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Somerville, Fla.

Paris of the '90s? More like the Orlando of the '10s.

Union Square Main Streets posted this video of a truck-eating sinkhole that opened up this morning next to the Dunkin' Donuts.

Via Chris Devers, who asks:

This calls for a “time to repair our crumbling infrastructure” commercial, eh?

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Comments

I'm glad this was filmed, but I wish people would hold their phone cameras landscape/horizontal; I feel like I am watching this through a key hole or a slit in a fence.

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According to the scanner, the crane is on scene, and it should be lifted out in the next thirty minutes. It's apparently resting on a gas line, which accounts for some of the response. And traffic in East Cambridge and Somerville is absolutely gridlocked.

This is insane. Somerville doesn't even have Prospect St reconstruction on its Capital Plan, because it's far too badly backlogged with streets that are in even worse condition.

Next time Mike Capuano runs, someone should ask him why he deferred so much of this maintenance during his decade in office in Somerville. The city's still paying the price.

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Looks to me like little one-way Newton Street as it approaches Prospect.

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Um, I don't know. Maybe the cost of reconstructing a school after a fire and, um, no political will for a prop 2.5 overide?

I doubt the Mayor of Somerville pays for these things with pocket change and good graces ...

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How about we stop spending money on public art, festivals, and dog parks until the city's infrastructure is fixed? Let's stop trying to be cool for a minute and FIX THINGS.

I realize that the amount spent on being awesome is on a much smaller scale than what's needed for infrastructure repair, but you don't blow $50 at the bar if you can't make your rent.

Plus, what's with the awful failed street design at Somerville Ave. and Elm? The backwards angle parking on Bow? The way-too-ornate reworking of Somerville Ave.? All this stuff costs money, most of it is borderline silly, and somehow, amidst all this fluff, you still can't drive down Beacon without needing to decompress your spinal column afterward.

Play time is (or at least should be) over.

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How much the city spends on these things JUST TO PISS YOU OFF.

Yes. Please tell us.

Consider it part of your broken-record ironic performanc shtick.

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Somerville Avenue needed total reconstruction (including sewers), just as Beacon Street does today. Adding the bike lanes didn't increase the cost significantly, and makes the avenue much more pleasant to use.

The back-in angle parking on Bow Street was the only reasonable way to add a bike lane to that street, and it also added a few more car parking spaces as a bonus.

What's wrong with the intersection of Somerville Ave. and Elm Street?

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... back when he was mayor, he had gotten the estimate for fixing the storm drain system in Somerville.

$75,000,000

That's right, a million dollars for each resident, to fix the storm drains, about 25% of which date from the Civil War. This is a bigger problem than any one mayor or city council can be blamed for.

Bloomberg might have that pocket change, but there's not another mayor in the US who does. Especially not in Somerville.

Note: I lived in Somerville for 15 years, under mayors Brune, Capuano, and Gay. I met Mayor Joe back when he was ringing doorbells running for Alderman-at-Large. I'd move back in a heartbeat, if I could afford to.

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Not to knock your math, but $1,000,000 per person and a total cost of $75,000,000 would work out to a population of 75. Try $1,000.

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It was actually (I wish the articles were archived where I could find them, it was in the 90s) around 1,300 per resident, but again, that's a truckload of money that about 2/3 of Somerville can't afford. I couldn't have until the last couple years I lived there (and thence bought a house in Watertown).

I'll fault the mayor and council for not getting the assessment and planning done, because you can't do a Union Square buildout (which Mayor Joe emphatically supports and evangelizes) until you've fixed the underlying infrastructure.

The estimate of $75M was done back when sewage was backing up into basements in Ward One. I'd assume it'll cost more now; but if they're going to dig up the streets anyway, they should replace every damn thing underneath and build it with better access (so they don't have to dig it up again for a hundred years).

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The summer rains in Somerville are getting more and more intense, and unsurprisingly, that means more and more leaks int he storm drains in the downhill areas.

We need to redo the storm drain systems. We need to depave in uphill areas to slow down the stormwaters. We need to do a lot.

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The summer rains in Somerville are getting more and more intense? Are you sure they weren't always like this?

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Where will people PARK???

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Medford. Somerville's parking lot.

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... from back when I lived a block from Medford Hillside.

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Is there a mobile friendly copy that doesn't require a Facebook account? That would be awesome, since 99% of the time I'm reading things from my phone.

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Did we find out what happened here? This isn't a minor hole... a garbage truck got stuck in it. My guess is a washout under the street from a leaking water main, sewer, etc.

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