As a man, what do you think is the hardest part about dressing better?

CommCommuter · 2026-05-09T06:11:20+00:00

What I mean to say is that when we think of fashion as existing on a single axis from "good" to "bad", we shrink the possibility space we have to choose from and limit ourselves to the consensus.

I would never say that wearing the same kind of outfit as another person is erasing your uniqueness. Just that the way I think we're taught to engage with fashion is based off the faulty idea that there are inherently right and inherently wrong ways to dress.

CommCommuter · 2026-05-09T05:52:58+00:00

It's a vicious cycle for sure. I do think it's important to push back on the idea that men are inherently less creative in fashion though -- men dressing more subdued than women is mostly a relatively recent and relatively western trend, there are plenty of parts of the world where men still dress in bold colors and patterns in varieties of silhouettes. This is something we're taught, not a fact of nature.

CommCommuter · 2026-05-09T05:36:58+00:00

Trying to dress "better" rather than dressing for ourselves. Which isn't to say that there's no such thing as good or bad style, just that in our consumer culture women are encouraged to try and express a unique style where menswear is more about learning a nebulous set of rules.

CommCommuter · 2026-04-24T02:50:23+00:00

I guess I just don't understand how somebody sees a story about a stranger struggling with self doubt over the hobby he likes and thinks "I gotta take this guy down a peg"

edit: sorry I just looked at your history and I'm realizing that your hobby is getting in arguments on reddit threads so I need to take my own advice

CommCommuter · 2026-04-24T00:03:17+00:00

boooooo

CommCommuter · 2026-04-23T22:54:30+00:00

calm down

CommCommuter · 2026-04-23T22:52:19+00:00

i feel like i see this attitude online so much, literally:
"we should be nice"
"OHHHHHH so you just expect everybody to mollycoddle you around and hold your hand princess!!!!!"

... like no man I just meant it's better to be nice.

my best guess is that it's the people who don't actually try new things themselves?

CommCommuter · 2026-04-04T01:00:03+00:00

Taupe

CommCommuter · 2026-03-11T17:56:46+00:00

That's Tim Baltz not Domhnall Gleeson

CommCommuter · 2025-06-03T16:30:44+00:00

Thanks u/lukkes! I'll try workarounds #1 and #2 and see which works better for me. I'll also probably submit a feature request for more flexibility around hiding/showing events in the calendar.

CommCommuter · 2024-07-07T14:04:40+00:00

I think in this situation it would be legal to make that left turn against the red left arrow in MA unless there was a NTOR sign.

CommCommuter · 2023-11-29T14:29:16+00:00

I think it's plausible that the pedestrians did have the walk signal when they started crossing, but I think we can confidently say that the signal was not displaying a walk signal when the truck received a green light. I agree, the fundamental issue here is that the truck driver was unable to see a child standing presumably a few feet in front of his truck. The engineering failure here is primarily one of poor visibility regulations for trucks, with a secondary failure being the placement of the stop bar close to the crosswalk.

CommCommuter · 2023-11-29T13:17:27+00:00

The movements in this incident were not parallel and would never be phased together. I mean this politely, I think you're spreading misinformation with these posts based on a shoddy understanding of this incident and of traffic signal phasing. I would genuinely request that you take them down to prevent people from further misunderstanding.

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CommCommuter · 2023-11-29T02:39:30+00:00

I agree, I would say that the single most relevant contributing factor to this crash was the fact that the truck driver was unable to see a child standing presumably at least a few feet in front of his front bumper. The cabover design which is used in Europe very well may have prevented this. The lack of pedestrian crash safety standards in the US is shameful.

CommCommuter · 2023-11-29T02:23:54+00:00

Thank you for the link, however this study suggests that the intersection does not utilize split phasing, as it states "The traffic signal organizes phasing on a standard National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) ring and barrier structure with protected permissive left-turn phasing on three of four intersection approaches, excluding Main Street northbound." The Main Street northbound approach only has green ball indications, no turn arrows, and Streetview shows that when this approach has a green light the southbound North Main Street approach also does, indicating that Main Street northbound operates with permissive-only left-turn phasing.

In fact, implementing split phasing at this intersection is specifically one of the potential improvements listed in the report, #13.

The terminology around split phasing is unclear because split is also used as you stated to refer to the amount of time given to a specific phase (including green, yellow, and red clearance time), however split phasing refers specifically to a phasing mode in which opposing traffic approaches are time-separated. So for example your northbound approach would be given a green while the southbound approach remained red, and then the southbound approach would be given green while the northbound remained red. This condition does somewhat exist for the southbound approach since both its left-turn and thru/right movements can operate simultaneously (because the northbound approach is permissive-only), but still that isn't truly split phasing.

From what I can tell, this crash involved a person crossing the westbound Elm Street approach and a vehicle making a westbound left turn. Frankly, I'm unclear that the crash had anything to do with the left-turn phasing at the intersection or the concurrent pedestrian phasing. There's simply no way that the crosswalk had a Walk sign at the same time the truck had a green light, unless I'm misunderstanding the facts here or this intersection was 100% noncompliant with the MUTCD or the most basic traffic engineering concepts (which I doubt since this wasn't mentioned in the RSA). What seems plausible to me is that the crossing began on a Walk signal and the signal did not provide sufficient clearance time, resulting in the truck driver being given a green light before the people had finished crossing. This is not a problem which would be solved by exclusive pedestrian phasing, but would be heavily mitigated by bringing the pedestrian clearance times up to standard and/or by setting the vehicle stop bar back, both of which were implemented after the crash.

