Comments on: Sustainability fail: 1.

By: Comfy Brooks « People Powered

Comfy Brooks « People Powered — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:02:59 +0000

[...] foliage in the springs isn’t a permanent feature, I had an appointment in our local ‘sustainable town‘ and whilst cars had a large underground garage, the only parking space for the Xtracycle [...]

By: Lost in Space « People Powered

Lost in Space « People Powered — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 05:04:48 +0000

[...] whine about Ostfildern’s apparent resistance to cycle infrastructure plenty, but I will say this for them: they’ve made sure that there’s a comprehensive [...]

By: Andy in Germany

Andy in Germany — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:39:02 +0000

Hi Nico… Yes, there is that as well: That’s one reason you have to keep well away from the side of the road and risk annoying drivers.

Like I said, it shows who is considered most important here.

Do drivers actually look when coming out of any parking space?

By: Zweiradler

Zweiradler — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 06:29:09 +0000

That’s an awful kind of parking. Many drivers won’t see anything when they start to back out of their parking space.

Nico

By: Andy in Germany

Andy in Germany — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:14:55 +0000

We don’t get that a lot here actually, 99% of drivers are no problem, and the ones that ae, usually fit a fairly narrow demographic (Like over sixty and driving Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and Smart cars) Even than it’s usually more passive-agressive stuff which is more funny than dangerous. Most of the problems I have locally are on the road in the first picture: Drivers don’t realise that riding on the light grey area is 1: dangerous because of the parked cars, and 2: Impossible as it’s a gully, so they think I’m in the middle of ‘their’ road.

By: Andy in Germany

Andy in Germany — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:12:41 +0000

Hi David, thanks for dropping by: it is pretty obvious who is important here, isn’t it?

Actually, I wouldn’t mind if they were more honest. If they’d said ‘Look, we know it isn’t perfect but with the massive car lobby here, we couldn’t make it any better” or similar I’d have less problem with it, it’s the “Look how green we are” self- congratulation that gets on my nerves.

We have proper ‘dutch’ type developments in Germany as well: in fact all around us, towns are improving their cycle infrastructure at a terrific rate because the State is having a big push to fund cycling improvements at the moment- but Ostfildern isn’t interested. Perhaps I should visit these other places and report back.

There will also be further features of local so-called ‘green’ developments as well…

By: oldfool

oldfool — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:57:56 +0000

I was just wondering what “get on the sidewalk and out of my way” sounds in German.
At least there are provisions for people to walk. Even that is denied here.

By: David Hembrow

David Hembrow — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:46:45 +0000

Great post. You show how building infrastructure for driving encourages driving, just in the same way as how building infrastructure for cycling encourages cycling. For a new development, the second photo in particular shows something very different from what you'll see in Dutch new build.