Winter's return

A fresh fall of snow and temperature staying below zero, at a comfortable -2C for much of the day. The snow is forecast to stay for a while. Despite the weather, work continues on the S7 extension. Below: this small thicket of trees and bushes protected from bulldozers and diggers by high-visibility fencing. 

Below: ul. Hołubcowa (to the left),one of Warsaw's unasphalted roads, where even four-wheel drives can get stuck in the mud. With the snow heavy on the ground, it's hard to tell what's road and what's field.

Below: a most unwelcome site/sight: the footpath MZ-5242-z skirted around an expanse of abandoned land overgrown with tansy and goldenrod; the field has been flattened and the vegetation stripped. Looks like a new house or houses will be built here. I trust the footpath, part of an official tourist trail, will remain, even though the online land registry map shows these plots as all belonging to someone. Same old Polish story.

Below: electricity cables and assorted wiring, corner of ul. Trombity and ul. Kórnicka

Below: home in time for tea, Saturday afternoon at dusk. Despite the un-English weather, this time of week brings back childhood Saturday afternoons by the telly, Grandstand, Final Score, Tom and Jerry, Early Evening News.

 Below: taken two days ago, before the new snows fell - abandoned house on ul. Kurantów.

Right: Felusia, Felis Cattus, of the family Felidae, is startled by the sight of a garden full of falling snow. She's been in heat for the best part of two months, so no going out, and a trip to the vet scheduled as soon as she's settled down a bit. Such a contrast to the late Papusia in character, evidently more intelligent and vastly more sociable - heaps more fun.

This time two years ago:

More from Walker's London

This time five years ago:
Daffodils and crocuses in bloom, in January!

This time six years ago:
Populist start to election campaign

This time seven years ago:
Straż Ochrony Kolei explained

This time eight years ago:
The end of winter? So early?

This time nine years ago:
How much education for the nation? 

This time ten years ago:
To the Catch - short story

This time 11 years ago:
Eternal Warsaw

This time 13 years ago:
From the family archives

Karczunkowska viaduct - further delays likely

It's almost two months to the day ul. Karczunkowska was closed so that a viaduct could be built, taking it over the newly-modernised Warsaw-Radom railway line. Things have settled down a bit; the temporary level crossing, opened last spring, is doing its job. But while the viaduct itself is growing, there seem to be problems with the ramps at either side.

Below: the approach road is taking shape at the western end. The tight bend here is good - it will slow down traffic.

UPDATE: Friday, 22 June, and I can see more clearly what's going on here. This is actually the access road to ul. Kurantów and ul. Gogolińska, this suggests that there won't be another span of viaduct crossing Gogolińska at its junction with Karczunkowska.

Contractor PRKiI has announced that from 22:00 this Thursday, 21 June, until 20:00 on 21 August, Karczunkowska will be closed on the short stretch between Gogolińska and Kurantów for the construction of retention walls and mains sewers. They did this earlier this spring (from 27 April to 7 May). re-opening bang on time. Now, it's not ten days, it's 61 days. Lots of opportunities for things to go wrong... If you click to enlarge the photo below, you'll see ul. Gogolińska running off to the right at 90 degrees to Karczunkowska. To keep this road open, the viaduct will need a further set of pillars between the wall you see and the near side of Gogolińska, plus access to Kurantów. This is almost as big a job as throwing the bridge over the tracks.

UPDATE: Friday 22 June - the road will be closed at 22:00 hours tonight, 26 hours after the original date. How long will it stay closed?

In the meanwhile, as happened last time this stretch of road was closed, there are the eternally optimistic drivers who believe that the five no entry/road closed signs do not actually apply to them. They will carry on heading east along Karczunkowska, then seeing barriers and heavy construction equipment, they'll turn into Kurantów. Those equipped with Google Maps (below) may see that at the end of Kurantów, they can swing right and soon be on Gogolińska, and hop-skip-jump, they're across the tracks. Let me show them (in good time) that Google Maps is WRONG. Click to enlarge. I've marked the closed section in pink, and the highlight in pale green the bit of ul. Kurantów that is not actually a road, but a very narrow footpath running through an overgrown field.

Below: local residents, annoyed by these optimist drivers, have put up a sign. 'STOP! TURN AROUND THE ROAD ENDS IN 80 METRES'

Below: indeed it does. There is a footpath, between the wheelie bins and the post; it is wide enough for pedestrian, but waist-high in grass. You could do this on a mountain bike or enduro motorbike, but you'll spend half an hour extracting vegetation from the chain and spokes. In other words - don't bother. The alternative, however, is an 8km detour via Baletowa.

