No longer the place to live

Twenty years ago, life in Jeziorki was sweet - an ideal place to live, close enough to travel to work in central Warsaw every day, to be in the office by nine am, yet a quiet, green area. Quite the place to raise children. Since then, 'Zielony Ursynów' ('Green Ursynów' - the part of the Warsaw district of Ursynów lying to the west of ulica Puławska and the Las Kabacki forest) had been developing slowly, but that pace has accelerated rapidly in recent years.

The opening of the S7 extension (to Lesznowola last August, and all the way to Grójec last month, thus linking the northern and southern bits of the S7) has vastly increased the amount of traffic pouring through Jeziorki. 

Below: ulica Karczunkowska, peak morning rush hour. See where that tanker is in the middle of the photo - on either side of the road, you will see... no pavement. Traffic is up maybe tenfold, maybe more, but there is still no f*cking pavement. This road is not scheduled for an upgrade until 2026. Meanwhile, there is a vastly greater risk of pedestrians or cyclists being killed or injured along this stretch, not to mention the extra noise and pollution. Just behind that tanker is the junction with ul. Nawłocka (to the left), and access to the Biedronka supermarket and W-wa Jeziorki Park+Ride (to the right). Trying to turn into Karczunkowska is a nightmare, so the local residents have petitioned for a roundabout to be placed here - I hope it happens, as it will have the additional benefit of slowing down traffic as it comes charging down from the viaduct. Reminder - the speed limit here is 50km/h.

That's just the through traffic. Jeziorki is also growing organically, with developers moving in to build new estates. A new house generates one and half new cars for the neighbourhood. Below: land for sale, Jeziorki - 2.1 hectares, enough to build 24 to 30 terraced houses; once sold and developed, another 36 to 45 new cars for ul. Trombity. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Below: one of four new estates on ul. Trombity, this one of ten houses, just completed, and up for sale. 

Talking of through traffic - I feel very sorry for the residents of ul. Pozytywki and ul. Cymbalistów; these two roads are used as rat-runs by motorists wanting to avoid the traffic lights at the end of ul. Karczunkowska to turn right towards Mysiadło, Nowa Iwiczna, Piaseczno and all points south. Despite the 30km/h speed limit, there's a constant stream of cars charging down these streets, heedless of the speed-bumps, tearing past the kindergarten and the new housing estate on Cymbalistów. The answer here is to create a Woonerf - the Dutch solution to the problem of through traffic tearing through quiet residential areas. My solution - the działka, 26km to the south, 24 minutes by train from W-wa Jeziorki to Chynów. From Chynów station I can walk to the działka without fear, often without being passed by a single car. And above all, peace, quiet, clean country air*.

Below: elegy for a lost suburb - Karczunkowska in 2007, five years after we moved to Jeziorki, 12 years before the viaduct crossed the tracks, 16 years before the S7 extension was completed. This is the reverse angle of the shot in the top photo. As busy as it got back then, I had to wait a bit to get the cars into the composition.

The inexorable lava flow of development will take time to reach Jakubowizna; it is happening. Three new houses have appeared on my street since I bought the działka in 2017, but each one is detached, and two of them are bungalows. I cannot see the same kind of development that blights Jeziorki - or worse, Zgorzała, Zamienie and Nowa Wola on the other side of Warsaw's city limits - whole fields being turned into row after row of terraced houses with no asphalt or amenities.

* Country air pollutants: diesel fumes from tractors, chemicals used to spray orchards, and smoke from wood- or coal-fired domestic heating. But at least there's a thousand times less traffic on the roads.

This time last year:
Textures of Childhood

This time two years ago:
Stupendous sunset, Sułkowice

This time seven years ago:
Politics - the importance of fact.

This time eight years ago:
Rural Mazovian toponyms

This time nine years ago:
Carrying the weight on both shoulders

This time ten years ago:
Railway history - the big picture

This time 12 years ago:
A new lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle

This time 13 years ago:
The ingredients of success

The Long Review of 2022 (Pt. IV)

Having covered Europe, the UK and the world, now a look at my home turf - Jeziorki and Jakubowizna. Here's it's all about investment and progress.

