The Bill

Aarg.. sometimes someone tells a story so well, I’m just envious.

This is in German but with English subtitles. Wait until the end, it’s worth it.

(Via the European Christian Environment Network)

The reason why

In our youngest sons’ medical record there’s a medical report from the children’s hospital in Esslingen to our children’s doctor, dated the 30th of January 2007. The introduction  begins:

“Report of the above named patient who was brought to our emergency department at 07:54 this morning. Found this morning …breathing loudly and drowsy. Emergency doctor called, on arrival patient unresponsive…“

I can’t read those rather undramatic words without remembering the fear I felt holding my tiny six-month-old baby and trying to get him to wake up, move, respond, anything. I remember the rasping wheezing sound of his breath as I tried to call the advice line to see what I could do, and being met with a barrage of questions about my insurance details, address, and other things that I really didn’t what to deal with right then, before explaining the symptoms and hearing the words “Call an ambulance”. Well, gee thanks. I could have done that three precious minutes ago.

The dispatcher told me the emergency doctor was on his way, and to wait outside the house for them to come so they could find us quickly, so I stood outside for a private eternity, trying to stay calm so my family wouldn’t get even more scared, while a truck decided to deliver in the shop next door and caused a traffic jam in both directions. The doctor’s red and white mercedes came, blue lights reflecting off the houses, and they piled out carrying oxygen bottles, monitoring devices and other unfamiliar but strangely comforting tools of the trade, asking questions even before they were through the door.

Our little boy still wouldn’t respond to light, noise or gentle shaking so an ambulance was called. We carried him there, lit by flashing blue lights, with neighbours watching through the windows, although I admit I felt a slight stab of justice when I saw the Ambulance was parked in the loading bay, blocking the truck in.

After continual talking and massaging in the ambulance, I was rewarded by a squeeze of his fingers as we rattled through the morning rush-hour traffic, and the ambulance drivers were fairly confident that he’d be okay, but he didn’t really seem to wake up until he was being examined in the hospital. The form shows a great long list of things they checked before coming to the eventual conclusion it was Croup, probably aggravated by the Feinstaub (Particle pollution) from diesel engines: at the time we were living in an apartment next to a street with 1500 trucks and 13000 cars passing daily.

That morning ‘caring for the environment’ became personal. For me it’s not just about ‘looking after the earth’ but a memory of waiting for the doctor and not knowing if my little boy would die. I don’t want other parents to have to stand on the street, praying the ambulance will come quickly, that their child will wake up or just keep breathing.

We’d followed the cultural belief that ‘one day’ we would have to get a car but on January 30th 2007, that changed. Our family learned first hand the cost of society’s addiction to driving everywhere, and decided we won’t live that way. The process that resulted in us getting the Xtracycle, going to Amsterdam and bringing a bakfiets to Stuttgart and much else, was kicked into high gear that morning.

We’re a car free family in a car obsessed culture: this is our story.

[When the next post comes up, this will move to the 'about' page]

Floridsdorf: Social Engineering?

I knew I should have written this post earlier: Christoph Chorherr’s German language blog recently linked to a survey of the residents residents of Floridsdorf, a car-free section of Vienna which was built about ten years ago, to see how the place was getting along. I was going to read the report a couple of times then impress you all by telling you about it, but I’ve been busy lazy over the last week and the highly readable “Cycling is good for you” blog got there first with a great translation and summary, and a vast amount of ‘further information’ links all of which you can read by clicking on this link. Go on. I’ll still be here when you’re finished.

Welcome back. By now you’ll have worked out that Floridsdorf was planned carefully: it’s not just about not having parking, but a whole different approach to mobility and livability. It’s also good to persuade people not to get a car and park it around the corner on the sly. I especially love the idea of  the shared spaces, so instead of the rich people living on top in a penthouse flat with their own pool, the pool is shared by everyone, as are the community gardens, workshops, and other facilities.

Yet whenever this sort of thing is proposed, it’s accused of  ‘Social Engineering’. or worse. It seems that making public transport available or a building a walkable neighbourhood is ‘forcing’ people to live a certain way,  instead of allowing people the choice of living how they want, and apparently that’s mile after mile of car-dominated sprawl, which where residents choose to be forced to own an expensive car or be  sentenced to virtual imprisonment in in the suburbian gulag. Of course all those people driving require more roads: , so we  “choose” to make cities car friendly, and the people who live in them have streets polluted and clogged by car traffic, because that’s What People Want: and forcing them to live otherwise would be ’social engineering’ after all. Get off my car yer socialist.

