I think it's a mistake to think that parking utilization is a strong indicator of parking need. (I'm also rather doubtful that parking gets anywhere close to 100% utilized, but that's a different topic)

The question really is, if we removed 25% of parking spaces in Assembly, what would happen? Would 25% of current drivers disappear entirely, or would some of that crowd just switch to buses, trains, or walking? Do they drive because they have to or because they want to? Would the decrease in cars encourage more foot and bike traffic in the area?

Maybe the bottleneck isn't the capacity of the parking lots, but the capacity of the businesses. After all, restaurants can only seat so many people, bowling alleys only have so many lanes, etc. In that case, fewer drivers just means a more attractive area for people to take the train to. Remember that lots of the parking in the area is for residents. They don't need cars to go to Assembly, they live there.

It's important to remember that cars aren't people. Just because we make an area less appealing to cars doesn't mean we've made the area less appealing.

And then there's the whole concept of what we would replace that parking with. If we're talking about the parking structures, that could be more ground floor retail creating demand and more upper floor housing giving the area plenty more people to frequent the shops and restaurants. Cars are big, like, really big. A typical parking space is around 130-150 sq ft., (plus garages have to have the lanes to drive in and out). So three or four parking spaces is the same size of a studio apartment

It's a step up from lots of other development for sure, but I think it's a disappointing show for a new development. I'm fairly new to the area, so i wont claim to know its history, but It feels like something that started as a great mixed use project and then got absolutely kneecapped by more car nonsense. The parking structures could have been more shops, offices, and/or more (maybe even affordable) apartments. Grand Union Blvd is just way too wide. Crossing such a wide stroad and then a giant parking lot to get to the Trader Joe's isn't appealing or inviting to pedestrians. The area very much feels like several disconnected sections, only one of which seems designed for pedestrians

Thanks for this, i haven't seen it before. I'll take a more thorough look when I've got the time.

I think my main complaint with assembly is that they made a huge commitment to having an incredible amount of parking in the area which means 1) lots of wasted space 2) lots of cars ruining the space and 3) lots of political resistance to reducing car usage in the area

Assembly Row is truly garbage. It's a suburban shopping mall masquerading as a pedestrian shopping center. Look at the actual buildings there: they're largely parking structures. Parking everywhere. And the only grocery store in that area sits in front of a massive parking lot. The streets there are awful to cross because they're four lanes wide.

You love to see it :D

A really weird and interesting thing I learned recently is that even though your nose is doing the smelling when you eat, it's different from smelling when you inhale. People feel a different response to the same compounds when they enter the olfactory center from the back of the throat than through their nostrils

Neutrons only trigger more decay when they hit the right kinds of atoms at the right speed. This is reasonably likely when you have a dense clump of enriched uranium. Once that clump starts exploding, it gets way less dense. Neutrons created then miss the other fissile atoms and just fly off, failing to continue the reaction

Not really. As they say, "the solution to pollution is dilution"

>Remember how the smoke from California's wildfires reached New York City?

Yeah, but California's fires were millions of acres burning. This is much, much smaller

This is just so fucked.

We shouldn't be trying to get anything out of prisoners. Not money, not labor, and sure and fuck not organs. The more you treat these people as a resource, the more incentive there is to unnecessarily incarcerate people

Basically it goes like this:

Our current understanding of physics says there's a maximum speed that anything can travel. This is the speed of causality, which we call c.

One result of the equations we've discovered that gave us this information is that the more mass something has, the harder it is to accelerate, but also that that acceleration gets even harder as it gets going faster and faster. A corollary of this is that if something has no mass, it's super easy to accelerate. In fact, so easy that something without mass literally cannot be still, and it can only travel at one speed: the speed of causality, c.

So we know a) there's a maximum speed limit in the universe, b) anything without mass must always travel at that speed, and c) light has no mass. From that we conclude that light must also travel at that speed, which is why we often call it the speed of light.

NYC has bounties for reporting idling vehicles. I believe they are currently in the process of expanding it to include those parked in bike lanes

>For example, it gives them a good excuse to increase head count as they would claim needing x number of people for patrol vs y for traffic

Good thing they don't get to set their own budget

>Plus, if a traffic stop is done on someone dangerous, it feels like a waste for them to need to call in backup

This is rare, and another weak argument. Without more clarification, your argument implies police should be more armed and/or they should travel in larger groups. If you don't agree with either concept, why is the status quo the right level?