Jeziorki first. The S7 extension (section A) opened from the end of the S79 down to Lesznowola in the summer. A mere six and half kilometres of it. Section B of the extension (Lesznowola - Tarczyn) is expected to open in 2023. It will mean that the S7 will stretch from Warsaw down towards Kraków as far as the border of Małopolska province

The S7 opening has had the entirely expected effect of dumping a mass of traffic down ulica Karczunkowska. Where once cars came in small strings of five or six, reflecting a traffic-light change on the junction with ul. Puławska, there are now endless torrents using this pavement-free road as a connection to Węzeł Zamienie. The new traffic volume means that using this road as a pedestrian when the adjoining fields are covered with snow or are muddy bogs has become almost impossible. We learnt the news this year that finally, a pavement for ul. Karczunkowska has been approved by the local authority. It will be ready in... 2026. 

One huge improvement is the opening (at last!) of bus lanes along ul. Puławska. It means that a bus ride from Metro Wilanowska to Kaczunkowska now takes 25 minutes at peak times, rather than the 40+ minutes it would have taken before. Added to this is my newly acquired Senior's Warsaw Card, a mere 50zł (£9.35) for the whole year, which gives me access to all buses, trams, Metro, Koleje Mazowieckie, SKM and WKD trains right out to the borders of Zone 2. Not only can I flop onto any bus anywhere, but I can get to Zalesie Górne on Koleje Mazowieckie trains for free, and pay the 5.72zł over-60s discount fare from Zalesie Górne to Chynów, cutting the price of a round trip into central Warsaw to a mere 11.44zł (£2.15). 

With all the new stations including Warka Miasto opened and all the existing stations modernised, the Warsaw-Radom railway line is almost up to speed - the final touch will be the GSM-R mobile communication system for trains; when that's operational, trains will be allowed to speed up to a maximum of 160km/h on the line (current maximum permissible velocity is 120km/h). This, however, is not expected until 2024. Still, things are moving faster - the quickest train between W-wa Jeziorki to Chynów now takes 24 minutes, an improvement over the 31 minutes pre-modernisation.

But things will get worse before they get better... the modernisation of the Warsaw transversal railway line is about to get under way; Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) is still unfinished with much inconvenience to come. Below: Platforms 3 and 4 at Zachodnia are currently disappearing. Platforms 5, 6, 7 and 8 are almost ready. Platform 2 (to the left) working hard right now, serving all east- and westbound local trains.

I get the feeling after 25 years in Poland that the whole country is a continuous work in progress that will never reach closure; something or other always has to be undergoing a remont.

Back to the S7 extension. Stretch B, from Lesznowola to Tarczyn will be open sometime in the first half of 2023, finally connecting Warsaw to Radom and Kielce by expressway, which comes to an end at the border of Małopolska province. And all the way down to Kraków within a few more years.

On the local front, little change in Jakubowizna, other than the bottom end of my street (the bit that's in Chynów) being officially named ulica Owocowa (lit. 'fruity street'), a no-through road sign on the stump of road parallel to the railway line running up the hill, and another medium-tension electricity pylon replaced by a more modern one. A new house is being built on my street, a single-story dwelling. Work started in the summer. Ulica Torowa outside Chynów station now has proper drainage and a new (first) layer of asphalt meaning no more edge-to-edge puddles when it rains. Sadly, the J&B Snack Bar closed for business this summer - the best burgers in the poviat; a new supermarket (a Dino) has opened at the far end of Chynów. Disappointing choice, but cheaper than Top Market.

And more and more orchards being fitted with anti-hailstone netting - a reaction to the increased frequency of extreme-weather events brought about by climate change! Temperature forecast for New Year's Day is +14C.

This time last year:
S2 tunnel under Ursynów opens

This time two years ago:
The first year of Covid-19

This time three years ago:
Last night in Ealing, twenty-teens
[A strangely prophetic post, suitably dream-like in quality]

This time four years ago:
The Day the World Didn't End

This time seven years ago:
Hybrid driving - the verdict

This time nine years ago:
Pitshanger Lane in the sun

This time 13 years ago:
Miserable, grey, wet London

This time 14 years ago:
Parrots in Ealing

This time 15 years ago:
Heathrow to Okęcie

The S7 extension opens (well, part of it anyway)

As got off the train at W-wa Jeziorki, I heard a disturbing sound. What I heard was the sound of a thousand lost motorists, seeking Kraków. But they'll not find Kraków. Because it's too early. Sections A and C of the S7 extension might be ready, but section B is two years behind schedule.

