Great idea! I actually know someone on the participatory budget committee so I'll ask them about it.

I noticed sometimes they close the downstairs tho - I wonder what kind of schedule they follow for that

Appreciate the work to improve the sub!

My favorite restaurant is Gustazos in Porter square. I lived near there for years and that’s where I would take any guests visiting, friends birthdays, etc. it’s truly a great place, good food, fun drinks, lively atmosphere. I actually moved out of Cambridge in September unfortunately but I still dream about their Ropa Vieja.

There are so many people driving and so many who don't drive safely even for other drivers, much less for people not in cars, that statistically it's impossible to avoid not running into a dangerous situation in the places where cars interact with people running, walking, or wheeling.

We can try traffic calming and reducing city speed limits, but people driving will still speed (making collisions with cars and people more dangerous), run stop signs and lights and not yield or even look for pedestrians (making street crossing dangerous).

Since it seems impossible to change the minds and habits of every person driving, it seems more effective to reduce the number of interactions between people in cars and everyone else doing anything else. We have sidewalks for pedestrians (though they still get hurt and killed even in marked street crossings). We have "bike" lanes for people wheel (bikes, electric scooters, motorized wheelchairs, etc) though because of the way many are built and protected there's often still a lot of interaction between people driving and people wheeling.

I think most of the national insurance companies are here, aren't they?

If you get into an accident, exchange insurance information with the other driver (calmly) and then call your insurance company. You make a claim with the insurance company, and then they either send an adjuster out, and/or they give you a list of preferred garages to take it to.

I'm a big supporter of rule 3, particularly as it applies to the great bicycle wars of 2022. That aside, it would be great to get more postings about upcoming local events. It seems like many groups tend to use facebook to announce these things, but since I don't use facebook, it would be great to get some of those announcements here too.

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I would love to see more community information about the participatory budgeting projects. Especially those that make the cut. It always feels crazy to me how much the "plant a tree" projects seem to cost and how often they're on the ballet, and would love to know what projects have been effective and which have not been as efficient.

At the very least, reddit would be a good place to source ideas for next year's projects. Personally, I want to see more dog parks and bike parking, but most of the projects seems more targeted to the underserved so I totally understand if those are low priority

As someone who moved here around the same time myself I second this request!

As a newbie who just moved here in September, I would love an ultimate guide made on all the hidden gems and places to visit in the city.

Tasty Burger in Harvard Square has a table in the basement bar.

As a regular Brattle St. rider this is great news. Thanks for the update !

A reasonable question; I can think of a few different ways to answer it.

We could look at other places with safe cycling infrastructure, and compare to their statistics (the Netherlands has around 1.4 killed per 100 million kilometers cycled, for example).

We could also answer it with surveys on the perception of safety. This has some downsides, because it is subjective. But the subjective feeling of safety is also important, because facilities that do not feel safe will not be used.

We could also look at the deaths and injuries that do occur, and consider if they are really bizarre black swan events (person on bicycle eaten by escaped zoo lion), or things we actually do know how to prevent/greatly reduce, like doorings, right hooks, etc.

Right now, we often see people die from events we know could be mitigated by better infrastructure, and that such things could be practically deployed.

Is that China's covid policy?

That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing. Interested in working with the midwives, as well.

Ever heard of project zero?

I think the general movement suffers from some flaws:

• Risk / safety are often assessed based on perception rather than evidence. Groups complain that they don't feel safe biking, and so push for action.
• Many bike advocates seem to believe zero risk / perfect safety is achievable, but it's not. Because they don't understand zero risk is an aspiration goal that isn't possible to actually achieve, I think there is no point at which they will be satisfied.
• There is a diminishing return on safety and increasing costs for each improvement. Bike advocates seem to not acknowledge the various types of inconveniences and other costs any (perceived) increase in safety they push for requires.

Don't get me wrong: There are good ideas that should be implemented. But there are also some really shit ideas that shouldn't be implemented under any conditions, as well as a point where biking is "safe enough".

Now can we re-zone west Cambridge from Residence A-1 (single family residences with a minimum 6000 sqft of lot per dwelling)? ResA is outdated in this day and age. Even ResB is honestly a little too restrictive.

How safe is safe enough?

Brattle is a major bike route. Thank you for writing in.

Can't wait to see all the bitching on Nextdoor

Terrific news! Thanks for sharing this update.

I'm so happy to see the city push this through without making excuses. Safety over everything.

The midwives at Mt. Auburn helped deliver our baby; my wife really thinks highly of them.

I wrote to advocate for a temporary solution for the Brattle Street bike lanes after the project was pushed back to spring next year. This is the response I received this morning. Hopefully this will make the upcoming winter safer for all users of this road.