Karczunkowska's closed again

Coming home after work yesterday, I noticed a new temporary road sign announcing the closure of ul. Karczunkowska (again), so today a walk to investigate was in order. According to local news website, the closure is planned between 23:00 on Friday 27 April and 06:00 on Monday 7 May, in other words the long May week of two public holidays, when many Poles will take three days off work to give nine days holiday. So - good planning... Below: the sign on the road near the junction with ul. Trombity. The message does not seem to get through to drivers, who have to find out for themselves just how closed the road is. To save you the bother - it is closed. Cars will not get through. Bikes and pedestrians - yes.

Below: the next sign is on the road approaching the junction with ul. Nawłocka. But still they come, hoping that there's some way through. There isn't.

Below: across the tracks over the level crossing behind Biedronka and on to ul. Gogolińska. Another sign says the road's closed. And yet those drivers persist.

Below: around the corner, beyond the junction of ul. Gogolińska and Karczunkowska, the road is totally and utterly blocked. Pedestrians and bikes can squeeze through a passage to the right of this pic, but for other road-going vehicles - no. Don't waste your time. Do as you did last time Karczunkowska was closed - go around Nowa Iwiczna or down Baletowa.

Below: a rather crap shot from my Nikon CoolPix P900 (which is never happy in wide angle mode), showing Karczunkowska cut right down its entire width to get at the sewers. Without the ability to shoot in RAW format, exposure is a compromise; the get the detail in the shadows I lost the detail in the highlights.. Still, it shows how serious this work is.

But there are always the adventurous ones. Like the woman in the Yaris on Pruszków plates who first headed south along Gogolińska looking for a short cut, finding none, turning round, to discover that it's impassable to the north too. She sped past me (I was on foot, narrow road, no pavement) with her phone clamped to her ear. The short-cut that people want to make, between ul. Gogolińska and Kurantów, is not on. This bit of Kurantów is formally (and I checked on the land register map) a private road. The main bit of Kurantów runs out of asphalt 200m from this spur; physically impassable to all but off-road vehicles - except that the owners of the land at the top have blocked the path off to stop the rat-runners.

I very much doubt the work will be finished by Monday week. Indeed, I very much doubt the whole project will be completed this year. Even if there are no more major cock-ups such as the failure to detect the clash between sewers and power cables at the railway crossing, even if the guys work weekends and evenings (as they were today), I can't see this happening quickly. It will be fun to come here on Monday morning to see all the frustrated motorists forced to make U-turns.

It's actually comical to see drivers ignoring three, four, five signs saying 'no entry' or 'no through road' or 'diversion' and then being forced to turn around.

This time last year:
Little suitcase in the attic

This time two years ago:
What I read each week.

This time three years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time five years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw 

This time seven years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time eight years ago:
And watch the river flow...