One thing: I don’t see one of these around Floridsdorf or Vauban to keep the discontented masses or from leaving. In fact as Anna of “Cycling is good for you” attests, free apartments in Floridsdorf are almost impossible to get hold of because of the high demand. Hmm… Perhaps ‘What People Want’ is a bit more a case of ‘Not wanting to change’.

Either way those pesky socially engineered places are catching on. Vauban caused a little stir a few months ago on the Blogosphere, but very similar schemes exist or are being planned in a few places- Amsterdam has one just around the corner from Henry’s workbikes, Düsseldorf and Tübingen are planning similar and there’s a brand new one in Köln, just off our route along the Rhine. Perfect for a visit in fact, so we’re going to drop by and see what it’s really like.

I’ll let you know if they have to surround the place with Razor Wire and hunt down escapees trying to breathe the heady exhaust-tinged air of suburbia.

Watch me get scooped on this one.

Cycling in Stuttgart 1

Contraflow bike lane. Better than nothing-or is it?

I have a train to catch in Stuttgart, and being one for a bit of adventure I decide to go to the city by bike. Stuttgart isn’t known for being bike friendly, but there are at last two online route planning services, so I log onto both and see what happens. The results aren’t promising. The German cycle club planner apparently can’t tell difference between an bike lane and a heavily used urban road. Stuttgart city is slightly better, and suggests a pleasantly bucolic way through the forest and suburbs but warns the surface is gravel in some places: at least someone looked at it. I’m told to allow 45 minutes for this run, at 15km/h average speed.

Stuttgart is surrounded by steep wooded hills. The way to the city, therefore, is on forest roads: a mix of gravel and surfaced car-free streets. A complete lack of signposts though, so much consulting of map required. The route leads to a main road and here the problems begin. Further progress means crossing an unlovely 4-lane road and cars snarl past while pedestrians and cyclists wait for signals that change grudgingly after several minutes and then change back within seconds.

Between crossings and map reading stops -still no signs- I’m getting late, and the next bit doesn’t help either. It’s an indifferently surfaced forest trail, for 500m after which I need to re-cross the highway on it’s sinuous route down the hillside. This crossing has the centre reservation shaved to a fine point for the convenience of cars turning right, leaving a gap too short for a bike let alone the Xtracycle. Of course, the pedestrian lights trap me in the middle. A rush to the safety of the other side brings a short respite in the form of a contraflow on a one-way street, then yet another crossing -yup, same highway- with all the same features as before and some seriously impatient drivers. Then, like a mirage, a high-quality bike lane appears with its own lights and a red surface. Unfortunately it’s going in the wrong direction, and I’m left following a road with tram lines and parked cars and another minuscule bike lane that sends me off into some impenetrable suburbs, delaying me further.

This pattern continues all the way into the city: steep hills, busy junctions, no signs, and and a map that takes a perverse pleasure in sending me on left-hand turns across oncoming traffic. Eventually, after cycling through a dingy underpass and the city park, I climb up a delivery road and wind up at a sign saying „Welcome to Stuttgart railway station.“ It’s at the bottom of a row of steps, and by the time I get upstairs the train has gone.

Not the greatest introduction to cycling in Stuttgart, but the good news is that the Green Party have taken a lot of seats in the local elections: in other German cities where this took place, there has been a rapid change of transport policy afterwards, so hopefully they will begin to address these problems sharpish.

At the very least they may get some cyclists to test out the website and make reccomendations.

I could do it, for example, for a reasonable fee…

The Greenwash

Yeah, Right.

“Because new is cleaner. The Environment Premium Plus”

There’s an old saying amongst writers that  when you write satire, you’ll never beat real life.

This advert shows how: the problem is where to start amongst the rich pickings of nonsense? The idea that scrapping a perfectly good car and buying a new one is good for the environment? That’s an interesting suggestion, as the old, and by implication, dirty vehicles were made by the same people that now want you to buy new ones, so are car companies now saying the very vehicles they claimed were clean and effecient are actually dirty polluters?  Have they just found this out?

