Hurrah for new pavement!

Shortly after the new mayor took office in Chynów municipality, he posted a questionnaire on social media as to which stretches of road most needed a pavement alongside. The answer overwhelmingly one to build pavement to the Dino supermarket, which opened in 2022. At last one can safely walk or cycle there without fear of being hit by speeding traffic.

Below: the newly opened stretch of pavement/cyclepath running alongside the old DK50, ending, for the time being at least, at the supermarket. The new infrastructure was funded exclusively by the municipality.

Below: looking the other way, east towards Chynów from the supermarket exit. Across the road is Hotel Chynów, a popular venue for wedding and first Holy Communion receptions. One can now walk the entire 3.5km from the far end of Jakubowizna to here along decent pavements.

Below: looking once more the other way, west towards Drwalew and Grójec. The municipality plans to extend the path further, which would be a great benefit for local cyclists. Parents with children will be able to safely cycle between Drwalew and Chynów. I've walked this stretch (from Lasopole to Chynów) a couple of times, and although there's not much traffic, it is fast and the walk can get scary.

The municipality is seeking external funding (EU?) for the next stretch of pavement/cyclepath. I look forward to strolling into Drwalew for a pizza! I am also hoping for a bus service that links the Warsaw-Radom line at Chynów station with Grójec...

This time eight years ago:
High summer in Jakubowizna

This time ten years ago:
Aerial cavalcade ahead of NATO meeting

This time 12 years ago:
Ukraine: still an important foreign policy problem for the West 

This time 14 years ago:
More about Modlin airport

This time 17 years ago:
Get on your bike and RIDE!

Chynów gets new eaterie!

At long last. After the sad closure of J&B Snacks, a Covid victim, in the summer of 2022, Chynów became a gastronomic desert for over two years. Nowhere to sit down and eat. Then, in November 2024, Luxor Kebab opened on ulica Parkowa, followed by Amigo Kebab (which doesn't offer eat-in dining) on ul. Wolska. Today saw the opening day of Loft Chynów, which I of course had to visit. I must also mention Zajazd u Latoszków round the corner in Nowe Grobice, by the TransOil petrol station, which opened late last year, and offers excellent value lunch menus during the week for 30 złotys (£6.11) for soup and main course.

Loft Chynów (below) occupies the last vacant space of the new retail development next to the Biały Dom ('white house') shopping centre, which was completed last year. 

The menu at opening is a cautious toe-dip into the tastes of local diners; though the logo outside says 'burgers', they are not (as yet) available. At present it's pizza and pasta, with one size of pizza, 40 centimetres (16 inches) – which is ample for three. Price-wise, excellent value at between 39 złotys (£7.94) for a basic Margherita and 56 złotys (£11.40) for the seafood version. A giant pizza being too much for one, I chose the most sophisticated option on the menu, the Tagliatelle sepia, loaded with prawns, and cherry tomatoes in a delicious garlic butter sauce. This was 45 złotys (£9.16), and it was truly delicious – I can recommend. (The bowl is looking a bit empty because I was halfway through it before I realised that my desire to tuck in had overcome the presence of mind to snap the meal as it arrived.)

Wine is available by the bottle only meant that a beer was in order, and as it was a hot and sunny afternoon, a half-litre of Królewskie, at 12 złotys (£2.40, yes London, you read that right), brewed eight miles away in Warka, was a good decision. 

More details and full menu on Loft Chynów's Facebook page, which reveals that there's also a lunch menu from 11:00 to 16:00, soup and main course for 29zł (£5.91).

I sincerely wish the very best of commercial success to the owners of Loft Chynów; may the menu soon expand (to include at least burgers and wine by the glass), and may the clientele grow in number.

From my motorbike trips around Poland, I can say that nothing defines a successful small town than its number of eateries. Sad places with nowhere to eat are just ride-throughs. No life, no vibrancy; people eating at home rather than partaking of social life and creating a sense of community. 

The opening of Loft Chynów reflects the rapid development of the village and surrounding district; a virtuous circle of investment public and private making Chynów a better and better place to live.

This time last year:

This time five years ago:
US Government's first tentative steps towards UFO disclosure
[It's one data drop a fortnight right now!]

This time 15 years ago:
Szmulowizna

This time 16 years ago:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time 18 years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time 19 years ago:
Poppy fields

May forever

The most beautiful month of the year, May. Thursday morning saw the commercial orchards dripping with icicles; that would be the last frost of the year. A mere 48 hours later and dawn broke with 10 degrees on the thermometer.

Below: my front garden, early afternoon. Forget-me-nots, apple blossom, and brilliant blue sky. The ground is exploding with vegetation; the late-winter garden work is over. Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow. No mow May, no intervention. Let the leaves produce oxygen for our planet.

Below: this must be the best apple blossom, across the tracks on ulica Słoneczna. The pink will soon fade, the petals will soon wither. Last days of perfection. It is dry, however; rain is much needed.

My stroll today takes me into Chynów, then on to Sułkowice.

