AmnesiaInnocent t1_jddkr4y wrote on March 23, 2023 at 5:04 PM

That seems like a win for residents, even with the increased towing fine. IIRC, previously you had to pay more than $50 to the towing company to get your car back, and they charged more each day. This is just one $50 ticket.

Are they still going to have the trucks going around warning people that they'll get "tagged and towed"?

nattarbox t1_jddrmoo wrote on March 23, 2023 at 5:47 PM

How will I know it’s spring if I’m not woken up by a truck megaphone

AboyNamedBort t1_jdfuqq6 wrote on March 24, 2023 at 2:12 AM

That shit is ridiculous. More crap non drivers have to deal with because of lazy, selfish drivers

commentsOnPizza t1_jde5qyp wrote on March 23, 2023 at 7:16 PM

So they're saying that a resident permit that doesn't have to worry about street cleaning is only $50/mo!

I think a huge number of people are just going to pay the ticket. There are certainly low-income people who live in Cambridge and people who live with a few roommates, but there's also a lot of people easily affording $3,000+ in rent. $50/mo to not have to deal with street cleaning will likely get a lot of people not moving their cars.

I think that's why the pilot will likely fail or at least need to be adjusted. If the ticket were $200, it would make a lot more people move their car. At $50, it's way cheaper than paying for off-street parking.

Maybe the alternative would be to do street cleaning twice a month like Somerville does. That way you'd get the places a car didn't move the first time on the second go-around. It would also mean $100/mo in fines instead of just $50.

At $50, it just seems like a lot of people would pay it and ignore it. I am glad that Cambridge is moving away from towing because that was always terrible. I just think that a $50 ticket is going to be meaningless to half of Cambridge. Median income in Cambridge is $113,000. Of the population that owns cars, the median income is going to be a lot higher. Towing was always way too harsh a solution to the problem, but $50 probably won't move the needle enough.

Thinking about it some more, maybe the solution is towing a car on the third ticket. We've ticketed your car twice for not moving for street cleaning and you don't care about the $50 so we're going to tow. I think that makes a lot of sense. Towing someone for a mistake is way too harsh. However, letting some rich person pay way less than off-street parking costs to ignore street cleaning seems too lenient and problematic for street cleaning. This way, the city just tickets for infractions that might be honest mistakes, but also deals with habitual violators to make sure that people understand this isn't a $50/mo way to buy yourself out of street cleaning.

JB4-3 t1_jdf7ucv wrote on March 23, 2023 at 11:26 PM

Thoughtful, and researched. Got my vote pizzaman

some1saveusnow t1_jdggdeq wrote on March 24, 2023 at 5:31 AM

You are 100% right. they won’t be able to street clean very effectively if it’s just going to be $50.

AboyNamedBort t1_jdfv046 wrote on March 24, 2023 at 2:14 AM

Towing someone for breaking the law isn’t harsh. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time

Hajile_S t1_jddy942 wrote on March 23, 2023 at 6:29 PM

To say the least. $125 I believe for the tow? I’d rather pay all of that to Cambridge than to this parasitic towing practice. Let me be clear, that would be an absurd ticket, but at least it would add some value to society.

If those bizarre doomsday speakers stay silent, all the better.

noob_tube03 t1_jddoyxw wrote on March 23, 2023 at 5:30 PM

thats what I was wondering. If theyre not gonna warn anymore I worry about how much cleaning theyll be able to do!