The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars
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The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars

Byrichard

I love to walk and cycle every day. I love to walk from home and not touch the car. This morning I refuelled the car and it cost 90 CHF for 44 litres or so. Every single time I refuel the car I get a shock. Petrol is expensive, and yet people drive every day.

Usually I go for five days per week without touching the car. I walk from home and back. This saves on driving time, parking and petrol. I come up against a clear frustration.

The Need for Foot Paths and Cycling Lanes

When I drive by some communes and villages, for example between Gingins and Cheserex, or between Reverolle and Hautemorges I see a wide pedestrian band where people can walk, far from cars. Imagine the luxury of walking two or three meters away from a road, rather than in the wet, muddy grass.

Consistently Endangered

Yesterday on a stretch of road that is no more than 700 meters long I had three, not one, not two, but three cars that drove too fast, and too close. They did this without needing to. If a car is coming towards them, and they can’t avoid me, then I will walk into the grass, because there is no choice in the matter.

Veiled Threats

Yesterday, a nun, I believe, a white van driver, and a third person drove too fast, too close, without driving to the other side of the road as they passed me. European law says that people must give one and a half meters between cars and cyclists, but also, by empathy, with pedestrians. These people don’t. They just drive on top of you. They want to scare you off the road, and it worked. I did step into the mud when one homicidal person endangered my life.

Give Space and Slow Down

When I drive I always treat pedestrians and cyclists as I would like to be treated. I give them one and a half meters, as required by law, but I also slow down to a humane speed, as I pass them. I don’t want to intimidate people. I want to show empathy. The more people walk, the fewer cars are around, and with fewer cars, so traffic decreases.

Overtraining

I have been frustrated with how cars behave around pedestrians and cyclists for years, so it can’t just be fatigue and overtraining. I still think that fatigue and over-training play a role. If I was less fatigued, if I was going for shorter walks, then the selfish behaviour by car drivers wouldn’t be so toxic. Of course it’s not just physical fatigue.

Exposure Toxicity

Often when I hear a car I go half a meter to a meter into the grass, or even muddy fields, to give space for cars to pass. They thank me but I very often want to flip them the bird. I’m not giving them space, out of empathy. I’m giving them space because I am tired of having cars driving too fast too close, on agricultural roads. It’s not that these people are fast on main roads. They’re fast on agricultural roads, where cars should not be. There is nowhere you can walk, in Switzerland without escaping from cars.

A Desire For More Paths Away From Roads

There are two awful roads, for pedestrians. On one road there is plenty of space to walk, but rather than place a walking path they put bushes, to stop people from walking. This forces people to walk on a busy road where people are driving above the speed limit. If you walk on the foot path you have your back to the homicidal drivers.

On the other road there is plenty of space where a foot path could be added, for pedestrians to walk comfortable between two villages, without being exposed to homicidal car drivers. Yesterday on one bit of road three cars in a row drove too fast, and too close. If I slipped and fell, or fainted, they would run me over.

I saw a woman walking down that road with a pram yesterday. There should be safe options for people walking between villages.

Invest in Walking and Cycling

With a small investment farmers could make walking between villages more pleasant. We could walk away from busy roads and farmers could benefit financially from turning a metre wide band of land into a walking path for pedestrians and cyclists. The space is there, if only someone had the vision.

And Finally

The walks around where I live are nice, but there are two roads that feel really dangerous, especially when the grass is long, and after a few hours of heavy rain. It’s unpleasant to walk half a meter from where people are driving at 80 kilometres an hour. It might not be intimidating for the cars, but it is for pedestrians. I want car drivers to be aware that they can drive more empathetically.

Thirty Kilometres Per Day

Thirty Kilometres Per Day

Byrichard

The Swiss travel an average of 30 kilometres per day in their cars, according to a new survey shared by the Radio Television Suisse.


I walk 14 to twenty kilometres per day, and if I go for a bike ride I travel 30 kilometres. I use the car twice a week, for food shopping and that’s mainly because of the 15 minute rule for refrigerated food, rather than laziness. During the pandemic I would do food shopping with the car but pick up the drinks by going for a walk. It’s a one hour trip to the shops and back for me. 


My single biggest frustration with walking as I do in Switzerland is the network of roads that lead from everywhere to everywhere, with no pedestrian paths for walkers or cyclists. Some villages and streets are designed for cars, with no pedestrian option. No pavement, no cycle path. No limit to 20 km/h. It’s assumed that people will use the car, rather than walk. This is astounding.


When I drive I show respect for walkers and cyclists. I slow down to pass them, on narrow roads, and on wide roads I go to the opposite side of the road to pass cyclists and walkers. To reduce the need for cars people need to be able to get from their homes to walks and cycling lanes, without risking dangerous drivers. For five years I have walked more than driven. For five years I have seen how cars behave with. pedestrians and cyclists. For five years the toxic behaviour has encouraged me to drive with humanity, but also to desire a switch away from cars. We should not automatically get into a car to do things. We should automatically get our walking shoes on, or get on our bikes. 