Below: roadworks along ulica Kolejowa continue. The old asphalt between the level crossing and the old stationmaster's house has been removed ahead of a resurfacing. Signs have gone up at the bottom end of ul. Wspólna saying that the road will be closed from 30 April to 5 May; today is 2 May and the road's been open for the past three days. I hope the work will be done on time.

Below: with the top layer gone, we can see some local history – the old 'kocie łby' (literally cats' heads) – cobblestones. A reminder that the station, and indeed the entire Warsaw-Radom railway line was built in 20 months, opening in November 1934.

Below: looking north from outside the main station building. The first parking spaces (kiss & ride?) have been paved; waiting now for the pavement to connect station to level crossing.

Below: from zero local eateries to three within the space of 18 months – that's progress! Here comes the latest one, days away from opening. Loft Chynów – "Lunch Pizza & Burger by Pizza Park". Beer on tap. Will definitely be visiting!

Below: on to Sułkowice, along ulica Ogrodowa, near the elementary school. Note the neatly coppiced trees lining the fence.

Below: approaching the police-dog training school on the left. Note the traffic speed monitor on the other side of the street. The display (on the other side) shows how fast vehicles are going – and how many points on the licence that would be. But it's just performative. Local drivers have learned to ignore it (and the other one further along ulica Ogrodowa nearer Chynów). 

Below: Sułkowice's new three-story block of flats, an unusual typology for Polish rural residential development, which shows how supply and demand are being matched.

Home by train (one stop, 2.73zł with senior's discount – that's 55p for a journey just under 3km / 2 miles). Beautiful day!

This time two years ago:|
In and out of Germany via Świnoujście

This time six years ago:
Back to the działka after lockdown

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

This time 13 years ago:
Pozytywki ponds after refurbishment

This time 14 years ago:
Mayday in the heat (don't exaggerate with the suncream!)

This time 16 years ago:
Night train, carry me home

This time 19 years ago:
Into the mountains

Post-Lent local infrastructure catch-up

Two very welcome pieces of infrastructure work were being laid down at the tail-end of last year; activity paused as the snow fell, and after nearly two months when not a hand's turn was done, the crews have returned.

First up the pavement linking the level crossing north of Chynów station to the station itself, and continuing south all the way parallel to the railway line to the level crossing south of the station. And then there's the asphalting of the road between Machcin II and Gaj Żelechowski.

Starting with the pavement. Just over a kilometre long, this will bring huge relief to pedestrians who will be able to walk safely from the southern end of Chynów to the station. Decent pavements, with a proper kerb to keep cars off them, lower pedestrian anxiety, especially at night. I also hope that some train passengers who currently drive to the station might take it upon themselves to walk instead, getting some healthy exercise and reducing local traffic. Parking provision (which is plentiful!) will be upgraded so that drivers don't have to park in puddles when it rains. But access to the car park be provided from the southern end of the 'down' platform, or will drivers have to walk up to a quarter of a kilometre around the station building to reach their cars? 

Below: state of work after Easter. Everything, like every thing, from the station to the level crossing, with the exception of the empty station-master's house, has been levelled with the ground, including (sadly) the farmyard in which the station masters would keep livestock and farm implements. The pavement awaits pavestones (what's kostka brukowa in English anyone!?!), note the parking bay to the left. What will happen to the station-master's house? One can only hope it will be converted into a tandoori restaurant, bar and grill, with neon signs visible from the train and from the street. And what will happen to the 6,000 square metres of empty land? Turned into a nice park with meadow flowers, path and benches? Or allowed to grow wild, subject to periodic pruning? 

I must mention another rail infrastructure project that's being worked on right now, namely the installation of real-time digital passenger information systems at all stations along the line from W-wa Zachodnia towards Piaseczno. This is the Centralny System Dynamicznej Informacji Pasażerskiej ('central dynamic passenger information system'), with 100% of eligible costs being covered by the EU's National Recovery Plan for Poland. Work has to be completed and accounted for by August, so it's full steam ahead! It will be great to see this in action. Warka and Warka Miasto stations already have this system working, and it's really helpful to see when the next train will actually arrive.

On, beyond the far end of Jakubowizna, and the asphalting of the rural track that connects the main road to Gaj Żelechowski and Dąbrowa Duża to the south. This is the latest stretch of unmade road to be surfaced and joined up to the network, following the work completed last April. Below: 860m of roadway has been hardened, flattened, rolled and now just awaits the top coats of asphalt.

From the outside, these may appear to be small projects. But here locally, taken as a whole, along with every other piece of new infrastructure since Poland joined the EU, the improvement to quality of life is vast. Water-treatment plants, street lighting, warehouses for agricultural produce, alongside road and rail infrastructure and private-sector telecoms investments all make life better for everyone.

UPDATE Saturday 11 April. All done.Two days work to lay the asphalt. Beautiful job.

This time 11 years ago:
History's repeating... or is it?

This time 13 years ago:
Sunshine, snow, April

This time 15 years ago:
In vino veritas

This time 16 years ago:
Are we getting more intelligent?

