So I get into my dear old Nissan Micra at half past seven - put key into ignition - nothing. The battery's dead. The electrics don't like the wet, and round here you can't get far without getting the undersides of your car soaked in giant, road-wide puddles whenever it rains.
Plan B! Back into the house, into 'waterproof' clothing, and wheel out the bike. I arrive at Platan Park just four minutes late for my meeting, though entirely spattered with mud.
Above: the water-table is just inches from the surface. Looking towards ul. Poloneza from ul. Ludwinowska. Right in the distance - the new bridge being built over the new Warsaw Southern Bypass, the S2. Cycling from Platan Park to Powiśle and home today I cover 33.2km (20.6 miles).Ul. Poloneza is a scandal. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz will have to go as Warsaw's mayor later this autumn. She has FAILED to provide the residents of Jeziorki with a) asphalted roads, b) pavements upon which we can reach bus stop or railway station with dry and unmuddied feet and c) town drains, forcing us to pay 220 złotys (44 quid or €55) every two weeks to have our plop-plops, wee-wee and bath, shower and washing-up water syphoned up by a great big tanker lorry and removed.
I voted for her last time, but she has FAILED me. I shall not be voting for her nor for any head-banger from PiS, nor for any old-time communist from SLD. If a local non-party affiliated person stands for mayor on a platform of building roads, pavements and town drains for the suburbs, he or she has my vote.Look at it! This from March last year. Or this - January last year. Or this - February 2008. The scandal of Warsaw's unmade roads is not just ul. Poloneza - ul. Hołubcowa (below), Zatorze (which must the the most impassable road in any OECD capital), Oberki and of course Dumki. Roads as crap as this take their toll on cars - see what happened to my Nissan three years ago on ul. Poloneza.
Mayors have a short time to prove themselves good housekeepers (dobry gospodarz). Neighbouring districts outside of Warsaw's city limits (Nowa Iwiczna, Lesznowola) have asphalt, pavements and drains - so why can't we - in the capital of the EU's sixth-largest member state?All of this is linked to the building of the S2 Warsaw Southern Bypass. Ul. Puławska is soon to be choked down to two lanes in each directions where the two roads will cross. When that happens, true commuting hell will result.
UPDATE: 14 September - a big thanks to reader Gaweł for this link to a report in TVN Warszawa from 18 months (!) ago highlighting the problem of the lack of pavements and crossings on ul. Karczunkowska. We hear the head of Ursynów's infrastructure department, Leszek Ciurzyński, saying that the most optimistic scenario is that we'll have the pavement 'in the second half of 2010'. Well here we are and we're still waiting.
UPDATE: SEPTEMBER TWENTY FUCKING TWENTY THREE - The S7 expressway is now open all the way from Grójec to Warsaw, disgorging hundreds of cars an hour down Karczunkowska AND THERE'S STILL NO FUCKING PAVEMENT, THANK YOU CUNTS.
I remember, when we drove to Warsaw from the UK we decided there's no point in driving into the City to get to Ursynow - thought that the road next to the airport has got to be adequate. 10 minutes later, stuck in the middle of dark, potholed nowhere we turned back.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, we DID have the GPS with us, we weren't even lost!
Are you sure your dear little car is really reliable. As I can infer from your writings, the Micra has repeatedly let you down. If the engine doesn't kick in the morning I think it's a misunderstanding to say it's a showroom-condition car.
ReplyDeleteOur Megane was repaired overnight. After replacing ignition coils it's totally different car, or at least it reacts when you push accelerator pedal.
Long live good cars and their first owners!
Ul. Puławska will soon be narrowed to two lanes. Road-biulders have put up a new set of traffic lights (not working yet) some 400 metres before "metro viaduct", traffic will probably be diverted into four lanes (two north-bound, two south-bound, not separated) marked out where the east road of Puławska now is. And the outset of commuters' hell is near. The only consolation for me is that from October to January I'll have to commute four days a week and only once a week in morning rush hour.
Yes, lack of sewerage is unthinkable, at least in gmina Lesznowola, here in Nowa Iwiczna actually almost all streets are paved, local authorities are building P&R car park next to railway station, we have pavements, local bus lines, it's not that bad here, but Piaseczno and Zielony Ursynów in terms of infrastructure are below any acceptable standard.
Local authorities say clearly:
ReplyDeleteno sewage system = no asphalt
@ Rubeus:
ReplyDeleteWe have asphalt but no sewage system or pavements (Trombity plus a lot of roads off Farbiarska, Dąbrówka etc).
"Local authorities say..."
Change them.Kick the nieudaczniki out of the ratusz.
@ Bartek:
Ah, I fear that the Nissan requires a total refit of the electrical system or a replacement. I do fancy the current shape Micra (due to be replaced in early 2011). There will be some fantastic offers on 2010 models!
@ Marcin
Wirażowa (as was before it got closed) and Zatorze must be the worst urban roads in any OECD country!
The cost of the overhaul may much exceed teh value of this car (which can't be sold in Poland, in the UK you'd get probably a few hundred quids for it. So what to do with it? Enough is enough, at some point it's time to face the truth, nothign lasts forever, though I wished your Micra would hit two decades before it conks out.
ReplyDeleteNo sewerage = no asphalt - quite logical - it's better. What would be the point in laying paving stones and then digging everything up to lay sewage pipes?
@ student - a classic case in economics of utility.
ReplyDeleteBecause I could never sell the car in Poland, it's resale value is zero. Any money I spend repairing it, one would think, would be wasted.
But the replacement cost is massive. Monthly installments on a new small car are at least 1200zł over three years.
Now, over the past 13 years (our Micra came to Poland aged just four years), I've spent 10,000zł on keeping the Micra roadworthy - the quarter of the cost of a new car. But how long can I keep this going?
Let's say I take the Micra to the garage and spend 2000zł on an overhaul of the electrics - reconditioned alternator, new plugs and points, etc. Plus another 400zł or so removing rust from here and there. This would give it another three years' lease of life, would it not?
Digging everything to lay pipes? Since when has such logic ever stopped the authorities from digging and re-digging up our roads?
Wrangling with accursed blogspot?
ReplyDeleteWhy should you buy a car on installments? Taking a loan to buy any consumer good is pointless unless you have another profitable investment to offset costs of car loan (annual percentage rate of 15% or 20%). If you don't have any free cash at the moment it's better to pay that 2,500 PLN to refit it and use it for some three years and in the meantime put aside money for a new car and buy it in, let's say, early 2014.
I plan to keep my car as long as it remains reliable, for no more than 20 years (so 13 years from now). After 10 years all electronic safety systems and airbags have to be replaced and I'll have to fork out a few thousand PLN to do it in 2013. Doing the same after next 10 years would be a total waste of money so if it doesn't conk out till then it'll be sold for a song or scrapped. Another variant is to keep the car going as long as annual maintenance costs (counting out insurance and petrol) do not exceed car's market value.