Road

Science et Avenir wrote an article about why we should cycle as much as the dutch. They think that we should cycle instead of taking the car for short journeys. I disagree. For me, if a distance is less than three kilometres then it can be done in half an hour or less, on foot, and even less if we run.

The thing about bicycles, is that they don’t mean that people are more sporty. Most are not cycling 25km twice per day. They’re riding their bike to the pub, or the train station or the shops, and then back, because they’re too lazy to walk, rather than because they want to do sports. That’s why they want to dress normally, and arrive with their hair perfectly coiffed, rather than ruined by a helmet.

When I hear that new cycling lanes will be created on a new segment of road I feel excitement, at the prospect of cycling being a pleasant, streamlined experience. Often though, in Switzerland, especially in the French speaking part they will spend months digging up a road, and then putting the road back down, and painting lines and saying “There, we have cycling infrastructure.

They don’t widen the road, and they add the bare minimum. On the most dangerous bit of road they leave it as it is. Those lines were just to tick a box, not to provide cyclists with a better experience. In this case I’m thinking of the road between Crans and Eysins.

In 2030 the motorway between Nyon and Geneva will be expanded to three lanes because they think that this will encourage growth and promote the economy. At the same time almost every village is lowering the speed limit to thirty kilometres per hour and villages like Signy, Gingins and others are placing traffic calming to slow down traffic and discourage traffic from crossing villages and towns.

In light of this I saw that Signy are adding new traffic calming measures to slow traffic down, which would be fantastic, if it wasn’t completely absurd. The absurdity of the change in Signy is that the road has bricks in the middle, and now cars are forced to drive across these bricks increasing road noise but also congestion.