth. They've added a few hundred stations over the last decade and it's paid off with millions of miles biked each year. And critically they've started to leave bikes out year round in many spots so people don't have to stop biking in the winter if it's reasonable out or if people bundle up for a short ride. And if we plow our sidewalks and bike paths too.

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Master_Dogs t1_itolphi wrote

Winter isn't a factor in many northern European countries where they:

  1. Actually have bike infrastructure which is more convenient than driving
  2. Actually maintain their bike infrastructure year round, like plowing bike paths and lanes
  3. Maintain their paths properly; for example, they're able to keep paths mostly ice free in Sweden by not salting the path but instead packing the snow down while plowing.

Those 2/3 things are key. We're hardy New Englanders, a bit of cold and snow doesn't bother us IF it's out of our way. Otherwise why would people continue to drive all winter long? Why is skiing, snow boarding, ice skating, hockey, etc such big things for us? Clearly we don't mind the cold if it's fun. Biking on a freshly cleared bike path IS fun. What's not fun? Riding in a snow filled roadway because the bike lane wasn't cleared and fighting with motorists who don't want you there. Maintenance and infrastructure are key if we want to provide alternatives to driving. And that goes for everything: people won't walk if the sidewalks aren't cleared and won't want to take public transit if the bus stop is filled with snow.

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