Recent comments in /f/CambridgeMA

commentsOnPizza t1_ivzmyn6 wrote

Reply to comment by dunksoverstarbucks in Holiday Parking Restrictions by socialmagnet

This! The free parking on Sundays and holidays means that parking enforcement officers aren't working.

I think one of the reasons for this is that it's easy to cover a 6-day work-week with only 1 additional worker.

A: M-F
B: T-S
C: W-S, M
D: Th-S, M-Tu
E: F-S, M-W

F: Swing (A's Saturday, B's Monday, C's Tuesday, D's Wednesday, E's Thursday)

A 7-day week doesn't divide nicely. Not to say that it can't be done, but it doesn't divide as nicely.

Likewise, Mass has a history of restrictions and premium pay for Sundays and holidays. Premium pay is being phased out, but it used to require 1.5x pay for a lot of work on Sundays/holidays.

> Unless a non-retail business falls within one of the exemptions in M.G.L. c. 136, § 6, it is not allowed to operate on Sundays. However, for all businesses, a permit for work on Sundays may be issued by the police chief of the city or town where the business is located. A permit may be issued only for “necessary work or labor which could not be performed on any other day without serious suffering, loss, damage, or public inconvenience, or which could not be performed on any other day without delay to military defense work."

I don't mean this as legal advice and I'm sure people could talk about all sorts of loopholes, but my point is that there's a certain expectation of not working on Sundays/holidays in Mass. Even if the law has loopholes, unions representing the parking enforcement would probably be against working on Sundays and it's an easy thing for the city to give them since it's reasonably popular with residents and there's usually a lot less competition for parking on Sundays anyway.

So yea, parking enforcement doesn't work on Sundays/holidays so you don't need to move your car. That doesn't mean you can park super-illegally because the police could still deal with things that are hazards (like blocking a hydrant or parking in the middle of the street).

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slimeyamerican t1_ivze841 wrote

Reply to comment by IntelligentCicada363 in Cambridge City Council to consider citywide ban on ‘turning on red’ by superfakesuperfake

Assuming you’re actually responding to my comment and not the general noises you perceive me making, you’re not talking about making municipal roads safer, you’re talking about completely eliminating cars and trucks lol. Not only would that destroy Cambridge’s economy, it would remove the livelihoods of everyone who depends on those roads to make a living. I get the problem, but part of living in a complex society is compromise.

I’m not only for sustainability and livable neighborhoods in theory; the problem is always one of implementation in a complex and multifaceted reality in which things are already operating a certain way. If what you really mean is I’m only for sustainability and livable neighborhoods for overpaid tech workers and college students, and not for anybody who’s been priced out of the area by said people, then no, I’m not even for that in theory, nor should you be. It stuns me how quickly self-proclaimed progressive people will all but tell working class folks to go fuck themselves as soon as tolerating their existence becomes even slightly inconvenient. If one wanted to reduce cars, the answer is not merely changing infrastructure-you have to totally restructure the economy such that those cars aren’t necessary, not just pretend they’re already unnecessary and willfully ignore anyone for whom that isn’t already true. This is sort of like trying to end police violence by defunding or disbanding police departments without doing any of the other things necessary to prevent the obvious bad consequences of taking such a step. Changes like these aren’t simple, and trying to skip to the end goal from day one always results in disaster.

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Master_Dogs t1_ivyvd8e wrote

Reply to Advice on complaint about a cab? by lilthrowawaylol

Filing a complaint against a Cambridge taxi with the CPD's Hackney division will get you a remarkably quick response from CPD. I reported a taxi driver for parking and then driving in a bike lane on Mass Ave last year. Within a few days I got a response back from a CPD Hackney division officer. They claimed to have spoken to the taxi driver who gave them a sob story about having a medical emergency (diabetic and needed a donut from dunks was their claim). The officer really didn't seem to give a shit but they did at least speak to the driver. And that driver now has a complaint on file if anything serious happens in the future.

So needless to say: report them if you want, but expect nothing to come out of it. Probably worth it just so that driver thinks twice about fucking around in the future. That's what I like to think my report did. But who knows. CPD really doesn't seem to like doing any real work.

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_ivycry5 wrote

Reply to comment by slimeyamerican in Cambridge City Council to consider citywide ban on ‘turning on red’ by superfakesuperfake

Honest to god I appreciate what you are saying and how it affects you, but then you are only for sustainability and livable neighborhoods in theory and not in practice.

You mention multiple times that you want to buy a house, which I presume means a SFH. That is a choice that you make, but inherently imposes your car and its associated pollution and deadliness on the population of the city whose housing isn't acceptable and/or affordable to you. This is a systemic problem over the entire region -- and fighting Cambridge over making its municipal roads safer for its local residents isn't the way to change things.

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