Lynn is dense, yo

Is that 7.2 inches around what looks like Blue Hills Reservation accurate? If so, that's some crazy local variation.

The city will present information and collect questions and comments on the Hampshire Street Safety Improvement Project.

At the meeting, the city will:

• Share two design options for Hampshire Street.

• Share designs for installing separated bike lanes on one block of Broadway, between Portland Street and Hampshire Street.

• Discuss planned changes to parking regulations.

• Review changes to bus stop locations and improvements to transit operations

• Discus planned improvements at existing crosswalks to improve pedestrian safety.

Why is this project important?

Hampshire street is the major bicycle thoroughfare connecting Davis, Porter, and Inman squares to Kendall Square via the protected bike lanes on Beacon Street. During rush hour, it is one of the busiest streets for bikes in Cambridge. Adding well designed protected bike lanes to Hampshire Street will represent a huge jump in bicycle lane coverage and connectivity in the city.

Protected bike lanes are mandated on Hampshire Street as a result of the 2019 Cycling Safety Ordinance, so it's important to make sure that they are well designed and safe. Particular attention should be given to the following points:

> Hampshire St is a busy street for biking

> • We regularly see more people riding their bikes on Hampshire St than driving during busy parts of the day

> • Bike lanes on Hampshire St are narrow and lack separation

> • This can be uncomfortable for many riders, and increases the number of conflicts that can occur between all users of the street

> • People bike at a variety of different speeds

> • This means that passing is common. Passing today requires entering the vehicle lane

You can learn more about the project from the slides presented during the first community meeting here: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/Traffic/2023/hampshirest/hampshirestreetfirstcommunitymeeting.pdf

How to join:

Click this link: https://www.cambridgema.gov/citycalendar/view.aspx?guid=1fa1cd1d1ba14337836f4f040845df8c and follow the instructions on how to join the Zoom meeting.

If you have the time tomorrow, please consider joining the zoom meeting and listening in, or adding your questions or comments!

Do you know when this is up for a vote?

No problem. Some good discussions along these lines happens over at /r/left_urbanism!

You're going to have a hard time getting an answer to this from people who worship Capitalism.

Not just billionaires. Massachusetts really should have a progressive income tax that sits somewhere between Virginia's and California's, and at the federal level we should repeal the Trump and Bush tax cuts.

We should do a few things, some of which that will certainly never, ever happen in any political environment even half-resembling what we currently have:

1. Take zoning regulations away from localities and then overhaul and streamline them at the state level. All the usual suggestions of eliminating single-family-only zoning, parking minimums, minimum setbacks, along with a plethora of others can be tossed in here. Take away (most) opportunities for community input in regards to what developers can do on the properties that they own. This is going to result in a lot of new market rate housing.

2. Yes, do a little bit of rent control. Do it in ways that don't neuter the private market.

3. Implement a land-value tax so that the parking lot owners and the slumlords and single-family home owners will start to sell their lots in denser areas and those near to transit. This is unlikely to happen.

4. Make improvements to transit, both small ones like much better and more frequent busses and larger ones like electrified regional rail. This will reduce the crushing demand that surrounds our limited areas with great transit accessibility.

5. Get Congress to repeal the Faircloth amendment and pass laws that give hundreds of billions of dollars to states that construct and manage high-quality mixed-income public housing of all densities and sizes. Charge both market rate and below-market rate rents on a lottery system. After the government has recouped their investment rents should be set in a way that merely maintains the building and pays off any debts. This will never happen.

We live in a capitalist system so displacement is inevitable, whether you build or not, unfortunately. However I think that the world I pictured above would be a better one for displaced people and the rest of us.

Cool.

/r/fuckcars

Sullivan Sq parking lot.

Meanwhile the Red Line is literally disintegrating.

It sounds like we need to stop relying on the private sector.

You can live extremely comfortably alone on your salary practically anywhere so long as you don't limit yourself to new buildings. Those are bare-minimum $3K.