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Down to their last nerve in Cambridgeport
By adamg on Tue, 02/24/2015 - 5:21pm
You tell 'em, Mr. or Ms. Majorly Annoyed on Allston Street in Cambridgeport!
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Comments
And a reply
Who's sorry now?
Disabled Permit
No one is sorry. The space saver user has the option of getting a temporary disabled parking permit.
Can you elaborate?
What does someone recovering from surgery need to do to get one?
I had one for a university that I worked for, but the RMV doesn't hand them out.
Two things
The RMV provides placards on as little as a two month expiration if your doctor will certify that you can't walk 200 feet without aide for that period. Cambridge also hands out temporary placards that are only good in Cambridge. https://www.cambridgema.gov/DHSP/publicationsandforms/Documents/T/tempor...
But more importantly, this is a parking space. Getting those set to handicapped with signage is a city's territory. They won't do so unless you are going to be disabled for at least a year or more in Boston and six months or more in Cambridge. https://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/Traffic/tpat_hp.ashx
So, the suggestion they get a placard is useless since the point is that they need a parking space in the street, not at the grocery store.
That's fine and dandy to get
That's fine and dandy to get a placard but that doesn't mean that a disabled spot magically appears in front of your home because you have said placard. That's where it becomes much more tricky.
You are completely correct
Which is why I wrote this:
And I also linked to the form and rules for getting said space if you needed one.
cambridge-specific
The Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities offers (temporary) parking permits for use within the city. Not sure what documentation is requested, but you can ask: 617-349-4692, cambridgema.gov/disabilities .
doh
Somehow missed Kaz's comment. Afraid I need to take this phone out back& shoot it, we are really having Issues web browsing...
They forgot to add that they
They forgot to add that they are a pregnant veteran.
and has a child with a severe
and has a child with a severe snow allergy whose religion says they must ne'er be without a spot in front o' their house.
Perhaps a little sympathy for
Perhaps a little sympathy for those for whom it is actually very difficult to get around right now? If you have small children, it is very difficult to get them to and from the car, avoid oncoming traffic on tight streets, carry all of your and their stuff to and fro, and so on. It becomes all the more difficult if you have to get them to your car blocks away. That doesn't entitle anyone to a long-lasting space saver whatsoever, but put yourself in their shoes and you'd see it is a challenge at the moment so have a little sympathy. Never mind someone with a disability.
I have much more sympathy for
I have much more sympathy for families that do not have a car. And many people with disabilities cannot drive, either. What happens to them in this weather?
Can you imagine being in their shoes? Nobody shovels the sidewalks properly, the crosswalks are all blocked up, and bus stops are practically non-existent. Instead, a select few privileged people are fighting over how much of the city's public space they're going to annex for storage of their own private vehicles.
How about sympathy for
How about sympathy for everybody and stop trying to pick fights between residents? I 100% agree with your assessment on the difficulties in walking around. My grandparents won't even leave the house because they're so afraid to slip and fall on ice.
The only people trying to pick fights
Are the ones that are fighting over space savers.
You're trying to make yourself seem like a victim. You aren't.
My comment was about people
My comment was about people having sympathy for those having a tough time getting around now rather than the many snide comments being tossed around too easily. That includes people with disabilities, people with small children. That includes people walking, people driving, etc. Never once claimed I was a victim of anything. Everyone is struggling right now.
These posts about space
These posts about space savers are like beating a dead horse. Is it ground hog day again? Can we can up with some different news please!
Different news - trash pickup status
Today's community news from The Globe reports on how trash/rubbish has
been piling up on the fair streets of Hubville during the last month due to the
never decreasing piles of snow.
If you're a Boston resident or in suburbia, how have your trash collections been going:
a) No trash to speak of that needs to be picked up
b) A couple of bags around but will be picked up this week
c) a few weeks accumulation
d) I'm starting my own personal transfer/recycling station on my
block/corner
With the exception of the
week of the blizzard, when trash pickup was moved one day forward for the entire Town (similar to a Monday holiday week), Wakefield's trash pickup has been normal. The only issue I've seen is, because of the snow piles, we have to move the trash barrels (Wakefield recently implemented the "lazy-boy" automated pick and drop barrels) closer to the street than before.
My pickups have been regular
With the occasional 1-day push due to active weather.
Jamaica Plain
I'm on a main drag in JP and we have 2 pickups/week. With the first storm, and the beginnings of delays in the pickup schedule, I didn't bother trying to figure out the updated schedule. That's because I couldn't believe them: they told us we'd have no delays and then Sunrise Scavengers never came.