This time 17 years ago:
Lenten recipe No. 6

This time 18 years ago:
Coal trains, Konstancin-Jeziorna

This time 19 years ago:
Jeziorki from the air

Lent 2026: day 43 – the interface between material wellbeing and soul

The goal of technology should be to give us time to pursue what really matters. Enough surplus resources – food, clothing, shelter, energy and information – to ensure that life's not a struggle, enough so everyone has enough to live life without suffering discomfort. And to have enough free time to enjoy life. 

But we humans are flawed, flawed in so many ways. Some people want more and more and more. More money, money to spend in ways that screws our planet with their wanton consumerism. Others want money without having to put in the work. Crime or welfare. Not contributing to society, subtracting rather than adding value to society. The feeling of being entitled to something – to anything – because it is owed to me. Why? By whom? For some historic slight or injustice? Because of accident of birth? Societies with the right mindset, which I define as 'getting on with it', show year-on-year, decade-on-decade progress. But again, societies should not believe they are simply entitled to progress. It can stall (Japan in the 1990s, the UK since Brexit) or go backwards (large chunks of the Middle East).

Optimising society means focusing on better health outcomes and better education that leads to less egregious behaviour, leading to fewer resources being spent on security. Optimising the way we use natural resources, from food to energy, to recycling. Science and technology helps us do that, but it is like squeezing a ball of plasticine in your hand; as it compresses, some of it squishes through between your fingers. Unintended consequences creating new problems to resolve. The motor-car? Pollution, congestion, road deaths. Nuclear physics? Nuclear proliferation. The internet? Doom-scrolling. 

The notion of teleology should be more widely applied to our human lives, not only in the context of metaphysics. The notion of end-cause, purpose, that which we are aiming for, is not really discussed in the media. What is the purpose of eight billion human lives? Nothing more than survival and procreation? And having fun along the way? Nothing more than biology? 

Surely our purpose is creativity. We are born with the urge to create, beautiful things and ideas – and art and music. Once we have eliminated discomfort on our lives, we can focus on aesthetics. Guided not by external validation, but by what truly resonates with our own personal sense of taste. [In my case, this is informed by a preference for mid-century modern Americana; familiar and comforting.] We are also born curious; we seek to understand the world around us down to the very quintessence of matter, and up to the heavens, infinite and eternal. This, I believe, is why we live; to discover, to create, to invent. Ironing out discomfort from our lives while we are at it. Improving, generation by generation, the quality of human life.

Once upon a time (until 2016), I believed that humanity's arc was generally upward; that today is better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be even better than today. The future will be rosier still. Generally upward, but with two steps forward and one step back. History was meant to have ended in 1991, with the collapse of communism and a stable world order based on democracy and free markets reigning forever more. But this optimism overlooked the existence of psychopathic ideologies and psychopathic individuals, as well as the reality that societies include sizeable numbers of liars, simpletons and egregiously avaricious persons whose actions screw it up for everyone.

We are flawed as individuals. We have our good sides and our bad sides; our immediate purpose as a society should to be continue squeezing out the bad, from our politics and from our streets. But defining 'bad' comes with its own set of problems. Religions evolved to maintain social control, but if those controlling religions are themselves flawed, this fails. Religion in the service of the state, telling Plato's 'noble lie' to keep people aligned with their state's best interests, is not the answer. Rather, it is an acceptance, an understanding, in the minds of the bulk of the population, that it's in everyone's best interest to behave in win-win mode, rather than being adversarial or transactional in your everyday dealings with fellow citizens, businesses and the state. Cooperation within a competitive market has brought bountiful benefits to mankind that individual endeavour never could have managed. 

Whilst I am not decrying the personal ethics of atheists (especially humanists), I do see that having a spiritual outlook on life does lead to self-improvement and higher state of consciousness.By living life in comfort rather than aiming to live in luxury, by dialling down material desires (new car, exotic holiday, shopping trips etc) we end up less worried about our financial state and more able to savour the simple joys that life has to offer.

Lent 2024: day 43
More questions than answers (Pt IV)

Lent 2023, day 43

Wayside shrines

Lent 2022: day 43

Spirit of Place and Metaphysics

Lent 2021: day 43

Doubt and Curiosity

Lent 2020: day 43

Quartodecimalism, or the fixing of the date of Easter

Lent 2026: day 23 – change

Today marks the halfway point of Lent. Twenty-three days gone, another 23 to Easter Sunday. Time to reflect on the passage of time, and what time brings along with it – change. My 68 years on earth have seen change – technological and social – happening at a pace that sometimes is frightening. 

My earliest memories were of a drab suburban world, childhood spent in front of a black-and-white, 405-line TV set that seemed miraculous to my parents' generation. I was born on the day space travel began (with the launch of Sputnik I), a week before and a week after the two largest nuclear accidents up to that time. There were few cars in the streets (eight times fewer than on UK roads today). There were 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound; food (and sweets) were sold in pounds and ounces. Clothing was drab. Things were of poor quality, pieces of wood or gaspipe held together with Jubilee clips, splints in your hands. In the skies over West London, piston-engined propeller airlines flew into London Airport (as Heathrow as known then). 