This evening, around six, the barriers came down and traffic was allowed, for the first time, to drive onto the southbound carriageways of the S7 at Węzeł Lotnisko (airport junction). But only as far as Węzeł Lesznowola - and there, the automotive fun comes to an end. The junction, which was meant to connect to a new local road, just drops cars off at a pair of stumps going nowhere. The new local road is not even a plan at this stage. And so motorists have to drive around the byways of Nowa Wola, looking for a way to connect with the existing DK7, that eventually connects with Section C of the extension somewhere north of Tarczyn. Sub-optimal if you are heading for Kraków. But fine for local inhabitants. Section B is said will be 'passable' (ie. just one lane open in each direction as the other carriageway is completed) between Lesznowola and Tarczyn later this year. Good luck with that.

Below: looking towards Warsaw. Note the separated carriageways - the one to the left carries three lanes with traffic from the eastbound S2, the one from the right carries two lanes with traffic from the southbound S79 and the westbound S2 (so guess which carriageway will be more congested). They merge south of the viaduct that I'm standing on.

Below: the viaduct over the S7 - note the direction 'Kraków' still taped over.

Below: the slip road to the southbound carriageway also denies Kraków.

Below: Action sunset. For the first time, traffic passes under the viaduct. It's been a little over two and half years from the beginning of works - February 2020

The opening of the service roads on either side of the S7 will be of use to the local community. I must say, however, I mourn the passing of that short window when I could walk along them, unbothered by traffic. All good things must come to an end.

Two years ago:
Infrastructure delays everywhere

This time three years ago:
Let's stop spitting at the other tribe

[today, I'm still more inclined to say "fuck 'em".]

This time four years ago:
Progress on the Działka

This time eight years ago:
Changes to Poland's traffic regulations

This time 11 years ago:
Teasers in the Polish-English linguistic space

This time 12 years ago:
Summer slipping away

This time 13 years ago:
To the airport by bike

This time 14 years ago:
My translation of Tuwim's Lokomotywa

These are signs, tokens

As I wrote last week, a visible indicator of the ever-nearing completion of the S7 extension (Stretch A, 6.7km from the airport junction to Lesznowola), is the appearance of road signs. And quite odd they are too...

Imagine – you are driving north up the S7 (European route E77); you pass Węzeł Zamienie (junction 66); the next one to the north is coming up soon – junction 65 for the S2 is but a kilometre away. But what's this? You do a double take at 90km/h. 

Siedlin? 

Where' the fuck's Siedlin? MORE TO THE POINT – WHERE'S WARSAW? AND WARSAW AIRPORT MUST BE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE! HAVE I TAKEN A WRONG TURN?

Siedlin, it turns out, is a "village in the administrative district of Gmina Płońsk, within Płońsk County, Masovian Voivodship. Population (2011): 369. It lies around 5km south-east of Płońsk and 59km (37 mi) north-west of Warsaw" (Wikipedia). Only if equipped with that arcane piece of information can you surmise that you're still some 21km south of  Warsaw at this point.

But what a daft place-name to put on a road sign! It turns out (for those who really know their Polish trunk-road geography) that Siedlin sits on the junction of the S7, the DK50 (Warsaw's de facto and incomplete ring-road) and the DK10, the road to Szczecin. So now you know.

More confusing signs. The ones for Raszyn from Węzeł Zamienie are downright misleading. In both cases, if driving from the south, you'd be much better placed to carry on north to the next junction for Raszyn, then take the S2 eastbound one junction to Aleja Krakowska, then turn south. Avoiding the villages of Dawidy Bankowe, Dawidy, Jaworowa and Rybie. Dual carriageway all the way. Not narrow rural roads.

Below: a few years ago, standing in this spot, the view would have been entirely unrecognisable. Above all, you'd be in the backyard of a farm, just fields ahead. My local landscape, utterly changed.

How it looked in the summer of 2018, click here.