The really lovely bits are in that green panel entitled, “The Environment Premium Plus.”   As presented here, the ‘Environment Premium Plus’ package has the following points: on top of the government handout of €2500 for scrapping your old car, you’ll get an extra reduction, 0,9% Financing, Insurance, and a lengthened gaurantee.

The new Greenwash, coming to a town near you. And if you don’t drive the car companies will take your money anyway.

Back to more positive stuff soon, I promise.

Deep thoughts on Monday

Long frustrating Monday morning trying to organise our route from Amsterdam and all the stuff included, and incidentally get ready for Japan. Finished with a short bike ride on the Xtracycle with our neighbours little boy on the back, giggling for he was worth.

My one English lesson at the moment is on Monday afternoon. Martin, my ’student ‘, is a tad older than me. He’s a thoughtful man, editor of a national newspaper for the Forestry industry which is at the meeting point of industry and conservation and has a lot of knowledge and understanding of ecology and the ecological movement in a German context. His English  is better than he thinks, and we usually spend 45 minutes talking about ecology and related matters and I get paid for correcting the occasional error. I’m not complaining, especially as he comes up with some pretty deep ideas.

For example,  I’ve always seen environmental concerns as looking after the land, but as Martin points out, there isn’t any truly ‘natural’ land left in Germany, (or as he puts it: ‘There isn’t a square metre of the country that hasn’t been dug up at some time or other’.) He thinks that when many people talk of conserving the natural landscape, they mean preserving a culture they remember from their childhood. He’s not criticising this, in fact he sees it as important because if we lose this part of our culture as our lives become focused on cities, people lose touch with the land, and ultimately with their roots. It reminds me of Japan, where mass rural-urban migration has left dozens of forgotten farms in the jungles, and whole mountains are removed to make way for cities to expand because people don’t value the land except in economic terms.

On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that as soon as we start trying to preserve a culture we could be killing it, not letting it develop or change. We need to keep the rural areas alive and we’re looking at how we can do this as a family of artists. We’re looking at how we can live off-grid (Independent of mains and water) and learning about Permaculture farming, which could be a further development of our personal connection with the land.

We’re engrossed in the conversation when he suddenly realises he has to go and get his daughter from school. Leaving the house I become aware that my link with nature is calling urgently so I make a minor detour into the fields before riding home.

Once home I help wrestle the boys into bed, but it’s still daylight and warm, and youngest son keeps coming out to play. The day ends with me alternately shooing him back to bed and  reading to the accompaniment of our neighbour playing Lloyd-Webber songs on their piano.

Kicking the Cycling habit.

The scene: A small room set up for an interview. Two comfortable chairs, face a table with some mineral water and artificial flowers. There’s a very bland picture on the wall. Julia and Nigel are sitting in the chairs and, Julia seems to be doing most of the talking.