Change, Hanwell London W7, 1960 and today, as visualised by Google Gemini's Nano Banana 2. The flavour is there, but the architecture too grand; the parade of shops was two, not three stories high.

Change came in leaps. I remember sometime in the mid-60s my father bringing home an analogue calculator (ANITA) and the glow of the red diodes. It filled a quarter of the dining-room table. This was the future! Fifteen years later, my father had an Amstrad computer (MS DOS) and was working on spreadsheets, I could not yet see the sense. In 1990, at work, I initiated a project to introduce desk-top publishing to the magazine I edited back then. Apple Macs, black-and-white screens the size of large TVs that cost as much as a family car. This was the future! Then came the Internet (with a capital I back then), linking computers into a global network through dial-up modems. This was around the time we moved to Poland. 

Oh, the changes taking place here! Cash machines, mobile telephones, hypermarkets, joining NATO and the EU – everything changing for the better, and at pace. Life is becoming more convenient for people – online banking, online government services, social-media connectivity 24/7. And now, we are rapidly entering the age of AI. And the Polish economy has been one of the fast-growing in the world, what's not to like?

Adapting to the change that's happening all around us is a an important skill. The maladapted become disorientated, frustrated, and prone to poor choices at the ballot box.

Maybe we should look at the downsides of change? In the UK, a general sense of stasis, marasm; urban decay, perceptions of 'uncontrolled migration'. But in Poland? The threat of Russia, mainly. And climate change. The economy, meanwhile, is growing nicely... A golden age in Polish history?

The change that I've been describing is all in the physical realm. But what of consciousness? Does this change? 

Many qualia experiences and qualia memories are coloured by the Spirit of the Age; the music, the art, the fashions; nostalgic longings for the once-familiar are predicated by change. Our digital age means we can reproduce or even synthesise many aspects of the past on demand. A piece of music or some TV show that conjures up my childhood? There it is on YouTube. Or groups discussing bygone Ealing on Facebook. I can scratch that long-felt itch for life in mid-century America online with ease.

But strip away the markers of the passage of time. Qualia that come from timeless experiences; walking along a shoreline, toes in the waves; is this the 21st century or three thousand years ago? A cloudless night sky with full moon from a hilltop far from any town or city. Is that what it would have felt like to the earliest hominids? 

The role of consciousness is to observe; to witness the unfolding at its own scale. The ant sees the Cosmos as its scale, we see that same Cosmos at our scale. The ant is subjectively at the epicentre of its own Universe, as is each one of us. The ant also observes change – day changing to night, that twig that wasn't there yesterday, the rivulets of water pouring into its nest during a summer thunderstorm. 

Imagine a Consciousness scaled up as ours is scaled up from that of an ant. Imagine perceiving change on a scale of galaxies over billions of years.

Matter breaks down (entropy), but consciousness abides (syntropy). Adaptation to change is a biological necessity. Awareness of change as a flow, as a characteristic of the unfolding Universe, is crucial to spiritual evolution. Live a spiritually conscious life, and the change that affects the physical world ceases to be a bother to you. 

Tomorrow: living in hope, or living in alignment with the flow?

Lent 2025: day 23
The Tao of Doing Less 

Lent 2024: day 23
The True Self – The Individual vs the Collective

Lent 2023: day 24
The Spirituality of Cosmic Life

Lent 2022: day 23
Matter and materialism

Lent 2021: day 23
Near-death experiences and the Afterlife

Lent 2020: day 23
Refutation I

The Long Review of 2025: Pt I

What a year! Two life-changing events for me (more on both in subsequent posts), namely a heart attack in April and the shift from being pet-free to sharing my small house six cats. Just kind of happened.

But I'd like to start this cycle of posts reviewing 2025 with something else that interests me – Poland's development, as seen from the local, regional and national level. I have now lived 28 years in Poland, and during that time, the national quality of life has gone up and up and up, though it must be said, from a modest base. This blog records 18 of those 28 years, and looking back, I can see numerous tipping points, technological and infrastructural, that make life more comfortable, easier.

This year, that progress has been equally visible. Poland's improvement makes a contrast with the austerity-level stasis that the UK is experiencing since the global financial crisis of 2008. Poles today are on average 50% better off than they were 20 years ago, whilst Britons are earning less in real terms than they were 20 years ago. And unlike the UK, where the nation's wealth remains resolutely concentrated in London, one can see Poland flourishing in every corner.

This year, most of my longer journeys took me to destinations east of the Vistula, which makes up for absence there in recent years. I visited Kazimierz Dolny, Białowieża, Przemyśl, Zamość and Rzeszów, by car and by train and was impressed at the huge improvement in the road network. Two major station remonts were completed this year, Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) and Rzeszów Główny, although the former still awaits its underground tram connection. Warsaw's tram network remains a work-in-progress, although it's now possible to take one down ulica Rakowiecka (finally finished). 