Below: this sign is for drivers approaching the S7 junction from Dawidy. At least Warsaw is mentioned on this one. But don't even think of taking your horse and cart that way. Raszyn? Carry on for Warsaw, one junction north, then turn west, and come off after one junction. Faster, avoiding four villages.

Meanwhile, a misleading sign for anyone heading to Zgorzała from Warsaw. The southbound slip road shows the turning right to Zgorzała along with Zamienie and Raszyn... it is not! You'll end up on the western roundabout having to backtrack, assuming you realise you need to return from where you came.

This, below, is the real turn for Zgorzała – on the other side of the viaduct, the slip-road leads to a spiral ramp, up and over the S7 on the viaduct, around the roundabout two photos up, and on to Zgorzała that way. A saving of half a kilometre of pointless driving.

Another misleading sign is at the top end of Zgorzała, for Mokotów, herding local traffic down ulica Karczunkowska towards ul. Puławska. This is madness. From here, to get to, say, Galeria Mokotów down Karczunkowska, then Puławska, then Rzymowskiego is 10.4km, passing 16 sets of traffic lights. If instead you go to Galeria Mokotów along the S7 and its continuation, the S79 turning onto ul. Marynarska, it's only 9.4 km. The first and last lights are on Rondo Unii Europejskiej and that's it. So why is the suggested route longer, more congested and far slower?

Below: Mokotów is straight on, actually, unless you like sitting in traffic jams.

This time last year:

Am I a serious man?

This time two years ago:
Sunset's trip

This time eight years ago
The importance of the rucksack for the body

This time 11 years ago:
How I almost saved Barrack Obama

This time 13 years ago:
Some anniversaries missed

This time 15 years ago:
Hissing of the summer lawns

Interstices - S2, S7, S79

These are places where soon, the casual walker won't be able to visit. Fencing is going up around the roadworks; before long, the entire junction will be open, with new connections from north to south, south to north, east to south, south to east, west to south and south to west. When the junction was built, it connected only the S2 to the S79 (running into Warsaw, passing the airport); the southern end was a stump terminating in fields that is now turning into the S7 extension. And so for several years, the junction only served traffic flowing east to west, west to east, east to north, north to east, west to north and north to west. So - time for a peek into the new sliproads that will soon be roaring with traffic.

Below: this view you'll get from your rear-view mirror as you drive onto the S2 (westbound) from the S7. This tunnel under the S79 was completed in 2013, when the S79 opened for traffic, connecting to the east-west S2. But this tunnel was built to connect the S7 extension to the S2 westbound. At the time, it was believed that the S7 extension would be ready by 2020. 

Below: since September 2013, these lights have been on, day and night, for over eight and half years. Meanwhile, the local street-art community has been busy. You don't see graffiti on the walls of most tunnels (Wisłostrada, for example), because they are opened soon after completion.

Below: out in the open, the view drivers will have as they prepare to sweep to the right and merge with the S2 westbound, visible in the distance. And then on to Poznań, Berlin and - ultimately - Lisbon.

Below: not really deserving the status of 'tunnel', the link between the S7 and S2 eastbound merely dives under the bridge carrying the Warsaw-Radom railway line. Again, this sliproad has stood idle since being completed in 2013.

Below: abandoned railway infrastructure. Unlike the old signal box, some 80m to the north, this building (I guess a machine room operating the switchgear?) has survived. The signal box was demolished in 2017 during the modernisation work of the Warsaw-Radom railway, its role supplanted by a new digitally enabled control-centre just north of W-wa Okęcie station. Overhead, a KLM Cityhopper Embraer ERJ 190 on final approach, and hurrying south, a Koleje Mazowieckie train on its way to Radom.

If I go in there, I'll see goodness knows what. Let's go and look. There's always some trepidation when entering abandoned buildings; there may be ne'er-do-wells within. But consciously precluding that possibility, I enter. Uninhabited. And amazingly devoid of empty bottles and tins - the outdoor-drinking community are put off by the prospect of having to cross three railway tracks or an expressway.

Below: the same artists that daubed the tunnel?

Below: Google Earth is amazing. The 3D imagery extends well south of Warsaw Okęcie, this view is stunning. North is in the top-right corner.

Below: finally, the same junction, in full, from Open Street Maps. I've marked in red the sections photographed; the south-to-west sliproad and tunnel, the abandoned railway building and the short south-to-east sliproad.