Julia: Hello again Nigel. How are you feeling?
Nigel: Terrible.
Julia: It’s okay, that’s normal at this stage of the therapy.
Nigel: You mean it gets better?
Julia: Probably not. Now, I’ve got the report from the workshop you attended last week: „Buying Petrol“. They say you didn’t do too badly, although you did have trouble paying.
Nigel: So… much… money…
Julia: You’ll get used to it, Nigel. They also say you only half-filled the tank. That’s okay for now, don’t worry. So tell me how the week went.
Nigel: Well, I drove around for about twenty minutes on Friday …used the car to get to work on Monday. And Tuesday…
Julia: Good, well done. And what about Saturday?
Nigel: Er… no.
Julia: Why not?
Nigel: (Shifty) I didn’t go anywhere on Saturday.
Julia: Really?
Nigel. No…
Julia: What happened on Saturday Nigel?
Nigel: I… I…
Julia: You went cycling, didn’t you Nigel?
Nigel: Well… Yeah.
Julia: Nigel, you really have to try harder than this. I know you’re gaining weight and getting more aggressive than you were, but that won’t last as long as you keep taking bike rides on the quiet.
Nigel: I know… I couldn’t stop myself. I deliberately stayed in bed late so I’d have to rush to get the milk, like you said. And I kept telling myself „Cycling is dangerous, Cycling is inconvenient and too much work“
Julia: Good, and then?
Nigel: Well, I went downstairs and saw my bike and I thought I’d move it… and the next thing I knew I was riding down the road and I’d forgotten about the milk and it was three hours later… But the strange thing was…
Julia: What?
Nigel: I felt happier after that than I felt all week. I was smiling, and I didn’t swear at Mrs. Smith, I even offered to help her with the rubbish bin, I haven’t done that for ages.
Julia: Mrs. Smith?
Nigel: My designated target of undeserved anger and abuse.
Julia: Nigel, you still haven’t managed a week of driving yet. I can’t recommend you for the next stage of training as a proper member of society until you are being aggressive and unhealthy at least seven days, and that requires driving.
Nigel: I know… I’m trying, I really am…
Julia: What about yesterday?
Nigel: (Suddenly nervous) Yesterday?
Julia: You mentioned Monday and Tuesday, now it’s Thursday. Yesterday was supposed to be your first unaccompanied pavement parking day. Did you do it?
Nigel: I tried. The car wouldn’t start: I turned the key thingy in the hole and it made a whirring sound and that was it.
Julia: (Sighs) Did you put petrol in since the workshop?
Nigel: You mean you have to do it twice?
Julia: Several times a week, Nigel.
Nigel: I can’t afford that.
Julia: You have to be able to afford that from now on. A lot of people are depending on you Nigel: mechanics, banks, investors, oil executives who haven’t had a raise in a fortnight, and  third world dictators who need your money to pay for their military hardware and private villas. Not to mention the doctors and nurses who depend on the pollution you make to keep them working.
Nigel: But… It doesn’t make any sense… You really mean everyone has to be miserable so the system will work?
Julia: What would happen when everyone thought about how much it costs, and stopped driving? Hardly any children would be admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties, obesity would drop… think what would happen to the healthcare system, the pharmaceutical industry. That’s why having a car is so important: It shows you are a Good Citizen, contributing to society.
Nigel: It’s no good, I can’t do it.
Julia: Be careful, Nigel, I could throw you off the course. You’ll be considered odd by everyone you meet for not having a car. People will make assumptions about your income and your emotional stability when they see you on the street. How will you manage to be aggressive?
Nigel: But… what if I don’t what that?
Julia: (The big one) Your earning potential could drop…
Nigel: But… Hang on. I don’t have to keep buying petrol, so that’s not a big deal.
Julia: But you are so close to the next level of initiation, the right to use the new slogan „Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad“, and the free pink Furry Dice.
Nigel: (He’s tempted) Pink furry dice?
Julia: To hang on the rear view mirror. (dangling dice) think about it…
Nigel: Hmm… fresh air…
Julia: Nigel. Don’t throw it all away.
Nigel: The feeling of having achieved something when I get home…
Julia: No! Fight it, Nigel! Remember: Cycling is dangerous! Cycling is inconvenient! Cycling is hard work! Think of those poor oil executives!
Nigel: I can’t do it. I need the fresh air… To see sky… (Exit)
Julia: (shouting after him) I’ll throw you off the course…
Nigel: (in the distance) Do it! (Car keys fly through the door onto the table)
Julia: (Gets up and follows) How can you be so selfish? (Exit after Mike)

(Hat tip to the Champaign-Urbana blog for the link to ‘How to give up cycling‘ Which set me off thinking about this.)

In so many ways…

…this is wrong.

From the 2020 vision blog. By the way, the UKIP is the ‘United Kingdom Independence Party’:

The local Cambridge Cycling Campaign sent out a questionnaire to the local election candidates asking about their views on a selection of key cycle infrastructure/culture issues. Many did not bother to reply, of those that did, most were ‘political answers’, but the UKIP’s Peter Burkinshaw sums up White Van Man culture of the UK;

Q. Do you have any other general cycling-related comments or points?

A. “Provision for cyclists is already adequate. Please remember that motorists are the people who pay to use the roads whereas cyclists are “freeloaders”. They are entitled to use the roads but not disproportionately”.

“If everyone cycled, as you suggest, there would be no roads to ride on”.

Wow. Narrow, patronising, and based on complete twaddle from the frst sentence.

If motorists had to deal with roads that suddenly became narrower, went via a roundabout route, avoided where you wanted to go, were dangerous to use, or  just stopped for no apparent reason, they would hardly call those “adequate”.

