A little done, much still to do

Walking to Puławska this morning, I was delighted to see that the most highly demanded piece of local infrastructure investment in this year's budżet partycypacyjny has been put into place. We local voters voted for nine projects - this is the first to be completed.

Left: this might not look like much to you, but to local citizens and children going to the primary school round the corner on ul Sarabandy, this is a life-saver.

The Number One Most Voted For project by so-called 'Zielony Ursynów' (all of Ursynów to the west of ul. Puławska) was this 80-metre stretch of pavement from the bus stop to ul. Sarabandy.

Previously, the local authorities said that this was impossible to do, because there wasn't the space to make the pavement wide enough for a wheelchair. Rubbish. There was. Plenty of space. It just had to be wrested from the roadway. Car drivers (who should be driving at no more than 50km/h around here anyway) can just drive with more caution. The most important thing is that schoolchildren can get from the bus stop to school without getting splashed or squished. And that for rest of us, the final stretch of Karczunkowska at least can be navigated in a civilised manner.

Below: for those of my readers familiar with this stretch of road, the appearance of a decent pavement is a marvel. Note: the fence to the left has been shifted right back from the kerb - which suggests the city bought several dozen square metres of private land to build this path. Well done.

Below: not only new pavement - new bus stops. The three bus shelters, Karczunkowska 01, 02 and 03 have been replaced by more modern ones offering slightly more protection from the elements.

A small digression about buses, Warsaw and London. In Warsaw, the bus stop has a timetable for all the bus routes that serve it. The times are given to the minute; other than at rush hours, buses generally run to timetable. So when I see on my ZTM mobile phone app that the 715 is due at 09:10, I'm pretty sure it will be at my stop at that time. It was this morning! In London, the bus stop timetable says 'Every 7-12 minutes' - which is useless. I might as well march on for that time, on the basis that I've just missed one. Not to mention the massive disparity in prices of public transport - Londoners are three times better paid than Varsovians in real terms but they pay around ten times more for their public transport.

But Warsaw still has more to do. Mrs President Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Ask yourself - would you walk home along a pavement like this (below)? If not, why are you expecting inhabitants of Jeziorki Południowe to do so? You've fixed the first 80 metres of ul. Karczunkowska. Thanks. But there's two more kilometres of this street before it reaches the city limits. This is disgusting. I'm heartily sick of wet shoes, twisted ankles and muddy trousers. I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?

The next round of the budżet partycypacyjny starts soon, so Jeziorki folk need to get together to insist this gets finally fixed.

This time three years ago:
Welcome to the machine, Mr Kaczyński

This time five years ago:
'F' is for 'Franco', not 'Fascist' [Prescient post!]

This time seven years ago:
Christmas lights: all in the best possible taste

This time eight years ago:
Letter from Russia