My definition of Mobilité Douce and the Swiss definition are quite different. For me Mobilité Douce is walking, hiking, cycling and other sports that require a certain dedication and desire to cover long distances. In contrast Switzerland seems to see Mobilité Douce as going from home to the shops, while leaving the car at home. The journeys seem to be short, and at a slower pace.
When I walk and cycle into Nyon, almost every day, I am struck by the sight of people waiting to catch a bus to travel 400 meters or less.
Yesterday I drove to an event in Geneva and I parked at the P&R étoile. I went by car for a simple reason. I wanted the trip home to be fast and efficient. It worked. What wasn’t fast and efficient was the drive into Geneva.
I left with at least one and a half hours of time to get to my destination but got to the event with just three minutes to spare.
Today I got to experience something new, to me, and exciting. I got to charge an EV in the rain. In theory you should avoid doing this because you don’t want moisture to get into the connectors of the car, as well as the rubber plugs. You also don’t want to get moisture into the plug of the EV station adaptor. I was not electrocuted, and from what I saw everything remained dry.
Last night I watched two episodes in a documentary series about a brief history of cars. In the first documentary we see a discussion about the history of cars from the 19th century to modern day with the use of archive footage. In the second we see how the car helped with consumerism. In the third I think they discuss the mental health consequences of cars.
What makes this documentaries series interesting is that it goes into a lot of depth, without any sensationalism.
I am fatigued by cars and their apps. When I was using the Citroën car twice a week it was working fine but then I let it sit for a month and then it stopped synching correctly. I have done several trips now, and the journeys are either not recorded properly or the date is a month out of sync with the journey.
I tried to pair a Fiat500e with a phone or two via two or three aps and here too I failed.
After some trial and error I finally managed to get an electric car to charge at public charging points. The first success was at an evpass charging station where I was able to charge 13.1kW/h in an hour and 14 minutes using the app on my phone and a credit card for 8.48 CHF. The second time was with the TCS eCharge RFID tag that I ordered from the Touring Club Suisse for free.
Today I filled in a survey with the premise “Impact of automated vehicles on walking” and it gave me an opportunity to share my views on this topic. The short version is that I’d rather see more bike sharing opportunities, and more safe routes for pedestrians between villages and towns, than self driving cars.
The reason for this is simple. It takes a few seconds to unlock a publibike, six minutes to get to Nyon Station, and then catch a train.
In the US people are obsessed with the lure of self-driving cars and robotaxies but I think these are looking in the wrong direction. If you’re looking in the right direction you improve bus services. You improve their frequency and you improve their coverage. You also improve the bike sharing infrastructure.
If you live in a village that is a half hour walk from the local train station then it is key that you add more buses, at more times.
Today I refuelled the car after 380 kilometres for about 30 CHF. A few years ago, when I refuelled another car it cost me 70 CHF to refuel a car, to travel 400 kilometres. This means that the car I drive now costs half as much, in petrol, despite the price going up by 10-20 centimes per litre.
These days I like to refuel after seven hundred or more kilometres. When I checked the range when driving home today I saw that the projected range was 900 kilometres.
For many years I could go to work by car so I did, because I had a parking. When I worked for other employers I took the train for a simple reason. Parking near work would cost 36 CHF per day whereas taking the train would cost about 14.50 CHF per day. I stopped using the car to commute for a simple reason, the cost of parking
20min just had an article about how the Swiss are bad at leaving the car at home, to replace it by the car, and for me there are two reasons.