Where I am, the City calls it JP, but for the DPW purposes we are to follow Boston Proper / Roxbury timeframes. Because we have twice weekly pickup, I just figured we could wait until the next pickup time - mostly because we don't generate much garbage.
I finally looked things up last week, saw there would be no delay for us and put out all the recycling bins and trash bins on the eve of our second pickup day. Thankfully they came at the end of last week.
Frankly, I'm not impressed with the current contract trash company. Sunrise Scavengers have been anything but 'sunrise'. They show up much later than the previous company and we've had more delays than in the past. Capitol Waste had the contract prior to Sunrise and we had wonderful service. When we did have delays, they certainly showed up for the 2nd of the week pickup. Those guys hustled and I appreciated it. The new guys - not so much. 2019 can't come fast enough. I hope they don't apply for the next 5-year contract.
e)
I live in a "take it to the transfer station yourself and pay per throw" community, which probably seems like an appalling burden to many, but these days we're probably better off than those that need to depend on city/town services to get their trash hauled away.
Cambridge residents insist on the last word
The latest salvo in this word of wars was fired this morning:
The only possible response?
Act your age.
Seriously, this person clearly needs to stop crying about shoveling alllll that snow. It's not like nobody else in New England got snowed upon.
I wouldn't be...
Ok, they wrecked their shoulder. It happens. However, the vast majority do not suffer injury while shoveling out their vehicles. So, the original letter still stands. Also, just because someone says something doesn't make it so. Since most people are self serving shitheads, I'm going with option B: whoever wrote the second letter is full of it.
Also...
...wrecked shoulder or no, the snow is still your problem. During the biggest storm I had a "wrecked shoulder". Guess what? I shoveled anyway. It's not like some fairy godmother is going to come and do it for me.
No Space Savers in CAM
Space savers have always been illegal in Cambridge.
If you see someone using them, please report them to the department of public works. They'll issue a fine for illegal dumping. Make sure to pass their license plate along to the parking department, there's a chance that their parking permit will be revoked.
Unless you have a cop in the
Unless you have a cop in the family. Then you can use a space saver with impunity year round. I speak from actual experience with having to watch this in my neighborhood.
Do you live on Lawrence Street too?
Some folks are above the law, at least as far as parking goes.
I see this with my neighbor
I see this with my neighbor in Lower Allston. He's retired and patrols the neighborhood monitoring where cars park, overhanging trees & bushes, etc. and calls the city often, yet feels he's above the rules himself when it comes to his daily use of a space saver directly in front of his house. There are always plenty of available spaces a half block away if he ever found someone parked in front of his house.
LIke you wouldn't take advantage...
...if you were able to...
West Cambridge
After living in Cambridgeport for four years, I moved to West Cambridge for a year before moving elsewhere. Upon moving into my West Cambridge apartment (in August), I saw that my neighbor was using a space saver in front of his house. He confronted me within a couple of days and said that using space savers is "how we do things in Cambridge." I didn't want any trouble, so I didn't mention that I had lived in Cambridge for four years before that, and knew for a fact that they were illegal - even during snow emergencies, which it clearly was not.
Some people just feel entitled.
"Till the snow melts?"
We all know this will be going on in certain neighborhoods through the summer (I'm looking at you, lady with the red Civic in Mission Main...)
There was no snow emergency...
...in Cambridge on 2/15? Much less than 2 weeks ago?
Two things
First, as noted below, since when is the 15th (date of the last BLIZZARD) more than 2 weeks from the 24th?
Second, neighbors plural? Yeah, everyone got together and agreed in this, but no one has the balls to talk to this guy face to face.
More to the point, since when is it okay to strive for some kind of community, but when push comes to shove, it is better to write a note than to actually talk to someone?
How does that work?
They don't even know who parked there, where they live, and are likely on a different schedule.
Maybe you have time to sit out at the car and wait for someone to return, but a lot of people have better things to do than wait for someone so they can "talk" to them.
Particularly when this isn't even in Boston, and the activity in question is explicitly illegal.
If the "neighbors" are so united
Of all these guy's neighbors, someone must know him, at least by sight. I know my neighbors by sight, and I can do a decent job matching up cars with owners, but that's just me. So one of these neighbors can have a chat about the issue.
This thing cuts 2 ways. If I had an issue with a neighbor, I wouldn't stoop to notes unless I talked to them. And that goes for all these notes Adam has posted from either side. If the neighborhood has so little cohesion that no one talks to each other, space savers are the natural extension, because either who would park in a space someone has worked hard at or who would keep someone they live near from using the space if they all knew each other.