Motorists in the UK pay Vehicle Excise Duty, not road tax: The revenues go into the general government budget and are used as the government sees fit: roads are paid for out of the general public purse, which is funded by all taxes. So much for freeloading.

What is ‘disproportionate’ use of roads? Speeding? Congestion?

If everyone cycled, roads would last longer, be cleaner and more open and those who need to drive like emergency vehicles would be able to get where they need to go faster.

And I haven’t even started on indirect and healthcare costs.

Sow roads, reap traffic

I’ve mentioned before that there is a harebrained scheme in the offing to lay yet more tarmac on the fields by our village, and last week there was an information evening where a local traffic planner was giving us details of what they were going to do. I naturally felt I had to go: I’m a local resident with children, I had a duty to both of my readers to blog about it and besides, there may be food

Some background may be needed here. We live in a fairly small village just outside of Stuttgart which happens to be between an Autobahn to the south and a port and industrial centre to the North. There is a bypass to the east and west, but we still have a lot of traffic through the village (about 13500 cars and 1500 trucks every 24 hours). Almost everyone wants a bypass because they believe it will ‘finally’ solve the problem. Like the last one was supposed to. And the one before that. It never does because traffic expands and contracts to fill the available space. Naturally the Strassenbauamt (Road building ministry) are aware of this but keep quiet about it.
While almost everyone wants the bypass, no-one wants it going past their house, and I don’t blame them. So now there is a new scheme being proposed by Stuttgart. They are offering to build a nice new road under the village to connect to one of the existing bypasses. This will take the traffic well away from the village and the noise, and no-one will have their view spoiled.

This is marsh gas. Absolute, 100% unadulterated cobblers. Anyone capable of walking erect should smell a king-sized rat when Stuttgart offers to build something for Ostfildern. Why would a city offer to spend taxpayers money on an infrastructure project in another administrative district? The answer is geography.  There’s a major intersection of north-south and east-west autobahns, to the South West of Stuttgart used by a lot of traffic, but also a lot of traffic from the North-west going to the South East. This traffic has to curve around three sides of Stuttgart and climb a major hill.  For about 20 years the Strassenbauamt has been quietly working on a plan for a bypass to the east of Stuttgart avoiding the hill, and it’s a section of this road that will go under our village. In other words, the road isn’t a bypass for us, but for Stuttgart, under this village.

Unfortunately, they’ve done their spin well: the notion is fixed in people’s minds that we need a bypass.

The economy is now going fast down the toilet, and the transport industry is going with it. As the majority of the traffic is cars, and about half of that is internal traffic, we could reduce traffic in the village simply by making less parking spaces and more bike infrastructure, because traffic expands and contracts to fit the space available… but I’m being rational, and using science which isn’t going to get me anywhere in this debate.

Not that any of this matters, because despite the huff and puff, no-one has yet committed to the €20-30 billion that this white elephant will cost, so I suspect it’ll be a while before any diggers turn up, but rest assured the Strassenbauamt is out there somewhere, building pointless roads to link up their fantasy network…

Freiburg looks ever more attractive…

When we do it, we do it well…

There’s been a lot of blog-based discussion of This article in the New York Times about the car-free suburb of Vauban in Freiburg, which I’m all for: much as I moan about how hopeless Ostfildern is, I live in Germany because I love the country, so it’s good to see some all-too-rare positive reporting about Germany in an English language newspaper, and with a slide show, no less. Mind you, they really should have checked their facts: Vauban isn’t just an ‘Affluent Suburb’  but has different income groups (It just looks affluent because it’s pleasant), and a sign showing a bike and ‘Frei’ written underneath actually means bikes are permitted, but there we go.

I’ve not been able to post about it as quickly as I’d like, but on the other hand I can now include this video of the place and its place in Freiburg as a whole, along with an interview with the mayor, who is part of the Green Party, about how they have worked to make Freiburg a more sustainable/pleasant/livable city.

(Thanks to ‘Cycling is good for you’ for the video)

Ostfildern had the opportunity to do the same, but of course decided to build a new road and make it easy to drive through, but it does at least show that when we do this sort of thing in Germany, we do it well.

Vauban’s English-language website, showing their aims and ideas is here.