A propos of my travels in 2025, worthy of note is my overnight stay in Wawel Castle ("free to those that can afford it, very expensive to those that can't"). Kraków, south of the river, has also seen big leaps forward in construction and infrastructure, although it does remain the victim of over-tourism.

Locally here in Chynów, many infrastructure improvement projects were carried out and completed this year (for instance here and here and here), with many more in the pipeline for next year. Chynów has a new supermarket (Deko Market, its third), and a second kebab outlet (Amigo Kebab), though unlike the Luxor Kebab, which opened in 2024, there's no indoor seating. Maybe the new retail centre next door to the old retail centre, completed but not yet let out, will see another eaterie. The old BP petrol station, which became a TransOil petrol station in April, has a great little restaurant opening by it, Zajazd u Latoszków. Weekday lunch menu 30zł (soup and generous main course).

I mentioned recently that a new, long, pavement will be built connecting the level crossing in Jakubowizna to Chynów station and then on to ulica Wolska. Below: ul. Kolejowa, Chynów station behind me and to the right. The asphalt is recent (before, the road would flood from edge to edge after any thunderstorm), the posts preventing pavement parking appeared this spring. By next spring the pavement on the other side of the road should be complete too. And parking facilities. As I wrote earlier this month, the number of bicycle stands on the Jakubowizna side of the station has tripled.

The election of a young and dynamic wójt (mayor of a rural municipality) will see greater dialogue and transparency when it comes to choosing priorities for further roll-outs of local infrastructure.

Below: fibre roll-out... optical fibre has been laid along the entire length of my lane. This roll, just outside my front gate (I presume looking at its length) is long enough to stretch to my house, but not to the houses beyond in Grobice. One gigabyte per second here we come!

Meanwhile, back in Jeziorki, ulica Karczunkowska still doesn't have a pavement.

This time last year:|
Jacek Malczewski exhibition, Radom

This time two years ago:
Back out into the open

This time three years ago:
The UK's year of Two Monarchs, Three Premiers and Four Chancellors

This time four years ago:
Wintery gorgeousness and filthy air

This time five years ago:
Jakubowizna – moonrise kingdom

This time eight years ago:

Rural sunlight, Derbyshire

This time 11 years ago:
Derbyshire in the snow

This time 12 years ago:
Is Britain over-golfed?

This time 14 years:
Everybody's out on the road today

This time 15 years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016

New cycle provision at Chynów station

The speed is amazing. It wasn't here yesterday evening when I returned from town – and now lookie here! Eight brand-new bicycle stands. Installed this morning. Można? Można! I had complained about the lack of sufficient cycle provision earlier this year, when I saw 17 bikes chained up at this side of the station , and only four stands. Each one is for two bikes, so the remainder were left tied to the fence (right) or to the handrails going down into the pedestrian tunnel. A nuisance for many, a hazard for a few.

The new stands are marvellous news, and a sign of a new commitment from rail infrastructure operator PKP PLK. I photographed the sign below in Warka station two years ago. The answer to the problem of where to leave your bike wasn't to put up more bike stands, but to threaten cyclists with confiscation of their property should they chain their bikes incorrectly.

Attention!

The fastening of bicycles to barriers is prohibited.

Vehicles left will be removed at the owner's costs.

And as the number of cycle-using passengers grow, so PKP PLK should continue to provide more and more stands. Then we get a virtuous circle. (Motorists – apart from anything else, driving your car ultra-short distances twice a day is really bad for internal-combustion engines. Walk or cycle. Fifteen minutes there, fifteen back – good daily exercise.)

And work on the new pavements connecting Jakubowizna to ulica Wspólna and ul. Wspólna to ul. Wolska is already under way (below). I am really impressed at the tempo. I presume that once the pavement's been laid, the next job will be putting down a hard surface on the station car park (the former goods yard). Not too bad today, but when it rains, it's gloopy mud from edge to edge.

Below: recording another new bit of infrastructure – newly laid asphalt on the lane leading off Jakubowizna's main street. This part of Jakubowizna is known locally as 'Działki'.

This time last year:
Poland's sleeper-train services for 2025

This time two years ago:
UFO/UAP disclosure – current state

This time 10 years ago:
A tiny bit of pavement for Karczunkowska

This time 13 years ago:
Welcome to the machine, Mr Kaczyński

This time 15 years ago:
'F' is for 'Franco', not 'Fascist' [Prescient post!]

This time 17 years ago:
Christmas lights: all in the best possible taste

This time 18 years ago:
Letter from Russia

Chynów station – the clean-up begins

The pace of progress and improvement of infrastructure continues at pace. It is clear to me why Poland's economy is growing so fast – the nation is getting on with it!

I wrote in late-September about rail-infrastructure operator PKP PLK's Dworce Przyjazne Pasażerom ('passenger-friendly stations') project that would include Chynów station. By late-November, a contract had been signed between the local authority and a general contractor. And earlier this week, work got under way. Super fast! From project announcement to spades in the ground in less than three months! (In the UK this would be dragging on for years, with appeal courts upholding the rights of one householder to block the construction of a pedestrian crossing.)