This time last year:
Joys of Spring

This time two years ago:
Jeziorki in May

This time three years ago:

Spitalfields and Smithfields - more from London

This time five years ago

That tune going round your head now...

This time six years ago:
The eyes... the eyes... 

This time seven years ago:
New old terminal open at Okęcie airport

This time nine years ago:
Arrogance vs. humility 

This time ten years ago:
Warsaw looking good ahead of the football-fan influx

This time 11 years ago:
Heron over Jeziorki

This time 15 years ago:
Present rising, future loading

Further S7 extension progress

Getting tantalisingly close to the finish, two years and four months since the first scraping away of the topsoil, the S7 extension, there's talk about opening at least the northern section by next month. I'll believe it when I hear the traffic's roar. In the meantime, some final strolls around the site and its environs...

Below: "S79, I'd like you to meet the S7 extension"... South Warsaw's equivalent of Promontory, Utah, where the two ends of the transcontinental railroad met. To the left, the S79 takes you into Warsaw; take the right-hand exit for Belarus and Russia, or turn left and carry on along the S2 for Berlin and Lisbon, or swing north around Warsaw for Gdańsk and Scandinavia. To the right, straight through to Kraków, Slovakia and the Balkans beyond.

Below: at the junction of the western service road, which connects Dawidy Bankowe with Dawidy, work is almost complete. Fencing separates the S7 from surrounding land, yellow posts mark out the boundary of the land for the road ('pas drogowy'); the final asphalt has been laid. Some pavement still needs to be finished, but the end is in sight. 

The service road that runs parallel to the S7 on the eastern side is also nearly ready. Again, the pavement hasn't yet been laid end to end, but the asphalt is down - and to my surprise - the signposts are up! Below: from where the eastern service road meets ul. Baletowa, it's six kilometres to Raszyn ('Fool's Raszyn/Where angels fear to tread')... Raszyn, the Staines of the East

...and from Baletowa, via the new asphalt of the eastern service road, it's three kilometres to Zgorzała. Note the roadsign for gated level crossing - this is at W-wa Dawidy station. While the new road sign encourages curious drivers to take a look, the road is still closed; barriers remain in place.

The big news at the other end is that the pedestrian and cycle viaduct is now officially open. Below: looking west up the newly constructed ramp that meets the bridge structure. Behind me Zgorzała, ahead of me, across the S7, Zamienie. No stairs, just a long, gently sloped ramp at either end. Wide enough for cyclists to safely pass each other. The the left, the eastern service road that takes traffic down to Nowa Wola, bypassing the village of Zgorzała, which will feel massive relief when the S7 opens.

Below: from the top, looking south towards Lesznowola. The sign, translated literally, says: TEMPORARY CROSSING. WE ASK FOR CAUTION. DO NOT LEAN OVER ACROSS THE BARRIERS!! Presumably leaning over the barriers will be OK once the crossing becomes permanent. 

UPDATE 28 May 2022: Road signs are up on the S7 - a big development. Grójec - Radom - Kielce - Kraków, this sign would have been visible on the photo above, just before the curve in the distance.

And now, some bonus shots of planes landing on RWY 29, rarely used unless the much-longer RWY 33 is being repaired or, as happened yesterday, there are particularly strong winds from the west. This creates the opportunity of catching the planes against a backdrop of skyscrapers.

Below: a LOT Polish Airlines Embraer ERJ 175 flies in front of the Warsaw Hub and Spire buildings. In the foreground, W-wa Jeziorki station, a southbound train approaching. Photo taken from the viaduct over the tracks.

Left: LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner in livery commemorating the centenary of Poland's independence, which occurred three and half years ago. Taken at ground level from the S7's western service road north of ul. Baletowa, with the same cluster of skyscrapers as in the photo above. Beyond the treeline, Węzeł Lotnisko, where the S2 meets the S7/S79.

Below: a Finnair Embraer ERJ 190 coming in to land, flying in front of Varso tower. Taken from south of Baletowa, so from a greater distance. 

Below: A Wizz Air Airbus A321neo - something of a Supermarionation vibe here!

