The secret is that winter weather isn’t the main cause of road damage. It’s mostly wear from vehicles, particularly large freight trucks but the big SUVs and oversized pickups that so many people drive are not helping either. A lot of this traffic could be offset if freight railroads weren’t shit and if the MBTA was functional but I guess that’s too much to ask

No matter how you feel about ATV riders or cops, I think we can all agree that these kids were dumb af. Like who goes up to an armed cop and then thinks they can fuck around without finding out?

Most malls have been struggling for the last decade and the pandemic just made it worse. Consumer habits and competition have just changed so much from the 80s and 90s. malls just aren’t what they used to be

The MBTA and RIPTA seem to be considering having cross-functional fares with Amtrak. So you could use your MBTA pass to ride the Amtrak which is great because it means that Amtrak would act as an express train between Boston and Providence, while the MBTA can focus on frequent local service. I guess a downside is that there might be days where a lot of people will have to stand on Amtrak trains unless they somehow figure out a system with the seating.

This is why the city government is responsible for sidewalk maintenance in most other places.

That road should either only have one side parking or be a one-way. Removing parking always gets someone mad but removing parking benefits more people like 99% of the time. Especially if that speeds up transit operations.

Rhode Island should put an asterisk after their motto that reads “it’s all we got”

There are better methods to reduce speeding than stop signs and speed bumps but those methods usually require removing some on-street parking, installing barriers, and narrowing roads among other traffic calming elements. Usually those methods are expensive and not always popular but they do work much better than speed bumps and cameras.

Those people are not the core issue though. The core issue is down to policy. Strict zoning policies disallow denser and mixed use development to allow places to be more walkable, we aren’t properly funding our public transit systems, and we’re constantly trying to make fossil fuels cheaper rather than trying to face the reality that moving away from fossil fuels is better for the environment, public health, and the economy (though that’s largely down to an exceeding amount of political power that the fossil fuel industry has. There are other reason too such as vocal opponents of all things density and transit but those voices are getting drowned out by the large amount of people who are demanding better alternatives to driving. Just a handful of policies on all levels of government that change zoning laws and prioritize transit projects could make a huge difference.

I see that we’re slowly regretting completely shifting our infrastructure to cars without any real alternatives in most places. You can cut the taxes as much as you want but it’s not going to help with the core issue that most people are completely reliant on their cars for basically all of their trips in much of the US. I guess we never learned from the oil crisis in the 70s.

Are you from Pennsylvania? Cuz you look like a sugary snack!

Not if you invest the money in things that help the economy. It’s certainly more risky than than the other methods but it’s something. I’m mostly just pointing out that the feds for sure could solve this issue if they wanted to without raising taxes. They just don’t want to

Don’t even need to increase taxes to do that. Feds could close tax loopholes and make rich people pay their fair share of taxes and that would pay for it. maybe take a fraction of the overblown military budget. Or they could just print more money. It’s ridiculous that this nationwide crisis is pushed down to states and municipalities that are usually already strapped for cash.

I’m not surprised that a state that doesn’t like funding government services is having trouble with this. Adequate funding is necessary for your services to be functional.

Was going to say that too. It’s largely opioids that we struggle with in New England.

I know this is a joke but there actually is a way to kind of mitten your kitten. You can get nail caps which allows cats to keep their claws but also keep them from really messing up your furniture. It would be better to find behavioral ways to keep your cat from scratching your furniture but it’s a good last resort kind of a thing and a lot more ethical than declawing.

This is a great idea but it would take a substantial amount of money for tools, materials, and inspections for a lot of those areas to get fixed up. At this point, who knows if many of those buildings are even in a fixable condition at this point. Also we would need to pay them for their labor because they also need to eat and I doubt we’d get the state or the feds to that so it would have to come from the city that already can barely pay for the services that it has. Also, just handing people property is possible through the land bank but a lot of the properties are still privately owned, meaning you’d need to buy out the owners.

On paper, it’s a really good idea but logistically it’s quite complicated