It's the passive aggressiveness that gets me.
The issue, I think
Is when there is a row of spots that has been shoveled out in front of a few houses and has had the same cars parked in it since the snow started. And then someone shows up with a visitor permit and out-of-state plates (or no permit at all, which happened) and parks there for several days. That's pretty obvious that they didn't do any labor digging out a space. I have no problem with people playing musical cars, but just showing up is kind of tacky.
Not that I'm saying people shouldn't be able to show up; maybe the vehicle's owner just moved in from Texas, or is visiting or something. That happens. But if you come to Snowpocalybridgeport and just take the first space you see, you could go down the street and spend an hour or two digging out another spot. No one will have an issue then, in fact, some of your neighbors might show up with a shovel to help (I've definitely lent a hand to neighbors shoveling their cars out, and they have returned the favor).
There's some bit of civility that's missing, so it goes to this annoying passive-aggressive BS. I've just decided to take the T whenever possible.
So what you're saying....
is that you do have a right to public space (whether it be the particular spot that you shoveled, or a different, comparable one) by virtue of shoveling your car out so it's usable?
You subscribe to that theory?
If you want to visit another part of Cambridge, do you have to shovel out a spot before you park there? What about visiting Boston?
I wonder how effective it would
I wonder how effective it would be to get a group of neighbors (say, 3-5), and all confront someone, face-to-face, about space-saver usage? This annoys so many people. I feel people with space savers and their passive-aggressive notes are similar to forum comment posters (nothing against the UHub community, thinking more Herald/Globe posters). I feel like there is such a change in neighbors in the City, with renters and new transplants, that no one knows their neighbors and therefore feels like they can hide behind their anonymous note and saver of choice. But I know my neighbors well, they know my car, so if I try the space saver thing beyond what is acceptable (48 hours) then I will hear about it.
Edited: an annoying typo. Sorry!
here's an idea
Have the City of Cambridge issue permits but only for the EXACT number of on street spaces. Each permit costs $2,400 annually and whenever it snows the city clears each and every spot for the residents that have paid for them.
That's well below market rate.
$200 a month for your own spot? You shovel that yourself.
That is exactly market rate in North Cambridge
That's what private spots are going for at the new building across the street from me. Of course, only the most spoiled residents spring for those. The rest buy the $25 street parking permit from the city, clogging up the on-street parking with their cars. "Town planning" in action.
ah yes, market rate
Once the permits are limited to the actual number of on street spaces that are really available market rate for off street will quickly go much higher. The black market for permits would be an interesting one to watch....
Very illegal to sell/rent your resident permit now but so is renting your driveway while you park on the street.
Permits = entitlement
$2,500 fee = unjust tax.
It's a PUBLIC street. Anyone who drives a car should have the right to park on said PUBLIC street - period.
Ummm, no?
There are plenty of public streets you can't park on. Some places you have to pay (parking meters.) Some towns don't allow parking on the street overnight (Brookline).
So what's this "right" to park on public streets that you speak of? Is it mentioned in the US Constitution somewhere, along with free speech?
I'm pretty sure towns can regulate street parking however they please* anywhere from allowing anyone to park without restriction to banning it altogether.
*As long as they don't, e.g., restrict based on religion, race, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Parking is not a right
Uhh, so according to you, all those folks who don't own cars -- they don't get any rights. Right?
Anyway, Massachusetts courts have ruled, for nearly a hundred years, that cities and towns have the authority to impose regulations on parking as they see fit. Parking is not a right, not even on public ways. Travel is a right on public ways, but not parking.
I have no problem with parking regulations
provided those regulations are equally applied to ALL road users. Resident parking permits do not satisfy that requirement, as they give preference to one group over another.
Nonsense
The PUBLIC has the right to charge money for private individuals to use the PUBLIC's property. For example, logging or drilling on public land, reserving a campsite at a public park, landing an airplane at a public airport, etc.
Public = all mine!
I think I'll take my rototiller to the park when this all melts and make a couple of garden plots and threaten violence if anyone wants to eat my tomatoes. Public space means that I can use it for what I want, right? How about a fenced dog run?
The mayor of Cambridge vows action
Mayor David Maher replies:
It does not take that much time
to dig out a parking spot, and I'm so sick of hearing this excuse.
Particularly if you keep up with it and clear your car after each storm instead of waiting for two or three blizzards to happen before clearing your car.