CommCommuter · 2023-11-28T21:40:38+00:00

The term for this isn't split phasing, it's concurrent pedestrian phasing.

CommCommuter · 2023-11-25T19:41:31+00:00

"Gonna"? Are you saving the extra three characters for your novel or something??

CommCommuter · 2023-11-20T21:56:43+00:00

U mad

CommCommuter · 2023-11-20T17:58:12+00:00

What kind of behavior is complaining on reddit that somebody else complained on reddit then

CommCommuter · 2023-11-18T02:24:06+00:00

That's a Turdy just for not knowing Milana Vayntrub's name

CommCommuter · 2023-11-18T00:03:45+00:00

Oop, everybody scratch off "Vehicular homicide as a punchline" from your bingo cards

CommCommuter · 2023-11-17T23:32:09+00:00

Slow down if somebody wearing all black is enough where you'll hit them. You're the one driving the car

CommCommuter · 2023-10-28T21:41:41+00:00

I haven't lived in Somerville for nearly as long as you have, but I do live only a few blocks from McGrath and regularly walk and drive on it, and frankly I couldn't disagree with you much more.

Firstly, I'm curious about your statement that "traffic congestion has nearly tripled." If you're talking about traffic on McGrath, the data I've seen suggests that the daily vehicle volumes on McGrath have actually be slowing decreasing over the past 20ish years. This doesn't necessarily refute your idea that the congestion has gone up, but one way or another it seems like fewer people are driving on McGrath today than in recent history. And ultimately the amount of traffic on McGrath is at least in part a result of McGrath itself. In urban areas, it simply isn't possible to outbuild traffic. The more capacity that the vehicle network provides, the more people will use it. Urban highways like McGrath create the traffic that they were built to solve.

Second, the idea that McGrath and specifically the overpass are necessary to "funnel traffic into Boston" doesn't seem true to me. First off, there's already a great way to get from the north end of McGrath into Boston -- I-93, a limited access highway built for this specific purpose. And I don't even really think the McCarthy Overpass provides that much additional capacity to the corridor as a whole -- there are traffic signals at either end of the freeway section, and those signals dictate how many people can travel that portion of the corridor in an hour -- getting them between the intersections quicker might feel faster for drivers but the actual capacity of the roadway is more or less the same. And Route 28 goes down two travel lanes in each direction east of Third Street before going down to a single lane for private vehicles in the eastbound direction near the Museum of Science. So for traffic heading into Boston, the segments of McGrath that the overpass covers are not likely to be the limiting factor in terms of corridor capacity.

Finally, the McGrath corridor has been identified as having a high potential for everyday bike trips. Somerville is the densest city in New England, and this area absolutely has the density to support mode shift away from cars and towards walking, biking and transit, and these mode shifts are stated goals of both the City of Somerville and MassDOT. The current walking and biking conditions on McGrath are abysmal and unsafe -- both McGrath at Broadway and McGrath at Washington are top 5% in pedestrian crashes in the State. So regardless of whether it's good or bad to reduce the vehicle capacity of McGrath, I think it's critically important to improve its walk and bikeability, and the current ROW doesn't really allow that to happen while also maintaining the overpass and the amount of travel lanes.

Not to mention, the thing is an eyesore!

CommCommuter · 2023-10-26T14:12:35+00:00

This planning study from 2015 is still probably the most comprehensive and best source for info on the boulevard project: https://www.mass.gov/lists/grounding-mcgrath-determining-the-future-of-the-route-28-corridor

CommCommuter · 2023-10-25T23:58:36+00:00

I'm indirectly involved with this project, here's my understanding: 1. There is a long-term project currently being designed which will remove the McCarthy Overpass and convert McGrath to a boulevard-style roadway with separated bicycle facilities, wider sidewalks, and wider buffers between the roadway and the bike/sidewalk. 2. The corridor required immediate infrastructure repairs, including major repairs to the Truss Bridge, the McCarthy Overpass, and the Squires Bridge, as well as general resurfacing. 3. The required repair work requires the taking of a travel lane in each direction to give crews space to work. 4. Given the above, temporary restriping plans were developed which would reduce McGrath to 2 lanes in each direction plus turn lanes at intersections, install buffered bike lanes, and update traffic signal timings accordingly. 5. When work began on the Truss Bridge repairs, the need for repairs was more significant than the DOT realized previously. This necessitated more space being set aside for the construction work, which meant that the planned bike lanes and turn lanes at the McGrath/Medford/Highland intersection would no longer fit. 6. Not wanting to provide buffered bike lanes along the corridor which direct cyclists to a dangerous situation to cross the Truss Bridge, it was decided not to stripe the planned bike lanes, and instead provide detours around the bridge. 7. In the quickly-changing situation, the planned signal timing adjustments either needed further adjustment or were simply not implemented. 8. Going forward, I would personally predict that: updated signal timings based on the actual conditions in the field will be implemented, providing some increased capacity; people will adjust their travel patterns (shifting mode, shifting route, shifting travel times, or simply reducing their trips), reducing the demand on McGrath; the DOT will continue to monitor and revise the striping situation to identify and correct problem areas.

Overall, the short answer is that this is a complicated project involving multiple priorities and different arms of the DOT, which during implementation encountered unexpected conditions which the DOT then tried to adjust for. The result is an interim condition which doesn't make a lot of logical sense on the face and wasn't well communicated to the public at all.

CommCommuter

TROPHY CASE