This time last year:

Town and country

This time two years ago:
Covid and economy recovery

This time three years ago:
Electric cars for hire by the minute

This time six years ago:
Mszczonów - another railway junction

This time ten years ago:
The Devil is in Doubt - short story, part I

This time 11 years ago:
Stormclouds are raging all around my door

This time 12 years ago:
Floods endanger Warsaw

This time 13 years ago:
Coal line rarity

Hills... I gotta have hills.

Central Mazovia is pancake-flat. The horizon is at the same level whichever way you turn. In this, it's like Iowa, where to quote Bill Bryson "if you stand on two telephone directories, you have A View". Which generally, I don't mind from a flashback-familiarity point of view, those big skies remind me of the prairies... But the flatness means that hills are at a premium - even temporary, man-made hills...

Seeking a higher vantage point is instinctive in animals. Felusia's favourite place in the kitchen for example, is perched on top of the coffee machine - the highest point in the room - an ideal spot from which to observe human activity. Scrambling to the top of a man-made hill around these flat terrains to have a look around, a rest and a beer, has been a pleasant local activity in recent years, made possible by the civil engineering works going on in the neighbourhood.

Gone now is the ballast mountain (across the tracks opposite from the Jeziorki end of ulica Kórnicka). It stood here between 2016 and 2020 when PKP PLK was modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line, and afforded good views to the north and south-east. Below: looking across at Jeziorki, the 'up' line awaiting new rails.

Gone too are the highest soil mountains that once stood astride the S7 extension works. Below, the one next to Węzeł Zamienie, between Jeziorki and Dawidy Bankowe. Photo taken on 3 May 2021 - amazing progress since then. Sadly, without this view-yielding mountain.

Below: view from the top of the soil mountain at the northern end of the S7 extension, where it meets the S79. 

Alas - these high places, and the views from them - have gone. These were favoured places of mine to scramble to the top of and enjoy a beer around sunset - the golden time of day.

It seems that hills are at a premium - even modest ones. Between Zgorzała and Zamienie, all the hills associated with the S7 extension works have been levelled with the ground - with two exceptions. Both are on private land (situated on either side of the expressway); both are now fenced in. Presumably the owners simply asked the builders not to remove them - and the builders happily obliged. Win-win.Builder saves costs of removal, landowner has a Feature. Below: the hill on the east side of the S7. Plant a few trees, make a path, bench at the top, make good - nice. [There are also two such man-made hills, leftovers from civil-engineering works, by the ponds in Jeziorki. The local 'ziggurats'.]

But there's still one range of soil hills remaining, west of the railway tracks a little way north of W-wa Jeziorki station. 

Sadly, although extensive in area, they are not very high (about four-and-half metres at the highest), but they are easy and safe to climb.

Below: the view is OK, nothing spectacular (certainly not when compared to the 12-metre-high hill that stood next to where Węzeł Zamienie now is, second photo from the top), but at least it's here and above ground level. But for how long? Until a new viaduct extends ul. Dawidowska across the railway? If so, it will be a while.

Below: my brother has rendered my photo taken from the Ballast Mountain looking north (seen originally here) in the style of German artist Anselm Kiefer, catching the atmosphere of the late afternoon in winter with a light frost and a dusting of snow.

The end-of-day pilgrimage requires a destination; the destination requires a vantage point, a spot for contemplation while watching the setting sun. 

The motorbiking season is soon to start, and with it the opportunity to explore further afield, beyond the reach of public transport.

This time last year:
Flashback to a Dream - subconsciousness and memory

This time 11 years ago:
'Old school' = pre-war

This time 12 years ago:
Britain chooses a coalition government

This time 13 years ago:
Landing over Ursynów

This time 14 years ago:
On being assertive in Poland

Łady road works

I hop on a passing 715 bus and get off at Jaworowa for a walk home via Falenty Nowe, Łady and Dawidy Bankowe. The weather - the atmosphere - flashback-perfect. I am transported back to rural America in the early 1950s. Below: ulica Jaworowska, between Jaworowa and Falenty Nowe.

Below: ul. Hrabska Droga (lit. 'Count's Road Street'), looking down ul. Grudzi. 

It's been six weeks since the 715 bus stopped going to Nowy Podolszyn, while the junction in the centre of the village of Łady (pron. 'Wuddy') has been closed for a remont. Now it's nearly done.