“Il y a un énorme travail à faire. C’est une question d’horaire, pour qu’on puisse se déplacer le soir et le week-end dans les heures creuses. C’est aussi une question de destinations: il faut que les transports publics soient facilités à destination des régions touristiques”


In brief, Vincent Kaufman says that public transport needs to be spread across the day, not just at peak times, but also that transport needs to be later in the evening, when people who want to go out socialising need to have transport. That’s what I have said for years, or even decades. We see how London makes it easy to get around even at night, whether with tubes until midnight or later, now, or night buses. 


In the video interview he also speaks about how the Swiss transport network is geared towards commuters rather than pleasure seekers. I find this both paradoxical and ironic, since so many adverts encourage people to take public transport. Having said that, transport is to the tourist traps, rather than areas of unique and outstanding beauty, which is why I suffered so much, without a car one summer, and without the ability to drive a second summer. That’s why I pivoted to local walks and bike rides. 


If there is an alternative to the car people will use it. If the alternative to cars is cheaper, then people will use it. I have happily explored every walk and bike route from Geneva, and even Yvoire to the West, and Lausanne to the East. I think that I know almost every road, via biking. For walking I think I know most paths within a two hour walking range of my current home. I used to go to the mountains every weekend, like described in the article, but with the pandemic, job insecurity, a broken arm and a summer without the car I have learned to walk and cycle. 


Two Frustrations


My two frustrations are, first, that dog walkers don’t keep their dogs on leashes, so at least six times I have been attacked by dogs. People love to say “If you’re not afraid of a dog then it won’t attack”, that’s great, but then I am being attacked, precisely because I am scared, which is why I am scared in the first place. A few days ago I thought that my fear of being bitten would be realised but I had the right response. Principally I froze. 


The second frustration is that cars do not respect cyclists and pedestrians. Every single day cars drive too fast by me. When I drive by people I either give them space, if there is space, or I overtake pedestrians at slightly more than walking pace. 


And finally


I went from using the car seven days a week, for almost anything, to using the car just twice a week, and only because I need it for shopping. I have gone from driving one or two hundred kilometres a weekend, and 50-60km a day, to zero. I am the change they want to see. 

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A Homemade Electric Car – Youtube Video

Byrichard

On one side of the Channel, you have people like Colin Furze building fun machines that have the fatal flaw of having an internal combustion engine. On the other side of the Channel, you have people like Marc Gyver building an electric car with easily bought components. The video below shows the construction process without talking, and without music.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIznSec7BA


For about 2000 Euros, with bike parts, and the right skills, you can build your own cars. You have four powered bike wheels to power the car, two solar panels on the roof to generate 200W and a charge time of two and a half hours for a range of 20 kilometers and a top speed of 50 km/h. The range is perfect for when you need to do things within a short distance.


Four young people riding the electric car.


Within the video, you see quite a few shots of four people sitting in the car at once. I especially like this because it illustrates that young people are not limited to protests, skipping school and more. With the right skills, they build their own electric car to get around, even if it is on private property where it’s legal.


The project discussed above was uploaded seven months ago and since then he has made a car with a body, indicator lights, a windscreen and more. It looks like the cars you see in old films and cartoons. (Some of the cartoons are old). It is slowly getting closer to being road legal.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Smo1q9MbSg


What I love about these homemade projects is that they show that self-driven cars still have a future. With electric cars, we can still do small journeys without ecologists being mad with us for combusting fossil fuels.


Electric Car Adventures


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ulkuEIDA8


If we go off on a tangent of electric cars then you have electric cars like the one above. It’s designed so that you get the pleasure of driving a car, but without the internal combustion engine. There is an entirely new niche of projects to be thought up and programs like The Grand Tour and others could play with these devices.


For years I thought that Top Gear, Motortrend TV, and The Grand Tour were outdated and old fashioned, bound for the video archives of culture. With electric bike technology plenty of new opportunities are being created for electric cars, and in the process for our pleasure.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo3JzateMM4


An interview with the creator.


I love this concept. I love the concept of young people, rather than owning conventional cars like my generation have used, owning or renting devices as we see in the video below. Too often we watch news and current affairs programs about environmentalists and the future and we think we’ll be trapped on trains and in buses with no scheduling freedom. With these machines we preserve the freedom that we’ve been used to for years, but with technology that is sustainable.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB_yqSuaEFE
“Where we’re going, we don’t need rails”


The future of exploration is on foot, by bike and for those who want to cover different distances by Swincar. Cycling and walking are great when you’re not in the middle of a heatwave like we’ve experienced for two or three summers. In a heatwave, vehicles like this are nicer. As you’re rolling over earth, grass or stones you’re cooler than if you were on the tarmac. Because you’re outside you have the breeze. I would like to play with one of these.


The Negative side


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zWpyiLOutk


There are a few concerns with these machines. The first is that they still need to be parked somewhere and these take up as much space as a car. The second concern is that these vehicles can go anywhere but this doesn’t mean that they should. If they go on hiking paths, if they go on slopes, on skip pistes, and in other places then they’re going to come in conflict with other users of the same area.


We see a shot where these vehicles are beside horses, but if you have cycled near horses you’ll be told by the rider to make noise so that horses know you are there.


Off-Roading without the Carbon Footprint.


I enjoyed watching Dirt Every Day and programs like it but I never saw myself as ever trying offroading because of the carbon footprint. I’d rather hike, cycle or climb. I am tempted to play with the electric version. No need to worry about planting a forest after each outing.