The scope of work includes: laying down nearly one kilometer of new pavement from ul. Wspólna to ul. Wolska (brilliant!), new asphalt and (I hope) a pavement from the level crossing at Jakubowizna to ul. Wspólna (hurrah!), new parking spaces, including a 'Kiss & Ride' zone next to the station building, cleaning up the area around the railway station – demolishing three disused outbuildings opposite ul. Wspólna, removing the old fence, clearing undergrowth, and generally cleaning up the area between the station and level crossing. The vast number of empty vodka bottles and beer cans suggest that this was a popular hang-out for the local enthusiasts of outdoor drinking. 

Below: accommodation for station staff. It still looks inhabited... interesting to see whether it survives the bulldozer, and if so – will it be renovated? And if so, how will it look?

Below: the building in the foreground looks like an agricultural outhouse, in which the stationmaster's family kept livestock and farm equipment to tend the small plot adjoining their house. It was common for Polish stationmasters and other railway employees living in official railway housing to keep livestock. This practice was primarily a necessity for food self-sufficiency, though it faded away in the 1980s and '90s.

The area around the Chynów railway station has been a bit of a mess for years, and the contrast between the new platforms and the parking chaos outside is stark. A lack of parking spaces results in commuters  often parking in a way that obstructs access. There's also a lack of sufficient numbers of places to secure bicycles; these end up being tied to fences and handrails. Pedestrians have to put up with the discontinuity of pavements and unpaved access to platforms, which is particularly troublesome – and dangerous – in autumn and winter, what with the unlit road.

Below: the old goods yard forms a huge makeshift car-park, yet it is unasphalted/unpaved, and is currently ankle-deep in mud in many places. And there's no direct access from this car-park to the platforms, other than walking the long way around the station building. There should be a gate for passengers at the southern end of the platform (around the middle of the photo). This would encourage more local motorists to leave their cars here and take the train to town. In the meanwhile, rubble from the demolished outhouses and fencing is collected here prior to removal.

More semi-fast (przyspieszone) trains calling at Chynów would also boost that encouragement. Twenty-three minutes from here to Warsaw Służewiec station? That's amazing. We have four such trains into town in the morning, and four back from town in the evening. But the two semi-fast trains to Warsaw in the afternoon/evening don't stop here.

Currently, around 1,500 people use Chynów station on the average weekday, more than double the 600-700 passengers using it before the modernisation. So the adage "built it, and they will come" is true. Will work to further improve the station environs boost passenger numbers? I hope so...

What more's needed here? A small shop and café. The footfall from passing trade would make this location an attractive one for a local entrepreneur. A restaurant, maybe? But above all, a bus service that meets the trains and connects with Grójec, 18km to the west, stopping at the villages along the way.

But there's a heritage note to all this. The Warsaw-Radom line that passes through Chynów, was built in 1934; though the original platform has gone when the line was modernised, the station building and outbuildings were from the time. The warehouse by the goods siding went long ago, the goods siding itself was lifted in 2020. So some snaps are in order to catalogue what is about to be demolished. The price of progress.

Tomorrow: the 2026 railway timetable, with a sleeper-train focus.

This time last year:
The November/December 2024 UAP flap

This time two years ago:
Impressions of Zielona Góra

This time three years ago:
Kraków to Jakubowizna in the snow

This time four years ago:
Frustration for the local wozidupek community

This time five years ago:
Small local milestones, Chynów station

This time six years ago:

Brexit: what next?
[Britain's economy is screwed – that's what]

This time nine years ago:
Kick out against change - or accept it?

This time ten years ago:
Warwick University alumni meet in Warsaw

This time 11 years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time 12 years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time 17 years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth

Solving problems, not winning arguments

The by-election to choose a new wójt for gmina Chynów (leader of rural municipality council) resulted in an overwhelming victory for Piotr Bernaciak, the youngest of the three candidates – the one associated with neither PSL nor PiS. 

I was surprised by the turnout (57%) – astonishingly high for a local by-election – and by the scale of Piotr's victory (55.6% with the other candidates, Stanisław Mróz on 30.6% and Zbigniew Sobieraj on 13.8%). Local media had conducted an opinion poll which placed Mr Sobieraj first on 34% and the others on 30% each. My own observational polling (based on the number of banners hung out on fences) had Mr Mróz on first place.

But it's not just banners. Piotr Bernaciak was active on social media. Change is in the air, even in the Polish countryside. There seems to be a desire for a break with the old ways of doing things locally.

So hearty congratulations to Piotr Bernaciak, whom I'd met picking up litter, before the sudden death in September of the previous wójt, Tadeusz Zakrzewski, had triggered the by-election.

What I liked about Piotr's CV was the fact that this was a young man who has been active in local politics since the age of 18 and who was born in the gmina, in Sułkowice. He had also set up Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Gminy Chynów (the association of friends of the Chynów municipality), which organises those local clean-up events – I took part in three of them this year and Piotr was present at each one.