Below: looking towards Łady from the west. Note the 'no entry' signs... These are on top of the three further back (behind me). It's quite clear that the road is closed.

And yet. Yesterday, the driver of this Jaguar has ignored all eight 'no entry' and 'road closed' signs that he passed. Furthermore, he drove over the zebra crossing as it was being painted. The car went around the roundabout and could not leave, as the northern exit was closed off; he did a U-turn, tried the southern exit - also closed off. Another U-turn. Frustrated, with no way out, he had no alternative but to drive back the way he came - once again crossing the freshly-painted zebra crossing. Twat. Cham.

This is where we are; it's nearly ready. New asphalt before the traffic. A lovely warm day, temperature at last hitting 20C.

And here we are back in May 2007 - 15 years ago, the same place. The Marian shrine that formed the centre of the roundabout has gone, there's proper lighting and road markings, pavements and cycle path have been set up. The Ikarus buses - now but a memory - have been replaced by hybrid buses on the 715 route. Good that the little shop is still there

Taking advantage of today being a public holiday and a Sunday, I figured that there'd be no security around the S7 extension today, giving me a chance to cross over the new footpath/cyclepath, still unfinished (needs on-ramps at either end, hand rails, asphalt and marking). Here's the view looking north towards the road viaduct. Note the plastic barrier blocks in red and white; until the footbridge is open, this is the current route for pedestrians and cyclists. To the right, the highways maintenance depot nears completion.

This time last year:
S7 extension works
[Amazing how much progress has been achieved in a year!]

This time two years ago:

Back to the działka after eight weeks locked down

This time three years ago:

Vol 2. of Bevis's Betjeman biography

This time four years ago:
New roads and rails

This time five years ago:
The Gold Train shoot - lessons learned

This time six years ago:
The Network vs The Hierarchy in politics

This time seven years ago:
45 years under one roof

This time eight years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time nine years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time ten years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 11 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time 12 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 13 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 14 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 15 years ago:
Flag day

Lenten photo catch-up

Lent coincided with the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, days of foreboding and unease. A couple of trips to town, several trips to the działka, and just the one business trip - to Łódź.

Below: the S7 is coming along nicely, but no new milestones since the opening of the viaduct between Jeziorki and Dawidy Bankowe.

 

Below: Łódź - 19th century wooden building, now listed. The centre of Łódź is changing - this is less than 500m from the EC1 and Brama Miasta developments, nearing completion. 

Given a few more years, Łódź will have turned into a splendid city, a mix of the ultra-modern and carefully restored heritage buildings, old factories and palaces. Below: corner of ul. Targowa and Nawrot.

Below: old sign on Platform 3 of W-wa Zachodnia station, mid-modernisation. Platforms 8, 7 and 6 are nearly complete, the suburban platforms will be last to be changed. Sign says 'to alien persons entry is prohibited'.

Below: Zamienie, sunset, approaching equinox. Looking west along the tree-lined ulica Zakładowa that ran through what was the Bio-Vet vaccine plant; after it closed the land was bought by developers, who have built many hundreds of new houses and flats here. As usual, amenities - including proper roads, pavements and public transport - have been neglected.

Back in the garden, Felusia makes a determined run for the garage door and lunchtime. Here I must note the unusually settled fine weather - between 10 and 26 March, there was hardly a single cloud in the sky.

On the działka, my Ukrainian guests, just about to set off to a new life in London after a fortnight in Jakubowizna. Maxim, his mum and grandmother behind him. 

First of April for some fresh snow, which fell heavily through the night, giving a thick cover the next day.

Below: by the 3rd, the snow clouds had passed, a gorgeous day. I visited the działka, and walking from the station the long way via Machcin II, became the first human to tread in this virgin snow. Deep and hard to talk through! Plenty of hare tracks though.

Below: my first stork sighting of this year, 10 April, Jeziorki.

This time last year:

Qualia memories - Edwardian railways

This time six years ago:

The great taste of Polish India Pale Ales

This time seven years ago:
Lublin - pearl of Poland's East

This time nine years ago:
70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

This time ten years ago:
Tarkovsky's Stalker: a zone of my own

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's big billboards

This time 13 years ago:
Pace of development falters