>Bounty programs are ripe for abuse

Everything is abusable. It's about balancing trade-offs. I struggle to imagine what kind of terrible abuse someone could do with this though. No one's going to be dragging cars into bike lanes for the sake of getting a cut of a ticket

We don't need more cops, we at most,need them to actually do their jobs.

And citing someone for parking in a bike lane doesn't require carrying a gun. Hell, it wouldn't even require cops if we could create a bounty program like some other cities have

There's no need for the attitude.

It's a shitty situation with no good options. You presented your option as obvious and straightforward. It's not.

OP has limited resources in the UK as she is not a citizen. She's on a clock too before she gets deported. She'd be burdening her family. And her problems would be worse than now when she's forced to return.

You can "if it were me" all day long, but this isn't a thought experiment for OP. She does not have the luxury of being allowed to be ignorant of consequences.

Who knows if OP's family can even afford to keep putting them up, especially since, again, she cannot work.

Overstaying her visa is also a great way to ensure she gets banned from entering the UK again.

When OP does get back, she'll likely find her car has been impounded for quite a lot of money, and possibly repossessed. And then at some point her ex will probably get rid of her stuff. Your suggestion is likely to be very expensive for OP.

I understand what you're saying. What I'm saying is that your suggestion likely isn't all that realistic. There's a good chance OP wouldn't qualify for a work visa, and she likely couldn't afford one.

If she's there on a visitor visa now, you can't just decide to extend those last minute on your own, and at most that'll buy her a max of six months minus however long she's already stayed.

Asylum for what? Being poor? Countries don't like to take in immigrants who cost them money. For immigrants coming to the US, poverty basically guarantees your visa application gets denied. I'd be surprised if the UK were much different

Presumably that's not an option. You can't just move to another country

It's a little trickier than accident rates though. If drivers make pedestrians feel unsafe, then some amount of pedestrians will stay home or choose to drive. This is a notoriously difficult effect to measure, but an important one

Banning turns on red is an important step to making pedestrians the top priority for streets instead of cars.

Earlier in the year I saw a car on the sidewalk crashed into a mailbox. Last week I saw a car turn left and go the wrong direction up the road. There's no way to be totally safe from a car massively fucking up

Very true. At least one thing can be said for prioritizing this: it's likely politically easy. I imagine it's also pretty cheap. Since it's not disrupting car traffic there's no opposition from angry drivers, and there's no need to pay signalers all the time.

I can only imagine what an undertaking a proper Assembly connection would be. That whole area is a transit island full of missed opportunities. The parking to non-parking ratio is absolutely bonkers, the T station is poorly integrated and annoying to use, and the area is shockingly difficult and uncomfortable to navigate on foot.

I don't think a lack of crashes is the only metric we should use though. If we want these paths to not just be for pleasure, but for actual transportation too, then bikes have to be able to move through quickly without making pedestrians feel unsafe (perception is really important here because it determines if people enjoy and use something meant to be pleasant). I suspect this will become an increasing issue as e bikes become more common

I'd like to see that too. To me though, the reality is that a separate bike path is better than a bike lane. No assholes parking in the path, no risk of doorings, no danger from cars turning, and probably an easier time plowing

>See how Somerville did their community path

As someone who frequents this path, it's quite nice but arguably not wide enough. There's people taking leisurely strolls in large groups and cyclists biking through (sometimes also in groups). I think it'd be nice to see a contraflow bike lane down the middle of the path to provide some structure for where to expect cyclists.

>It helps that people walking and biking weigh a fraction of your typical compact sedan.

Agreed. It's nice to now have a real example I can point to to show people just how long bike infrastructure lasts

The city's planning a renewal/redesign in their chunk of the path. It'll be interesting to see how they balance this being a park with it also being a commuting path.

It also sounds like the path hasn't been repaved since it was built 35 years ago. If that's true, that really speaks to the efficiency of spending on bike and pedestrian infrastructure