The Street of Dispute

Jeziorki is, in that well-worn cliche of travel programmes, a suburb of contrasts. On the one hand, where modernity touches it, it looks and functions well. But there are also oddities, incongruities, places out of sync with today's increasingly regulated world.

One such street is ulica Sporna (literally 'Disputed Street'; 'Arguable', 'Contentious'). Quite what is disputed is buried in local history, but a quick look at a map gives some clues. From end to end, ul. Sporna measures three kilometres, with one end on ul. Puławska and the other in Dawidy Zwykłe (lit. 'the Ordinary Davids'), on Warsaw's border. One name, one street, you may think. Actually it is one street, one access road and two footpaths, separated from each other by a factory, a cemetery, a railway line and (coming soon!) a six-lane expressway.

Ulica Sporna begins at the eastern end by the Mitsubishi/Kia/Subaru dealership opposite McDonald's on ul. Puławska. It starts off as a normal suburban road, mixed-use residential and services, a pavement on one side, with a row of bollards further protecting pedestrians (and preventing parking). Four hundred metres to the west, ul. Sporna hits ul. Farbiarska, and there, you might think, it ends. The first bit of it, anyway.

Old maps of Warsaw clearly show one, single, continuous road connecting both ends. Today, it is cut into pieces, and it is impossible to drive or even walk it from one end to the other. Firstly, there is the Solaris Laser factory - a manufacturer of laser coding equipment. Sporna used to run through it. Now it is diverted to the south of the plant, a short access road that comes to a dead end at a brick wall beyond a few more industrial buildings. Beyond the wall, there's a path that follows the southwestern edge of the cemetery fence; there are two gates into the cemetery; one is usually closed, the other is always open, and from it emerges Szlak Turystyczny (tourist trail) MZ-5143-c, (from PKP Dawidy to the botanical gardens in Powsin). However, only 135 metres of Sporna forms part of MZ-5143-c, before it turns left onto ul. Jeziorki. 

Below: White-red-white, like the Belarusian flag, the colour coding for MZ-5143-c is visible on the cemetery gate and on this signpost on ul. Jeziorki. The other tourist trail going through Jeziorki, MZ-5142-z, is coded white-green-white.

Ulica Sporna continues over ul. Jeziorki, continuing along asphalt for a while, past the sign marking the beginning of Warsaw's second taxi zone. On to a site advertising cars from Switzerland, Jeziorki's answer to Swiss Tony, who currently has but two SUVs on his forecourt. Here the road ends, but Sporna continues westward as a grassy track. 

This runs across cultivated fields, is often ploughed up to the extent that you can't see it, and local residents walking dogs, jogging or Nordic walking have great difficulty crossing. Below: is this Sporna? No - Sporna is in the next field to the left. Farmers evidently don't like walkers on their land. The area is also blighted by fly-tippers dumping household rubbish and building waste. Bring back the stocks, I say!

Below: Is this Sporna? Yes it is - looking east towards ul. Jeziorki. This stretch is right under the flight path to Warsaw Okęcie airport's Runway 33. 

And then Sporna merges with ul. Hołubcowa, another of Jeziorki's unasphalted roads. This section of Hołubcowa, between ul. Sztajerki and ul. Baletowa (by W-wa Dawidy station) is 1km long and impassable when muddy. I regularly see vehicles bogged down axle deep around here. Below: this Tatra 6x6 digger will get through come what may; conditions at the moment are good, if dusty.

Sporna reaches the Warsaw-Radom railway line; below; there used to be an ungated level crossing here - it was removed many years ago, but shows up in old maps. 

Below: this one, from 1989, shows ul. Sporna and ul. Kórnicka both crossing the line; maps from the 1960s also showed ul. Dawidowska doing the same. From the five crossings that originally existed, just two remain today; the level crossing on ul. Baletowa, and the viaduct over the line along ul. Karczunkowska.

Today, not only does the railway bisect ul. Sporna, but also the new S7 extension, which, when opened, will be uncrossable on foot. 

Below: the S7 extension taking shape, the new section to the left, the existing rump-end of the S79 to the right. In the distance, you can see some football goalposts - to the right of those, ul. Sporna, no more than a footpath, passes through the treeline.

The final, westernmost, stretch of ul. Sporna is 560m long, ending at the junction of ul. Śliska (lit. 'slippery street'). Less than a two-minute walk from the bus-loop terminus of the 209 bus, which used to terminate in Jeziorki, but now ends its route in Dawidy Zwykłe.

This time last year:
Lifting the spirits

This time last three years ago:

The Hammer of Darkness descends one last time

[How wrong I was!]

This time four years ago:
Big news for Jeziorki
[the housing estate for 8,000 people. Four years on, the project's cancelled.]

This time five years ago:
Autumn in Warsaw

This time six years ago:
Inside the Norblin factory 

This time eight years ago:
Sadness at the death of Tadeusz Mazowiecki

This time ten years ago:
More hipster mounts (Warsaw fixieism)

This time 11 years ago:
Welcome to Warsaw

This time 12 years ago:
Just like the old days