Meanwhile, across the tracks, this is how things are looking. But word is (and I've heard this from two local residents) that the ramp that will carry the roadway up to the viaduct has been badly planned, and will end on the wrong side of the turn-off for Biedronka (on one side of Karczunkowska) and ul. Nawłocka (on the other). The answer is to make it steeper, with the possibility of a roundabout at this junction to slow traffic down. One way or the other, the re-planning of the gradient of the on-ramp means further delays.

Below: view from the 'up' platform - the first set of steps are appearing. These will allow people to walk up to the viaduct from ul. Gogolińska.

Below: for the convenience of passengers from across the track travelling into town, now that the scaffolding has been removed from the viaduct, a new footpath has been laid alongside the coal train line, saving a detour of 120 metres.

All in all, progress is far slower than planned. Here's a quote from Piaseczno News from just three weeks ago:

– Jeśli chodzi o wiadukt, to ma być on gotowy na przełomie III i IV kwartału tego roku. Utrzymane jest tam dobre tempo prac – podkreśla Karol Jakubowski z biura prasowego PKP PLK.. Widać już konstrukcję budowli. W tej chwili wykonywane są podtrzymujące wiadukt filary. Cały czas trwają także prace przy budowie zjazdów.

"As far as the viaduct is concerned, it is to be ready at the turn of the third and fourth quarter of this year. A good pace of work is maintained there," emphasises Karol Jakubowski from the press office of PKP PLK... "The construction of the building is already visible. At the moment, the pillars supporting the flyover are being built. The construction of the congresses is also in progress all the time." [Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator]

End of September? No. Way.

This time six years ago:
Russia's going home

This time 11 years ago:
Sun and zenith rising

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...

New roads to join Karczunkowska from the south?

Following a tip-off from Marcin Daniecki, I took a stroll to the site of the new Biedronka store by PKP W-wa Jeziorki to see whether the access road will be connected to Mysiadło. Not in the near future, is my verdict, though the access road has been built in such a way as to make it possible to extend through to ul. Borówki in Mysiadło, although that's likely to be years into the future.

Below: the junction of the new access road looking east down ul. Karczunkowska. Note the new Piesi ('pedestrians') roadsign. So much cheaper than actually building a pavement.

Below: the weighbridge station is a reminder of the old rampa na kruszywa (aggregates loading station) that once stood here. Sando Inmobilieria's plans to build a huge estate here with several hundred new dwellings came to naught, although the Spanish developer did manage to raze the loading ramp to the ground. The land nearest Karczunkowska has been used to build a shop (in the distance), so at least that's come in useful.

Below: the end of the (access) road. Note the radius of the pavement and the profile of the kerb - the access road has been built in such as way as to accommodate an extension of ul. Borówki through to Karczunkowska - although on my walk in the direction of Mysiadło, I saw no sign that this might be coming in the foreseeable future.

On then, to check out the situation on ul. Kurantów. Could this road be extended southwards towards Nowa Wola and the new estates that have sprouted up round the back of Zgorzała?

It would be a great shame if that were to happen.Ul. Kurantów is a peaceful cul-de-sac, with a pedestrian gate at the southern end allowing walkers to head east towards ul. Gogolińska, which runs parallel.

Below: passing through the gate and turning right, an abandoned farmstead. Looking around here, I cannot see any way of extending Kurantów southwards; to do so, it would have to run through private land, which is too expensive around here for the local authorities - especially since both Warsaw and Lesznowola gmina would be involved.

It would make more sense for Lesznowola to tarmac ul. Gogolińska (it is tarmacked up to Warsaw's boundary). At least this 'road' currently exists. At the south end, Gogolińska connects up with the new estate beyond (below). Click to enlarge; note Mysiadło ends where Warsaw Jeziorki leaves off. Someone's stolen the 'Warsaw ends here' from the post on the right.

Below: looking north towards Jeziorki beyond the treeline. Gogolińska is a dirt track, the width of one car; extending it through to the new estate would mean buying land on either side to widen it so cars could pass.

Below: provisional footpath from ul. Gogolińska to the platform at W-wa Jeziorki station. It's visible from space (check it out on Google Earth). To get from here to the station the official way requires a detour of over a third of a kilometre, and risking heavy traffic at the level crossing. Of course, it is neither the duty of PKP PLK nor of ZDM, Warsaw's road administration, to formalise this footpath for the convenience and safety of passengers. Each working day, over 70 cars park along ul. Gogolińska; it is an informal park+ride solution for drivers wishing to catch a train in Zone One.

My guess is that things will stay as they are for many years. People living in Mysiadło, Nowa Wola and Zgorzała will remain without an alternative to ul. Puławska or ul. Postępu.

This time last year:
Lighter, longer lens

This time two years ago:
Warsaw's grand Central Station

This time four years ago:
Making sense of Polish politics

Locally, it's the little things...

