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As a resident of Somerville, I definitely want narrow streets and a lack of parking. I'm really tired of drivers almost running me over on the way to work on m
by eli_gottlieb 10y ago
As a resident of Somerville, I definitely want narrow streets and a lack of parking. I'm really tired of drivers almost running me over on the way to work on my bike because they think they have exclusive rights and high speed limits on any road with at least two lanes.
Pedestrians looking in the first-floor windows can be solved by putting shops on the first floor.
I'm also strongly in favor of the forever-proposed Green Line Extension into Somerville and Medford. I know it will increase rents while I'm still a renter, and I know it's gentrifying some neighborhoods at the moment, but by God it has to happen! It's downright shameful the way a Somerville resident has to walk or drive to Davis, Porter, or Charlestown to get to a T stop, and those will only travel through selected arteries that don't necessarily include most of our workplaces.
Heck, we could redraw the bus-lines too, so maybe I could get a bus from Somerville through to the main artery roads of Cambridge. When the weather sucks too much to bike, at the moment, my commute doubles, because instead of a 15-minute bike ride, I have to walk 10 minutes to the Red Line at Porter, take the train for five minutes to Central, and then walk another 10 minutes to work from there -- a circuitous route that just happens to go through the Mass Ave-focused Red Line we actually have transit for.
- tropo 10y agoYou hate being almost run over. (oddly, you think narrow streets will... give you more space???) You hate the weather enough to spend 20 minutes in it (10 plus 10 is 20) rather than just 15 minutes in it. Pardon the suggestion, but it seems you'd rather be in a car.
- dzdt 10y agoNarrow streets are safer for cyclists. Cars tend to drive as fast as feels safe regardless of posted speed limits, which makes wide streets into dangerous speedways.
- mikeash 10y agoAlso, wider streets tempt drivers to pass unsafely, while narrow streets make it clear that you simply can't pass and are stuck behind the cyclist.
- burfog 10y agoSlower cars kill you slowly. Dropping the speed from 40 MPH to 20 MPH means it takes twice as many milliseconds to grind you against a planter, mailbox, bus, parked car, etc.
- enoch_r 10y agoThis is wildly untrue--to a greater extent than one might expect. If you're a pedestrian and are hit by a car at an impact speed of 40mph, you have a roughly 50% chance of dying. The odds of death if you're hit at 25mph are roughly 12%.[0] That's in addition to the fact that slower cars are much less likely to hit you at all, because they have more time to brake and maneuver before impact. [0] https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/2011PedestrianRiskVsSpeed.pdf https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/2011Pedest...