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A higher cantab for parking
By adamg on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 8:02am
Cambridge Day reports the Cambridge City Council voted to raise the cost of parking permits from $8 to $20, with the extra money paying for new bike racks and general tree hugging.
Also, Cambridge to MIT: Cut the arrogant disdain for the community crap.
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Sounds familiar
Bleem nodded solemnly. Though Jack had presented himself as representing Allston University, Bleem still had a notion that he was in reality associated in some way with the City of Cambridge. Perhaps officially as part of the City Council, those solons who could be relied upon to hyperventilate in chambers while contemplating the latest Luddite cause, the current one being the great evil of genetically altered foodstuffs. The City Fathers had so far banned the sale within their fair City limits of fruits, vegetables, and cereal grains whose chromosomes had at any time in their evolution been sliced, spliced, enhanced, deleted, sequenced, or in any way touched, examined, or even considered as entities separate from their organic whole in thought experiments by genetic engineers. They had been on the verge of banning as well any and all research which could potentially be used to produce such abominations. There happened a long back-and-forth regarding the proper categorization of the tomato for the purposes of the legislation, whether fruit so as to conform to usage or as vegetable so as to conform to USDA guidelines, that began as a question but degenerated rather rapidly into a vicious name-calling exchange on the edge of screaming that unmoved habitual onlookers realized had nothing at all to do with the vine in question but was just another foil upon which the current entrenched positions could be divided anew. It would end, as was usual, in a vote of three in favor of whatever the question was and two against. While these pleasantries were in process, aides in the fore- and backgrounds hunched over their cell phones in deep and revelatory conversations with wiser beings who pointed out to them that while the combined displeasure of the Star Market and Stop and Shop Corporations was great indeed but could be borne for the greater good, their proposal that Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology simply quit the avenue of research onto which every laboratory and every researcher was endeavoring to lay foot upon if not already there would not serve them in reelection. Even leaving aside that biotechnology was the pulsing life force of the several dozen companies actively rebuilding some of the nastier buildings on the back streets of Cambridge to suit their new image, spending a part of the obscene amounts of cash which for the past several years investors across the globe had been queuing up to press upon them. Ideology was all well and good and commendable and stuff, the callers agreed, but against the giant crashing wave of billions in endowments and billions in investments it was not the board to ride.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/36568510/A-Novel-and-Eff...
Sometimes I think all the
Sometimes I think all the hyper-eco moonbats in Cambridge should be transplanted to Detroit where they could experience first hand the post-industrial and post-technological city of their dreams. Somehow I think the return to nature and travails of urban organic farming would prove to be less desirable then they think.
Thank heavens the city of Cambridge has enough universities, hi-tech, and research institutions to provide a tax base and a measure of sanity to that municipality. Otherwise, I fear, the other side of the river would be quite the hermit kingdom.
Cambridge is different from
Cambridge is different from most (nearly all) other cities in that a large part made of the smartest people in the world. That starts with Harvard and MIT and is the reason why the city is a hotspot for research and technology and entrepreneurship. To act as if it's a coincidence that Cambridge is at once progressive and a major economic engine for the country is childish.
The people who keep Cambridge
The people who keep Cambridge funded are the universities and the businesses that they bring.
Also in Cambridge are the aging white granola hippies with progressive and liberal causes, although I don't know how all of them manage to pay the rent.
Most of the rest people seem to be on public assistance, and, since the university people don't vote much, the city councilors tend to get elected by giving handouts to these people, as well as lots of cushy jobs to manage all the handouts. With a nod to the hippies as well.
The city councilors would probably prefer that MIT people not pay too much attention to how the city is run, because there are a lot of inefficient and ridiculous handouts to find, if someone went digging. MIT people are less inclined toward noblesse oblige than Harvard people, but they haven't been yelling because they are busy with their own world and oblivious to what goes on in city government. Do not taunt the libertarian Objectivist engineers.
So do libertarian
So do libertarian objectivists support government subsidies for parking?
Otherwise we would have been
Otherwise we would have been charging $20.00 for years just like Somerville instead of losing money on the sticker, visitor permit, and pamphlet at $8.00, effectively subsidizing our 20th century lifestyles.
Detroit?
Cambridge and Somerville are like the more progressive - and growing - cities of the West Coast and Europe that have found that subsidizing cars is not the answer to problems of transportation and growth.
You don't think Detroit got where it is by overemphasizing car travel? BWHAAHAHAHAHAH!
Transplanted to Detroit?
Transplanted to Detroit? Where everything was designed for cars?
You seem to be making the opposite point, that subsidizing car culture to the detriment of all other forms of transit like biking and walking leads to an empty, dying city. I don't see how $20 (or even much more) a year for parking isn't an amazing bargain, when it can cost 150 or more a month through the private sector? Or are you suggesting government subsidize car storage even more?
I was making the point that
I was making the point that Detroit is the green city these people imagine because all the industry and tech has left, leaving most of the city to return to wilderness.
Paying for the permit
I'd gladly pay an extra dollar per month to further support biking. If you don't like it then pay for off street parking, which will surely cost you more than a permit, or lose the car. Of course, when you lose the car and turn to biking you'll surely wish for more biking infrastructure.
As a disclaimer- I bike but not often, usually to get around on weekends since I work outside the city. I live in Cambridge because I agree with most of the principals this city supports.
Does $20 even cover the
Does $20 even cover the administrative costs, never mind being able to fund anything?
"councillor Tim Toomey, who called the step unreasonable and a “slap to the citizens” of Cambridge."
A slap? How?
Is my math correct?
Parking 10 hours a day (at night), a resident of cambridge is paying half a cent (.005) an hour to place their property on public streets.
Thats too much to ask?
A parking spot takes up around 200 square feet. Can I rent a 200 square foot room for 12 cents a day?
I know! I wonder if there is
I know! I wonder if there is a way to take advantage of this system with an RV or trailer-home?
200 square feet
Can you (expletive), sleep and shower in a parking space? You can't compare paying for parking to apartment rental.
WTF?
An twelve to seventeen dollar increase for a PUBLIC amenity is "unfair" and "difficult"?
Who the hell is paying for these guys' excise taxes? Or their insurance - even a perfect driver with a twenty year old shitbox costs at least $800 a year in Cambridge! Fuel - what car can you fill for LESS THAN $25 anymore???