Wednesday 1 October 2008

Ul. Poleczki sorted at last. Or is it?

Ten months since they started work, the drogowcy (roadmen) have finished dualling up ul. Poleczki. Throwing a bridge over the railway lines took far less time than widening the road leading to this bridge. Still, the work's done. To a decent European standard, with cycle paths, acoustic screens, filter lanes, signs (I think one gathers that the red path is for bicycles, without having to put one signpost every ten metres). Later on, I saw landscape gardeners planting grass and bushes on the soil between footpath, cyclepath and bus stop.

But lovely as the new ul. Poleczki will be, there are a few shortcomings. Some can be easily rectified - the timing of the traffic lights. There are lights at the junction leading to Netia's car park. It's 9:30 am; no one is coming in or out of the car park. Yet still the lights turn red on Poleczki, causing 30+ vehicles heading to or from the airport to stop, wait... (nothing coming), wait... (nothing coming), wait... (nothing coming), then finally, when the light turns green, they all rev up at the same time, belching carbon dioxide, soot and other noxious emissions into the atmosphere. The strange thing is, I looked at the junction, and yes, it does have traffic detector sensors. So why change the lights if they detect no traffic? An easy fix, once the city's road engineers are alerted to this problem. (But like, when?)

The bigger problem, as I pointed out last November, lies on the other side of ul. Puławska. Now that the viaduct to the airport is complete, traffic from Ursynów wishing to use this route has doubled or tripled the number of vehicles crossing Puławska rather than turning left or right into it. This means that now, should you needto get from ul. Pileckiego to ul. Poleczki in the morning rush hour, it can take you up to eight minutes to get across this one junction. This one will take longer to sort out. An underpass is the only answer. And so it goes. (TOTAL ASPHALT! A MOTORWAY FROM EVERYONE'S HOUSE TO EVERYONE'S OFFICE!)

This time last year:
Autumnal moods, Jeziorki
Flamenco Sketches
Flamenco Sketches Alternative Take
Flyover EU

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