I respect space savers, even in Cambridge where it's illegal b/c I just don't like messing with local customs. But don't use the "hours and hours" excuse. It's just not true. Just say it took effort and you feel you're entitled. It did NOT take you four hours.
Clarification
By respecting local custom, this does not mean I use spacesavers myself. It's illegal and unethical. I just move on and ignore spaces with spacesavers in them and don't get my panties in a twist.
There's a guy around the corner from me who puts a trash can in a spot every day, even in Summer. And it's already marked as a disabled spot. I guess he just has to make sure that HE'S the only disabled person who gets to park there. I just chuckle and let the elderly toddlers act like their childish selves.
Yeah... no. These people need
Yeah... no. These people need to go. On my block alone there are at least half a dozen handicapped spots. One of my friends, who stayed with me for a few weeks, used said handicapped spot and had the required permits to use this spot as they had foot surgery recently. My elderly neighbor came out and yelled at my friend for parking in "her spot." Since there are so many handicapped spots on my block, parking is already difficult. The next time my friend used "her spot," my neighbor's husband comes over and demands that my friend move the car. After politely refusing to remove a legally parked vehicle when there are no other spots available on the block, I come out to a pile of feces on my door step.
I'm not going to dismissively laugh off entitled people. They are a blight and dangerous.
It's not that easy
Yes, I've had a driveway for 9 years, but I remember shoveling out my car for 15 years before that.
The snowplow basically puts everything that is on the travel lane up against the side of your car. That means even with these fluffy snow events, heavy, wet snow compacted. With some of these recent storms, we are talking 2 feet high and maybe 12 to 18 inches thick, if you are lucky. That's where the bulk of the work comes in. Then, when you are done with that, let's not forget that you have to clear out in front of and behind your car in order to pull out and back in. Since this is not compacted plow snow, that is the easier part. Lastly, and easily, you have the snow that is on top of your car, which is barely worth mentioning.
Just doing the cut from my driveway to the street takes in the case of a some of these recent storms an hour easy, maybe 75 minutes. You gotta figure an hour and a half per storm snow removal for a car on the street. And again, that is back breaking snow.
The argument of appropriation of public space for private use is an interesting one, but say you had to start from scratch. That's and hour and a half just to take care of what the plow left, then you have to dig in. From scratch, 4 hours could be true.
I have experience shoveling
I know all the things you have described because I have to park on the street. It just does not take 4 hours to dig out a car. I've even seen people right in front of my house with a car barely visible (there for a long time and through more than one storm), and it took 30-35 minutes to clear the car out of the spot.
I clean off the car after each storm, and it takes less than that when it snows to get my car out.
Has anyone here actually SEEN someone spend 4 HOURS to dig out a car? Has anyone here actually spent that much time digging out a car?
Hypotheticals are just hypotheticals. I'll believe it when I spend that much time doing it myself or actually see someone else spending that much time to dig a car out.
Shoveling
There are some idiots on William Street in Cambridgeport/Central Square edge who have let one of their family cars sit on the street through every storm. I watched (with some glee) as they tried to shovel the car out on Sunday. It was a total fail. They also don't shovel their sidewalks (ever), and you risk your life trying to walk past their house. To add to their charm, when they have visitors over, they park over the sidewalk, so you have to shimmy past the Lexus (it's always a luxury vehicle isn't it?), onto the street, and then back on to their icy sidewalk.
They give me tiny fists of rage.
Yes, I have
Last Friday, I dropped my car off for an oil change. Walking back home, I passed a guy clearing off his driveway cut, with a snowblower it should be noted. Sure enough, I returned about 4 hours later (the mechanic was backlogged and a good guy) the guy was still at it. To be fair, this was probably several storms worth of snow, and he is an older guy.
I will agree that 4 hours is stretching it, but after those 2 feet snows, 30 minutes wouldn't even start, unless of course your car is on the other end of the plow blade. In that case, ask the people across the street how long it took them to unearth their vehicles.
As I say, after a big storm I spend 10-15 minutes just getting the top, windows, trunk, and hood of the car cleared off. Yes, a little snow, like the last 2, entailed all of 4 minutes, but I'm talking big storms.
Oh, and my 4 hours assumes you arrive at an empty (except for snow) space and have to create a space without the benefit of a car to give you dimensions. An extreme case, but one I would use to explain why people want to keep parking in the space they have dug out.
Nice try
That doesn't mean he spent the full four hours shoveling that area.
And I like the passive-aggressive insinuation that I must be able to get my car out faster because I must be doing a lousy job.
