Same... as crushing as the loss of Darwin's coffee and sandwiches was, the loss of the "3rd spaces" they provided is awful too. I used both the Cambridge and Putnam Darwin's for just like, browsing emails/doing light reading work before actually beginning work, esp. Sunday mornings when the library is closed (lol I have to work Sundays being a postdoc sux).

Now there's nowhere to go... I have to actually go to work which is blah.

Really hoping SOMETHING goes into the Cambridge St. space... it's a complete deadzone between Harvard and Inman without Darwin's. If not Cambridge than Putnam... would be great to get a coffee coming from Inman/Central towards Harvard w/o having to go into the square.

At this point, I'll even settle for the 59th Tatte in Cambridge if it just opens up Cambridge and/or Putnam.

Oh, snap. Looks like they removed the text reminders. But, you can receive an email still or download a calendar. Too bad, the texts were super convenient.

ETA: It's weird, Cambridge and Somerville clearly use the same system and Cambridge has text reminders available. Maybe Somerville will turn text reminders back on when street sweeping starts up again?

I believe the DPW said it would cost $100k more for the program. They’re going to have a guy with a leaf blower walk the street and get trash and leaves out from parked cars.

So they're saying that a resident permit that doesn't have to worry about street cleaning is only $50/mo!

I think a huge number of people are just going to pay the ticket. There are certainly low-income people who live in Cambridge and people who live with a few roommates, but there's also a lot of people easily affording $3,000+ in rent. $50/mo to not have to deal with street cleaning will likely get a lot of people not moving their cars.

I think that's why the pilot will likely fail or at least need to be adjusted. If the ticket were $200, it would make a lot more people move their car. At $50, it's way cheaper than paying for off-street parking.

Maybe the alternative would be to do street cleaning twice a month like Somerville does. That way you'd get the places a car didn't move the first time on the second go-around. It would also mean $100/mo in fines instead of just $50.

At $50, it just seems like a lot of people would pay it and ignore it. I am glad that Cambridge is moving away from towing because that was always terrible. I just think that a $50 ticket is going to be meaningless to half of Cambridge. Median income in Cambridge is $113,000. Of the population that owns cars, the median income is going to be a lot higher. Towing was always way too harsh a solution to the problem, but $50 probably won't move the needle enough.

Thinking about it some more, maybe the solution is towing a car on the third ticket. We've ticketed your car twice for not moving for street cleaning and you don't care about the $50 so we're going to tow. I think that makes a lot of sense. Towing someone for a mistake is way too harsh. However, letting some rich person pay way less than off-street parking costs to ignore street cleaning seems too lenient and problematic for street cleaning. This way, the city just tickets for infractions that might be honest mistakes, but also deals with habitual violators to make sure that people understand this isn't a $50/mo way to buy yourself out of street cleaning.

Wait they do?? Where? I'm signed up for all the other ones but not this!

There is, it’s very clearly present on the city street cleaning page:

https://www.cambridgema.gov/services/streetcleaning

There is indeed such a program. It's mentioned on the Street Cleaning website and is available here.

Somerville has this and it's SUPER helpful.

Haven’t seen that, good point. I thought they just tip off the tow company who charges the driver $100-200 for the pleasure.

I thought that they used to have police accompany the tow trucks. Now they won't need to do that. Even if they have meterm... um... people issue the tickets, that's got to be less expensive than having cops do it...

Curious if there is a program that sends out texts the day before street cleaning if you input the street you parked on. Sometimes the day changes based on holidays (one random holiday got my roommate towed) or even a notification if there is going to be construction on the street (I got towed because they put fliers up only 24 hours prior to construction). As a coder, seems like a pretty non trivial thing to implement if the city can update it

Not sure how you figure. Towing is free to the city and they can then clean where the car had been. It’s cheaper because it collects revenue switching to ticketing, but cannot clean where cars are parked

Lots of dirty streets in the future.

To say the least. $125 I believe for the tow? I’d rather pay all of that to Cambridge than to this parasitic towing practice. Let me be clear, that would be an absurd ticket, but at least it would add some value to society.

If those bizarre doomsday speakers stay silent, all the better.

Disaster for Phil's Towing

It's not just cheaper for residents, I assume that it's cheaper for the city, too...

Having people put in requests for specific spots they want chargers is not the right answer. If the city wants people to go green, they should lead by example https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-utility-poles-and-streetlights-can-improve-equitable-access-to-ev-charging-in-u-s-cities/

That'd be why it's a 1 year pilot, to see how well people can adjust to the new policy.

Prioritizing other modes of transportation doesn't mean the city isn't thinking about this.

There's a page where you can make suggestions, with links to existing stations: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/communitydevelopment/evchargingstations

(The suggestion map is https://cambridgegis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CrowdsourcePolling/index.html?appid=153271b7f5ee474fb8a619c31d12d5b3, I believe the purple stations are existing municipal charging spaces you can use.)

Personally I get groceries with a bike trailer, which means I never have any problems parking at Market Basket.

Seems like it doesn’t accomplish the street cleaning goal. If we want clean streets we should enable the street sweepers, not weaken the program to make it cheaper

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How will I know it’s spring if I’m not woken up by a truck megaphone

There are plenty of people in this town who won't get out of bed for $50.

This seems like a good thing - especially since every time I walk my dogs on a street cleaning day, I would often see them towing AWD cars not on a flatbed, which can damage the transmission. The punishment of getting your car damaged and dealing with the logistics of getting it back doesn’t fit the crime.

I hope they keep sending Paul Revere to warn us that the street cleaners are coming, because people will want to help do the right thing, but sometimes need a reminder.

the fact that non home owning residents have no way to charge electric vehicles makes any attempts at seeming progressive laughable. I get that the city doesnt want people to own cars, but it turns out, there are other cities beyond cambridge that people need to travel to. I mean, even just automatically assuming a green vehicle is single occupancy is an absurd bias. like oh wow, I guess no families or HOV commuters use electric cars.

If you want people to go green, then allow them. Saying "your only option to go grocery shopping is a bike or a gas guzzler" is ridiculous.