Friday 14 September 2012

Poloneza update: ul Gawota opened

Hallelujah! Someone's seen sense at last; the two concrete barriers blocking ul. Gawota from the new viaduct carrying ul. Poloneza over the S2 have been pushed aside. I don't know how long this convenient state of affairs will last, but for the time being there's an open road link between the residential streets of Jeziorki Północne and Grabów.


Left: the absurdity of it all. A mega-over-engineered viaduct linking two dirt-tracks. The cost of the unnecessary lanes, crash barriers, street lighting, etc, could have gone into laying down asphalt on ul. Poloneza. Just look a these puddles - these have appeared after one day's heavy rain. After several days and nights of rain, this stretch of road becomes a bog, capable of trapping the rash driver and his vehicle.

Right: these crash-barriers are built to withstand the impact of a 38-tonne truck hurtling along at 90km/h. And look at the street lighting. Entirely unjustified by the status of this local road. The money spent would have been better spent on the rest of this road, which is a veritable embarrassment to Warsaw.

Above: a no-entry sign at the northern end of the new stretch of road. It should either be enforced or removed; as it is, it stands as a mockery to the notion of regulated public roadways.

I fear that this state of affairs will continue until the road-builders deign to show up again and finally finish what they said they would in December 2010. When they do turn up (next spring?), they will close off access to the viaduct from all sides once again. Still, at least the viaduct is currently passable. To local traffic, in the know.

This time last year:
Fixie composition in blue and red

This time two years ago:
What's the Polish for 'guidelines'?

This time three years ago:
Ul. Rosoła's cycle path - new route to work

This time four years ago:
First apple (then three years without apples, now an overload!)

This time five years ago:
Late summer spiders webs

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael - great observations of the superlative work of the road works department. I suspect that there must be some foreign substance in the water within their office buildings that affects their abilities to think rationally. Not sure what other explanation there could be.

On another note, Chris and I have discovered a jewel. Check this out: http://golf.sobieniekrolewskie.pl

When you get on the property there is no doubt that you feel as though you have entered an American golf club - very impressive and reasonably priced (relatively)

Ewa and I rode our bikes there last week for a day out in the countryside - a long 80km ride (round trip).

Very nice area - abounding with apple orchards, tomato 'plantations' - very 'eastern Poland ' but right around the corner.

Bob

Marcin said...

Michael,

You'd probably misunderstand something. Point is, that Bufetowa's agenda is totally full until the end of hers term. That's why, there is no need to rush with a constructing of the southern cut of Poloneza. Band won't cut itself, after all. Will it?

Michael Dembinski said...

@ Bob -

Sobienie could do themselves a favour and include a little map of er... how to get there? on their website.

@ Marcin -

My point is that Bufetowa's budgets are all gone because they've been allocated to over-engineering projects where simple solutions will do.