Sorry to say it
But like ABBQ says, 30 minutes does not a complete job do. Of course, once again I am talking 18 to 25 inches of snow. If you spent any more than 10 minutes on the last 3 "storms" (and I just remembered the one last Wednesday, so that one, Saturday/Sunday, and this morning) then, yeah, you are telling a tall tale. 6 inches to a foot, 30 minutes sounds right, but how many of these things this winter have been in that range.
But yeah, 4 hours for a single storm for a single car on the street would only be in the realm of possibility if you stopped in the middle to watch a movie.
I've said it before
And I'll say it again, I took 2.5 hours to clear out after the 1st storm. I took the snow down to light snow-pack and cleared 2.5' to 3' around each side (I park in a Municipal Lot). I had to walk my shovel-fulls to various corners of the parking lot to put it 'not in the road'.
Granted these factors came into play:
1. overweight
2. out of shape
3. asthma
My husband took much faster to shovel the car out, but he didn't do as thorough a job. What can I say, when I do something, I tend to be a bit over-thorough about it.
The remainder of my fellow parking lot parkers were more shoddy in their shovelling jobs so that now we have full-on troughs at wheel tracks and our wee Corolla can get into only a few of the spots.
Perhaps this is the difference
You and I want to do a good job.
Yes, in a pinch, I could in a half hour do something that could allow a car to be moved, but I would be hard pressed to say it would be saver worthy.
Then again, I'm annoyed at this morning's snow to turning my immaculate (though not perfect) sidewalk into something else. The sun better melt what was left today!
If the anti space saver Sandinistas
of Cambridge can organize a candlelight vigil against this madness perhaps they'll generate enough BTU's to melt the snow created by the oligarchy.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
As someone who has lived in this city all my life I DO use a space saver. I also make sure my sidewalk (which isn't technically "my property") is shoveled all the way out to the curb - the complete width of the sidewalk and owning a corner property makes for some hefty shoveling. What I really don't understand and never have is why we need space savers anyway? How could anyone with a shred of common decency look at my neighborhood - see a spot that is shoveled, clear of debris and ice and salted and think that it's ok to pull into that spot -space saver or no space saver? I know if I had done that as a kid my father, then my mother would have backhanded my butt into last year for disrespecting my neighbors hard work - then they would have made me go shovel out spots for others just as a lesson in common decency. Really people - if you pull into a spot that is OBVIOUSLY the result of someone else's hard work that says a lot more about your parents than you know - is that how you were raised? If so, your mother and father failed miserably!
?
Probably because nobody owns the street!
Do you sweep the street in the summer and make sure nobody parks in your spot because you swept it? No. No you don't.
The difference is
Sweeping the street does not create a parking space the way moving snow does.
Have you seen those cars that have not been shoveled out in a month? What do you make of that?
on street car storage
the cars that take up space on the street only to be used occasionally are the ones that are a significant part of the problem. If cars are coming and going and there's a good amount of turnover for on street spaces it makes it easier to find a spot. Every neighborhood has them....
But, but, but
If they shovel the car out and go somewhere, someone will just take their space, meaning more shoveling.
Unless there were some way to denote they were coming back...
Sweeping
My stance is that they are idiots who should take care of their cars.
Look, I lived in Southie before Cambridge, and compared to Southie, Cambridge is a walk in the park. However, I (for the sake of argument) leave my shoveled out spot to go to work - I come home at night - I need somewhere to park. I haven't acted like a lazy slug and put out a space saver - when there hasn't been a snow emergency in what - 2 weeks?
Get over it.
How many spaces have you shoveled out this year?
And the last snow emergency in Boston was lifted exactly one week ago.
But hey, feel free to keep on digging out new spaces, then leaving them for someone else. It is actually quite noble of you.
The car owners who have not
The car owners who have not shoveled at all must be so thankful for you!
For those mocking people who
For those mocking people who claim to be unable to shovel, I think you are lacking empathy. I shovel out parking spots for several older relatives and friends in a few different cities. Elderly, bad heart, bad hip, can't lift a shovel... if I can't make it they end up paying someone money to do it for them. They just can't and shouldn't be shoveling. Who ate you to judge them? Someone with a heart condition can literally die if you take his spot and he is forced to shovel out another spot on the street. Instead of forcing him to put his life at risk maybe you can stop being lazy and shovel out your own spot.
Instead of whining about space savers why don't you grab a shovel and make sure all the spaces on the street are clear.
Enough already?
Signed, "The guy who doesn't own a shovel and needs a place to park"