There's something inherently practical about local politics; it's about outcomes rather than worldviews. It's about getting things done, solving problems, rather than winning arguments or scoring party-political points. Listening to Polish Radio Trójka, I get sick listening to the perpetual mudslinging between representatives of political parties and simply switch the radio off when these dreadful bores take to the air. What does matter locally is practical stuff like pavements, water-treatment plants, street lighting, waste recycling and zoning/planning permission.

Local leaders (wójt, burmistrz or prezydent miasta depending on the size/population of the administrative unit) tend to stay on in power for many terms of office if they deliver development and order. Those that focus on ideology at the expense of practical achievements quickly get the boot. The previous wójt, Tadeusz Zakrzewski, was on his fourth term of office, for which he'd won 78% of the vote. He was well-liked because he'd been delivering tangible results since 2010.

Gmina Chynów has come a long way since I bought my działka here eight years ago. In fact, it had already been moving rapidly in the right direction before that. The fact that there was asphalt up the lane and proper drains rather than septic tanks was crucial in my decision to buy here. Since then, plenty of new asphalt has appeared here and there, improving life for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and farmers. New shops, new eateries are opening up, and generally things are getting better and better.

I'd say the biggest issues facing the new wójt will be handling the two big infrastructure projects that hang over the area. These are the route that Warsaw's orbital motorway will take south of the capital, and the railway part of the grand CPK project as it runs through Chynów. Both are ultimately decided at national level, but the interface between the works and the local population as these projects as they are rolled out over the coming decade will have a huge impact on quality of life. Will, for example, my two local level crossings be closed? Will pedestrian access to the station be improved?

Personally, my local issues are the fight against fly-tipping and litter (this disgraceful view, left,  I snapped today on Chynów's ulica Główna – literally our Main Street), better connectivity for walkers (more footpaths through fields, forests and orchards) and a clearer gmina website where you can see what infrastructure projects are being discussed and which ones are being proceeded with, and when. And improvements to the bus service. Sure, there are new bus stops and new buses, but they run empty because there's little information on the bus stops themselves and no app for local services. Sure, PKS Grójec does have an app, but only for its bus routes going into Warsaw; Chynów and Góra Kalwaria don't even get a mention. Want to buy a ticket online? Sure, but only for the next day and print it off before you board the bus. This needs to change. I'd like to be able to buy a bus ticket to Grójec with the same ease I can buy a train ticket to Warsaw.

Below: I hope the DK50 does not end up being turned into Warsaw's orbital motorway. 

Update, Saturday 13 December: a nice touch; Piotr Bernaciak thanks his voters – simply sticking the word 'dziękuję' on his banners gives them extra shelf-life.

This time last year:
Twanged!

This time four years ago year:
The ego and evil

This time six years ago:
Warsaw's Christmas lights 2019-20

This time seven years ago:
Pawlikowski's Cold War

This time ten years ago:
"Extreme weather events are now a feature of the British climate"

This time 12 years ago:
Cheaper public transport for Varsovians

This time 13 years ago:
Swans on ice

This time 14 years ago:
Cars 

This time 15 years ago:
What's the English for kombinować?

This time 16 years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time 18 years ago:
A day in Poznań

Early-December moods

Still sticking with the early-to-bed-early-to-rise routine and finding it extremely beneficial in terms of mood. Well, that and cats. My routine continues to be to go to bed before ten and wake before six, catch the sunrise, and go for my walk(s) during the daylight hours, to make the most of the sunlight. Today, the day was eight hours long, we'll lose another 15 minutes by the Winter Solstice (which falls on 21 December this year), and by 7 January the day will be eight hours long again. We are still in astronomical autumn (until the solstice), but as of the beginning of the month, already in climatic winter. Having said that, other than the snowfall on 23/24 November, there's been no snow or frost since then, nor is any forecast for the next seven days.

Below: the view down the lane to Grobice. Usually waterlogged and boggy about a third of the way down, right now acceptably dry. 

Below: "Oak, hazel, hawthorn, gorse and sandy tracks/ Better for sport than farming, I suspect." Echoes of Chorleywood Common, as described by John Betjeman in Metro-land.

Below: the hunting season traditionally kicked off on 3 November (the feast-day of St Hubertus, the hunters' patron); at weekends, I can hear to occasional crack of rifle fire in the forests. Having said that, the hunters' pulpit in Machcin shows no sign of use, no spent cartridges or empty małpki (100ml vodka bottles) in evidence, no tyre tracks in the vicinity.

Below: well, they never did manage to lay down that asphalt before Sunday's election... The road to Gaj Żelechowski and Dąbrowa Duża is due for a proper surface, which will be hugely beneficial for local traffic. It will form a direct route towards Konary and the DK79 south, cutting over 2km from the journey which currently meanders through Machcin, Dobiecin and Rososz.

Below: low sun, leafless trees. Just think – in six months' time, it will be early June! Again!

Below: around the corner from home. A new house is being built along this stretch of farm track, while another is being extended upward with a second floor. Gmina Chynów is on the move. People want to live here.

Below: portraits of my cats as they transition out of kittenhood. From the left – Arcturus, Pacyfik, Scrapper, Céleste and Czester. Everyone a character, conscious and agential. 

