Roads

For many years I went for an after lunch or after work walk. I would easily walk eight to ten kilometres per day. With road works in Nyon that have already lasted for many, many months, and that should last for another year, for several hundred meters of road my walking habit has been made toxic through traffic density and exposure to toxic driving behaviour.

I used to love heading out for an hour or two, to see the fields and crops change with the season. I used to love walking a multitude of routes. With aggressive cars and dogs I shifted to rural walks. This worked for a while, until road works redirected traffic along a critical section of my daily walk, so now I no longer walk at all. I run instead. Even cycling has suffered. I didn’t want to drive during Caribana, because it’s during this event that someone crashed into me driving the petrol scooter for stopping to allow a runner to cross the road and during Paleo in around two weeks because traffic will be much denser.

I often walk between towns and villages and in so doing I notice how overwhelming cars have become. If you walk from a village to a town, you have to contend with busy roads. These busy roads are often like deep rivers. Sometimes you need to wait for several minutes before you can cross. At other times you notice that cars see you at a crossing but they don’t slow down in anticipation of your wanting to cross.

Yesterday I went for a bike ride. The watch said to go for a one hour ride at 100 watts of power. I set off with the intention of following this recommendation and then got distracted. My original plan was to ride above the road that goes from Luins to avoid traffic, and then to go down and ride along the cycling route near the motorway.

Instead of doing that small, easier ride I did this one- With this ride I went from Eysins to Signy, and from Signy I went towards Asse, before heading for Coinsins, and from Coinsins up to Genolier before heading down towards Luins. It is at this point that I went into the agricultural network of paths and followed them to avoid the main narrow road, where people drive without due care and attention. It’s when I got to Gilly that I headed towards Tartegnin, Bugnaux, Mont Dessus and finally to the Signal de Bougy. When you head down from the Signal de Bougy towards Sous-Bougy you have a beautiful view of the lake. When I got to Aubonne I went to see the view before heading down. There is a pedestrian crossing and that is where I turned towards Fechy along narrow riverains roads towards Féchy. I came across this route, or at least this opportunity when hiking from Bière to Aubonne. The advantage of this road is that it’s parallel to the Route du Lac but with far less traffic. It’s convivial for cyclists to use this route.

When I was walking in Neuchatel I noticed something striking. I didn’t see a single advert in favour of expanding the motorways. I expected that the Right Wing friends of Global Warming would push for the expansion of the motorways in Switzerland. That wasn’t the case.

In Switzerland, at the moment, they want to expand the A1 motorway between Geneva and Nyon and I suspect that the Gravière in Eysins was expanded to store all the soil that will be needed to widen the motorway.

Recently someone said “I wonder why they would build the Abbey d’Oujon in the middle of nowhere and someone asked the same about Romainmôtier and the idea is an interesting one.

It’s interesting because until motorways and before an extra four to six billion peoples wewre born and survived infancy the world, as a whole was much quieter. Look at photos of villages that are now towns. Look at villages where they have old buildings, and how old villas are now turned into apartment blocks instead.