> I'm sure many folks in the tech/pharma space have found themselves in that spot. plenty of mass based startups have given locales overnight windfalls. Why should the burden on the mass education system fall on their shoulders? Just increase corporates taxes. What do you have against people keeping the money they earned? > >

Very few people are making >$1M over the course of their lifetime. Startups that pay out that kind of money are extremely rare too. Even joining a FANG isn't likely to net you $1M unless you work there for decades.

> I mean hell, anyone who bought property in cambridge in the 90s or even 2000s probably have seen their property value double. just because it passes the million dollar mark doesnt mean they should suddenly owe the state more money

You don't "suddenly" owe the State more money. It's anything above a million. You still get a million bucks at the existing tax rate. If you have >$1M in housing equity, you're extremely well off and can afford a higher tax rate.

> It's crazy that the increased tax bill passed. Why not just vote to increase state corporate taxes instead? > >

Why not both?

> With some many schools per capita, surely people must have an expectation that they have a chance at a high income job. Or at least a chance at buying an expensive property at some point in their lives.

I don't think many people expect to become millionaires. 56% of Americans can't even afford a $1000 emergency for example.

> It's also wild that most people don't seem to understand this won't impact billionaires and the rich they claim to hate. This is just a tax on the upper middle class. So good job team. I'm sure the actual law will get all types of carve outs so politicians aren't impacted, but it would be nice if there was a windfall exception so that lottery winners, home sales, and just one time income spikes were exempt

No one who has $1M in assets or yearly income is upper middle class. They're solidly wealthy.

One of the studies covers this:

> Although RTOR laws require the motorist both to stop and to yield to any pedestrian or approaching vehicle in the intersection before turning on red, it had been postulated that pedestrians and bicyclists might be at increased risk under Western RTOR because of the inherent attention conflict for the turning driver. In particular, since the driver preparing for a RTOR is typically watching for traffic from his left, he may not see a pedestrian or bicyclist coming from his right.

It's also a trade off we made against pedestrian/cycling safety:

> The report findings show large percentage increases in right-turn accidents at signalized locations after RTOR (e.g., increases ranging from 43% to 107% for pedestrians, and increases ranging from 72% to 123% for bicyclists in the three states studied.)

People in the article linked to in this post can try to have it both ways, but ultimately I'd rather be stuck in a traffic jam than see people hit more frequently because someone wanted a few seconds of times savings on their commute.

Wikipedia supports this claim with a few sources in this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red#North_America

Of course we did this at the expense of pedestrian and cyclist safety, as the same Wikipedia page has some sources for significant increases in motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists after adoption of right turn on red: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red#Pedestrian_and_bicyclist_safety

Yeah and the accounts 5 years old. Maybe they bought a car and went true North Cambridge NIMBY.

Totally checks out, the North Cambridge NIMBYs almost stopped the new protected bike lanes there. They were sooooooo pissy that the bus lane is now only a 2 hour bus lane and the rest of the time it's parking.

Ironic, considering that parking is never used now but my god the way the people were bitching you would have thought it would be PACKED every day now. Seems no on actually needed it huh.

PLEASE IGNORE BAKE CYCLIST REVIEWS. THEY ARE VIOLATING GOOGLE TERMS AND ENGAGING IN SLANDER

> What's the point of infrastructure if the cyclist is still in the street and not the bike lane? Going the wrong way no less.

Because bikes are legally allowed to use the street, bike paths, bike lanes and the sidewalk (^(outside of business districts and if the local City has no further restrictions)). This gives flexibility depending on the rider's ability. Slower speed riders can use the sidewalk and bike paths. Average speed riders can use bike lanes. Faster riders can use the street, which is good for those with ebikes capable of 20+ mph.

> And let's not get started on the ones that still need to ride on the sidewalks of the Mass Ave bridge. My problem as a pedestrian is 90% bikes. I swear cyclists are getting more cult-like by the day. > >

This wouldn't be such an issue if MassDOT and DCR actually built proper cycling infrastructure on the Boston side of the river. The Cambridge side has access to the bike lanes on both sides of the roadway, but on the Boston side it's only accessible from the sidewalk. It's like complaining about traffic down a side street when the City hasn't fixed key intersections (looking at you Medford Sq area) - what do you expect will happen? People will take the easiest path possible.

> But let the circle jerk of up/down votes to continue. You're all saving the planet through your harnessing of smugness as a future energy reserve.

HELL YEAH. 🤡 It's a renewable energy too punk. 🤪

I've been randomly spat at once on the Charles River paths and I'm 99% sure that was a homeless guy who was a bit out of his mind. That or he didn't like my Classic Rock playlist.

There's a request page someone noted here: https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/yiy6mj/cambridgema_refugees_new_sub/iulz7ww/

It seems to mostly be if you want to take over moderatorship of an inactive sub though. I tried making a request here: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/yjb39w/request_utaylorhayward_boston_be_removed_as_mod/?

But the request bot seems to just yell at you if you make a request for a sub with an active mod.

You can thank the Federal Transit Administration for that. The MBTA wanted to do a light rail like but the Fed's said "wtf bro you just built a rapid transit like half a mile awhile, fuck off, some other City needs this money". See Equal or Better: The Story of the Silver Line which tells the story really well.

EDIT: updated the video link.

Downtown and Back Bay are what we're seeing. The gap is probably the rows of historic brownstones in between and the Common. This is due to air rights above the turnpike making it particularly attractive for developers to build large buildings in the Back Bay area.

I said Sweden, not Denmark. But regardless Sweden's Capital of Stockholm actually has a lower temperature than Boston, while Copenhagen has roughly the same average temperature as Boston.

If you want another example, see how Montreal (a city a few hundred miles north of us) actually clears their bike lanes at the same time as they clear the streets: https://montreal.ca/en/topics/cycling-and-bike-paths

Again: IT'S INFRASTRUCTURE AND MAINTENANCE. You may personally be a wimpy car driver but there's plenty of people out there that will bundle up and walk, bike or transit if we fucking bothered to clear snow off our sidewalks and bike paths. Those people may be car drivers today who add to traffic when they'd be perfectly fine using an alternative if we bothered to build and maintain it year round.

Blue Bikes System Data shows year after year of growth. They've added a few hundred stations over the last decade and it's paid off with millions of miles biked each year. And critically they've started to leave bikes out year round in many spots so people don't have to stop biking in the winter if it's reasonable out or if people bundle up for a short ride. And if we plow our sidewalks and bike paths too.

Winter isn't a factor in many northern European countries where they:

1. Actually have bike infrastructure which is more convenient than driving
2. Actually maintain their bike infrastructure year round, like plowing bike paths and lanes
3. Maintain their paths properly; for example, they're able to keep paths mostly ice free in Sweden by not salting the path but instead packing the snow down while plowing.

Those 2/3 things are key. We're hardy New Englanders, a bit of cold and snow doesn't bother us IF it's out of our way. Otherwise why would people continue to drive all winter long? Why is skiing, snow boarding, ice skating, hockey, etc such big things for us? Clearly we don't mind the cold if it's fun. Biking on a freshly cleared bike path IS fun. What's not fun? Riding in a snow filled roadway because the bike lane wasn't cleared and fighting with motorists who don't want you there. Maintenance and infrastructure are key if we want to provide alternatives to driving. And that goes for everything: people won't walk if the sidewalks aren't cleared and won't want to take public transit if the bus stop is filled with snow.

Southern NH but prices have gone up there too so probably still difficult.