John Hawkinson

  •
    137 Main Street Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA - East Cambridge

    Numerous and continuous nuisance tripping of Main St. HAWK signal at night.

    I AM SO EMBARRASSED IT HAS TAKEN ME MONTHS/YEARS TO REALIZE THIS WAS HAPPENING!

    I only bike across the Longfellow Bridge from Boston to Cambridge at night a few times a month, and it always seems like the HAWK signal is flashing when I pass it, usually when there are no pedestrians. I finally came to the realization recently that this might not be a coincidence. And it's not!

    Standing at the [former] Red Cross building and watching at 11:55pm last night, it is clear that the HAWK signals runs in one direction, then the next, then there is a 10–15 second pause, and the cycle starts over. (It's a little challenging to find a vantage point where you can see both the Boston-bound and Cambridge-bound signal aspects. Maybe if you stand in the middle of the island? I did not try).

    As far as I can tell, this always happens at night, and has been going on for months or years. I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to happen during the day, maybe it is temperature sensitive. Or maybe I just notice it much more at night? Or it relates to traffic volume? Vibration or lack thereof?

    (I suppose it's possible that it is ACTUALLY PROGRAMMED to behave this way deliberately, as an attempt at traffic calming during low demand hours? If so, it seems like an abuse of the system and kind of bait-and-switchy. But I'm happy to listen to the justification.)

  • 831 Massachusetts Ave # 2 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    DPW parked in the bike lane setting a very bad example.
    At least the flashers are on.

    Please do better and lead by example.

  •
    847 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    This is not a duplicate and I am not a broken record. Yesterday's bad snow clearance leads to today's ice formation, but each is a separate violation.

    The Clinton St. frontage of this property has snow and ice covering the bricks after a poor snow clearance job. The ice is slippery and there is no sign of salt on it. (It is not a solid sheet of ice -- thank goodness! -- but it feels unsafe to walk on.) This level of clearance would not be great on a level concrete sidewalk but it is unacceptably poor for a brick sidewalk on a hill that rises 5 feet over the length of the property (from 28 to 33 MSL). Some sidewalks are harder to clear than others but the responsibility is still there.

    See #15886512 for yesterday's snow clearance report for this property.

    Additional pix to follow.

  •
    847 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    Chronic failure to shovel snow on the Clinton St. frontage. See past reports 11873487, 118737361, 9073623, 9297160.

    As a practical matter, these sidewalks should have been cleared hours ago. As a technical matter, snow fell overnight and it is after 1pm so they are clearly in violation of the ordinance. 12.16.110(A).

    Without enforcement, the snow clearance ordinance is a bad joke. One that injures people.

    More photos below. This property has frontage in Mass Ave. and I cannot tell if it was badly cleared there while neglecting the Clinton St. frontage, or if it was just trampled by pedestrians and passers by.

  •
    Other Acknowledged
    806 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Riverside

    Broken realtime transit display.
    The CDD realtime transit display here has been down for about a month.
    Is there no mechanism for CDD to remotely monitor these, or at least for the Senior Center staff to check them periodically?
    Anyhow, please reboot the computer or whatever.

    Is there a better reporting category than "Other"?

  •
    Massachusetts Ave & Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - West Cambridge

    Public restroom has no hand sanitizer.
    Given the lack of water in the hand wash (see #1569076), this is especially bad. a there needs to be one or the other.

    (This report as of Sat. afternoom Dec. 2)

  •
    Massachusetts Ave & Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - West Cambridge

    Public restroom hand wash has no water.
    This is kind of gross.

    (The white line in the photo is not a stream of water, it is discoloration on the steel paneling.)

    If the water is deliberately valves odd for the winter? that is not great, but AT A MINIMIM there needs to be signage explaining that.

  •
    Charles Sumner Statue Massachusetts Avenue &, Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - Mid-Cambridge
    Missing pump head on bike repair station. Definitely unusable.
  • 105-69 Ellery St Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - Mid-Cambridge
    Broken pump! Does not build pressure.
    I feel...very bad, I showed a woman with a flat tire who was struggling how to use the pump, and suggested she try Harvard Square instead since there were two chances to find a working pump. But neither the Science Center Plaza pump (maintained by Harvard) nor the MacArthur park station have working pumps! This is not a reasonable level of maintenance.
  • Massachusetts Ave Opp Inman St Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge
    Extensive damage to the Central Sq. bike repair station. At least three steel cables are cut and their tools missing. Repair station is crooked out of the ground...maybe just time to replace it an and use this for parts. Or add a 2nd one right next to it.
  • Other Archived
    831 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    The automatic operator of the 831 Mass. Ave (Lombardi Bldg) front door is miscalibrated and the door opens too far. It crashes into the building stonework (marble?) and has worn two notches that line up to the door handle.

    Please reset the limit stop of the operator, add some rubber bumpers for future limit excursions, and see what if anything can be done for the marble.

    This is marginally related to #14776289 about the door operator not functioning at all.

  •
    795 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge
    One DMX control segment for City Hall's architectural lighting is intermittently borked, and has been ever since the install. Please debug it or replace the board, it looks bad and is distracting.
  • 344 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    Two rats in front of the City Hall annex.

    Hanging out at the front door of 344 at Broadway at 8:15pm I watched a rat crawl out from under the stairs and follow my red line and stop within the area circled. It disappeared by the time I pulled out my camera.

    The size of the circle is not intended to reflect the size of the rat, which was about half the width of the circle or about 8" long without the tail.

    As I type this I saw what I presume to be the same rat stick its head out front the greenery to the left. And then subsequently what I understand to be a DIFFERENT rat of the same size emerge from under the stairs.

    And a 3rd(!) rat just came from the building garden area and walked across the ramped pathway into the pictured green area and then across to beneath the stairs.

  •
    Central Sq Post Office / Cambridge City Hall At Mass Ave / Pleasant St Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Mid-Cambridge

    Missing 15mm pedal wrench.

    I say this with some guilt because I had thought something was missing from this fixit station for months, as evidenced by the sheared off cables (above my hand in the photo), but I didn't stop to figure out what it was, and so I said nothing.

    Today I needed to remove a pair of pedals, and the 15mm pedal wrench that used to be there is gone :(. Please replace it, it's an important tool that most people don't own.

    As an aside, the 10+11mm flat wrenches (in hand in photo) seem nearly impossible to use because of how they are coupled. Of course the 7mm and other small ends are fine. But you'd think the cable hole should be somewhere other than RIGHT AT THE END of the wrench, if it is to have any utility.

    Also, cdd should do some SEO for "cambridge bike repair stations map." The top hits are not great. Eventually I went to the Main Library and got it done..

  •
    806 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Riverside
    The trees in front of 806 Mass Ave. are leaning rather severely. It looks like vandalism maybe? Not sure if they should be re-splinted/anchored or what. It looks like the connection to the earth has some fracturing.
  • 922 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139, USA - Riverside
    sheet of ice and snow. partially covered by scaffolding does not excuse lack of clearance.
  • 14 Brattle St Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - West Cambridge
    Abbot Bldg. Not cleared to sidewalk surface. No salt. This might be ok on a residential street but not in the middle of Harvard Square! They did fine on their JFK St. frontage though.
  • 1670 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - Neighborhood 9
    Short of ice except a narrow 8" strip of sidewalk (?!)
  • 1704 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138, USA - Neighborhood 9
    Sheet of ice. Nearby at 1700/A is a little better but not great.
  • 1768 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02140, USA - Neighborhood 9
    1" sheet of ice in front of this retail store only!
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