Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:10:07 -0700
Reply-To: Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Subject: Tales from Europe and VW campers (part 5)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
The story from Europe continues. While the French generally say they
don't embrace American ideals, they have sure embraced the personal
automobile. Grenoble is a city of size similar to Gothenburg, where I
grew up, but has a pretty crappy public transportation compared to
cities in Northern Europe. If one goes out at night and stays beyond 8
or 9 there's simply no more bus to take home. In true north American
fashion office complexes and shopping centres are mushrooming outside
the city, and to get there you have to drive. The research centre,
INRIA, I'm visiting is in such a place. It is about 10km outside the
city, on former farmland. When I first visited as a student in 1996 it
was one space-age building still in a mudpool from the building
activity, with quaint fields around it. By now it's become a high
tech centre with lots of companies around, and a branch of the local
engineering school nearby. There's just one field , and single herd
of cows left to graze there in the summer. In the mornings the cows
turn their heads one way as they see a steady stream of Renaults,
Peugeot's, and Citroen's, going strictly in one direction car after car,
bumper to bumper, from the expressway exit to the high tech campus.
In the evening the entertainment for the cows repeat, but in the other
direction.
However, the main traffic jams in Grenoble are not related to people
going to work. Instead, every evening it's the "find parking"
jam. About 6:30pm the density of traffic in the inner city increases,
and saturates about 7pm. If one observes a small section, one will
observe the same cars coming around again and again looking for a free
parking spot. However, by 7pm all the legal spots are gone, and only
the occasional person will leave and free up a spot. Hence by 8 or 9pm
the "wild parking" time begins. Any space is up for grabs; sidewalks,
parks, wider sections of the roads. Since the sidewalks and bike paths
are not respected by the motorists, the city has tried to block auto
access physically with metal or stone columns, but enterprising
motorists still seem to get in here and there. By midnight things
quiet down a little bit, and in the wee hours (1am,2,3,or 4 o'clock)
when people have left the bars and stopped partying one can again find
the occasional free spot.
The other big traffic jam is "ski jam" and occurs Sat about 9 or 10am
when everyone tries to get out of town. My first weekend I got
thoroughly stuck, and didn't get anywhere for half a day. Idling in
traffic jams is of course the worst case scenario for a gas engined
vehicle, and on the last tank of gas for the VW Westy, I it used a
whopping 19l/100km (compared to 12-14l/100km in Germany and
Switzerland). On advice from my colleagues I now know to raise early
on weekends and be out of the city by 7am.
Some pictures from the VW camper I bought in Germany and now drove
to France are on:
http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/vw/
(click Popul)
Martin
|