This time three years ago:
 Matter, materialism, metaphysics and magic

This time four years ago:
Short roads to nowhere

This time five years ago:
Mole control

This time six years ago:
Poland's education paradox

This time seven years ago:
What I was going to say at COP24 (but didn't)

This time eight years ago:
Milton Keynes

This time nine years ago:
Warsaw by night, early winter

This time 12 years ago:
Burn less gas and do Ukraine a favour

This time 15 years ago:
Early evening atmosphere

This time 17 years ago:
Toponyms – how many names has Jeziorki?

This time 18 years ago:
On the road to Białystok

Will a motorway roar through Chynów? And if so, when?

The DK50 (Droga Krajowa Nr. 50), Warsaw's de facto southern ring-road, runs from Sochaczew to Mińsk Mazowiecki, crossing the Vistula at Góra Kalwaria. It is the official east-west transit route bypassing Warsaw. Together with the DK60, the northern ring-road, the DK60 forms an orbital route around the capital. But the DK50/60 is a series of local bypasses, typically with one carriageway in each direction, connecting roads that run through villages. A bit like London's North and South Circulars. There are plans to build a proper orbital motorway around Warsaw, with a minimum of two carriageways in each direction. 

This is the AOW (Autostradowa Obwodnica Warszawy), or A50 (motorway-grade sections)/S50 (expressway-grade sections). 

But which route should this new orbital motorway take? 

Now, between the A2 east-west motorway in Sochaczew and the S7 north-south expressway in Grójec, there are four optional routes marked out by Poland's highways agency, GDDKiA (Generalna Dyrekcja Dróg Krajowych i Autostrad). Three variants have been staked out for a long time now, a fourth has come into play. This fourth option assumes a route that will emerge south-east of Grójec and connect with the existing stretch of DK50 between Grójec and Góra Kalwaria. And that the DK50 will be widened to form a stretch of the A50 between those two towns – with no junction in between for Chynów. So Chynów, Sułkowice, Grobice, and other villages strung out along the DK50 will get all the noise and nuisance that building and operating a motorway will entail with none of the benefits. 

So! "Say No! To Option Four!" is the view of the people of Gmina Chynów. But then "Say No! To Options One, Two and Three" are the view of the people of Gmina Tarczyn, Gmina Mszczonów and Gmina Pniewy. One way or another, the motorway will cut through people's lands and orchards and blight their views and their peace; the only question is which people? Us or them?

The people of Tarczyn (pop. 4,500) are clear on this one: they want the motorway to run through the land of the people of Grójec and Chynów. Options 1, 2 and 3 all run to some extent through Gmina Tarczyn, so clearly its citizens want it shoved off to their south. They are already promoting Option 4 on the social media (below). My disagreement is marked in red.

This evening, there was a public meeting held in the village hall in Chynów (pop. 1,100) to discuss this. The hall was full, with maybe 10% of the village's adults present, there was much interest in the topic, and much concern about the fall in local quality of life for those nearest (within 750m) of the motorway. There will be compensation for those living within that distance; my działka is 1,250m from the DK50.

One way or another, the stretch of A50 linking the A2 in Sochaczew to the S7 in Grójec will not be completed until 2032 at the very earliest, and work on extending the A50 eastwards towards the Vistula will not begin until 2035 at the very earliest. Knowing how slow projects proceed, how many missed deadlines along the way, it's likely that the full ring of the A50 will open around 2037-38 or so. However, the decision as to which of the four options will be chosen has to be taken fairly soon. This will affect land values.

To follow the debate online (in Polish), the best source of information and opinion is Skyscraper City, which has sections on every major infrastructure and construction project in Poland. Click here for the OAW A50/S50 thread (from the beginning, in 2019). Back then, building works were foreseen to start in 2026 with completion by 2029, so it's already slipped a lot.

There are no voices calling for the project to be scrapped, just a heated debate about where the motorway should (or rather should not) run. On the basis of those who protest the loudest are most likely to be listened to, the NIMBY in my suggests that the people of Chynów lock arms with the people of Grójec (pop. 17,000) and jointly Say No! To Option Four (and indeed Four A). Option Four cuts through the top end of Grójec itself, its edge-of-town shopping centre, and many orchards. Option Four A swings round south, bypassing Grójec, but then ensuring that the A50 has no other path to take than along the current DK50.

All of this is going on against the backdrop of a spirited election for wójt (mayor) of Gmina Chynów, following the unexpected death of Tadeusz Zakrzewski. All of the candidates are against Wariant 4 (option 4); the winner may be decided by which candidate demonstrates the most convincing strategy to ward off the prospect of a motorway running through our land.

This time last year:
The pathetic fallacy – are animals sentient?

This time three years ago:
Sunny Sunday meditations

This time nine years ago:
To Dawidy Bankowe, Łady, Zamienie and back

This time 14 years ago:
Town planning and the Sublime Aesthetic

This time 15 years ago:
On the long road from Zero to One

This time 16 years ago:
Łódź Rising