Out of curiosity I did a little detour on my way home from the supermarket - has my request via the Capital City of Warsaw's 19115 service to fix the road-sign ahead of the pedestrian crossing been heeded? Yes it has. Marvellous! I notified the authorities on 18 December, and at some stage between 20 December and yesterday, the sign had been fixed.

Out of three my interventions to 19115, this being one, tidying the mess on ul. Kórnicka being the second and a pavement for ul. Karczunkowska being the third, two have been fixed. The pavement issue is a big ask, involving the purchase of land contiguous to the road. But even so, the 'call 19115 fix-my-street' initiative seems to be working.

One of those little things that puts me in an optimistic state of mind when it comes to the way I look at Poland - improving, slowly, in so many different areas.

Fallen: the way it was, just before the Christmas break.

Reasons to be cheerful, indeed.

Staying on matters local, near-neighbour Marcin Daniecki informs me of a new housing development that's received planning permission on ul. Kurantów, just across the railway tracks. No details of how many, just to say that they will be detached and semi-detached houses.

The plot of land prepared for development by the tracks on ul. Gogolińska (see this story from May 2011) lies undeveloped to this day; the developers are facing hard times even though the rest of the Polish economy has emerged from the global crisis in fairly robust shape. But these plots have much going for them - they are inside Warsaw's city limits and well-located for public transport. We shall see.

And the Biedronka store is coming on nicely - turn right on the corner of the top photo (and indeed behind and to the left of the lower photo, thanks Neighbour) - I'm looking forward to a nice selection of Portuguese wines becoming available after the end of Lent.

And talking of Lent - it's a late one this year - Easter Sunday falling on 20 April, with Lent kicking off 46 days earlier on Ash Wednesday, 5 March. I'm slowly starting to get ready...

This time last year:
Warsaw bids farewell to its old trams

This time five years ago:
This charming man: Aleksander Kosterski at nine months old

This time six years ago:
Five departures from Okęcie

A walk down Gogolińska

Inspired by the previous post, I set off for a walk along ul. Gogolińska, a Warsaw street with purely rural charm. Once past W-wa Jeziorki station, this thoroughfare takes you to somewhere with a quiet enchantment, a spirit of place, that's quite specific.

So then - here they are - this afternoon's haul of rus in suburbe.

Below: just south of the platform's end. A southbound train is departing for Piaseczno, Czachówek and Góra Kalwaria. The colours of Koleje Mazowieckie's livery are ideally matched to late May in our beloved province.

The area between Gogolińska and the village of Zgorzała beyond has an air of abandonment; large tracts of land that seem to belong to no one and yet evidently do, neglected, uncared for - and here, Zone-like, is the charm. Below: who built these gates? Are they no longer needed to keep the intruder out? Whatever lies beyond, impenetrable nature now guards the way.

Below: I can't tell if this was a junction box for electricity or telephone; it's been ransacked for its cables; the flora is swallowing it up. Infrastructure from the Zone.

According to the map, ul. Kurantów is an 'L' shaped road that runs parallel to Gogolińska from Karczunkowska before swinging sharp left to join Gogolińska. But there are no road signs to that effect. Below: ul. Kurantów, looking towards Gogolińska and the railway line beyond. Cobblestones peer out through the dirt track.

Below: Are we in KwaZulu? Is this Natal? No - this is still Jeziorki. Just before asphalt runs out on ul. Gogolińska, signalling the south-westerly border of Poland's capital, we come across an abandoned building by the railway line.

Below: A quarter of a kilometre further south of the road that the maps claim is ul. Kurantów, there is another road leading off Gogolińska, which proclaims itself with a sign to be the street in question. At the end of this thoroughfare is a patisserie, Olsza - address, ul. Kurantów 1. It seems that Warsaw's comprehensive street-naming system, MSI, does not extend to these far-flung outposts. Two parallel streets, 250m apart, both claiming the same name.


Left: the sign says "MUD 300m -> Tractor 50 złotys - no VAT". We are now outside Warsaw, in Gmina Lesznowola. The dirt track becomes treacherous in autumn and spring, and the temptation for residents of the new housing estate (below) to use this track as a short-cut - saving 3km of bunged-up roads through Nowa Wola, Zgorzała and Dawidy Bankowe - must be irresistible. The field between Gogolińska and the new estate is still being farmed. How long before it too fills up with houses?

Below: the tree stumps mark the unofficial level crossing between Zgorzała and Mysiadło; a Koleje Mazowieckie train rumbles south towards Radom. Gogolińska zig-zags on southwards to Nowa Iwiczna; I head east across the tracks and then back to Jeziorki.

A worthy Sunday afternoon walk. I feel Kurantów beckoning for some further exploration.