Each morning, when driving to work, I‘m confronted with 32 stop lights. That’s right 32. That’s a lot, considering that the distance from my home to the office is a mere 14.5 km!
When I first took this route in 2007 – that’s when my employer moved from the city centre to the bucolic outskirts of Brussels – there were ‘only’ 25 stop lights on my itinerary. Since then, 7 have been added. That’s almost 2 per year. Now, in the hypothesis that I work for another 6 years, that would mean that, by the time that I’m entitled to early retirement, I would have to deal with 45 potential stops each and every morning! Taking into account the total distance, this corresponds to a stop every 320 metres.
'Hand-controlled' stoplight in the Loire Valley - June 2008.
Now let us suppose that every time that I approach a stop light it turns to red, and that the average time before it switches back to green is 30 seconds, this would mean that I need to add 22 minutes to my travel time. According to a route planner the trip takes about 15 minutes – without stop lights. This brings me to the mind shattering conclusion that I would be more at a halt than that I would actually be moving.
And just imagine what would happen if I were to work till the age of 65, currently the legal retirement age in Belgium! Still following the above hypothesis, this would mean 10 extra stop lights, bringing it to a grand total of 55 or one every 260 metres.
Fortunately, I take another itinerary in the evening, which currently has 14 stop lights. You obviously want to know why I don’t take this route in the mornings too. On two locations this route crosses a streetcar or tram trajectory. The crossings are unguarded and extremely dangerous, especially in the dark. Moreover, the trams that run on this line, travel at very high speed and have absolute priority over the other traffic. Taking this route in the evening is less hazardous as a) there is only one crossing and b) it’s guarded.
Of course, it has some inconveniences too, as it runs through several villages where your speed is limited to 50 km or in some places even 30 km per hour. But at least you are moving … As tomorrow is Whitsun Monday, we have the day off ... so no traffic lights to think about for another 24 hours!
(*) remember this fabulous song from 2005 by Katie Melua?
10 comments:
I looked at the travel thing by time - it take 75 minutes to get to the office and another 75 to get home in peak traffic. That's 12 1/2 hours per week.
Love the job, not the travel so I have a home office as well.
Yes - long weekends are good hope you are enjoying yours.
Leon
In a few more years by the time you get to work it will be time to start heading back. I envy you those bank holidays, we don't have very many in the UK and if you work in a boarding school like I do, then there are even fewer. Enjoy your day off from those dreaded lights Martine.
Veronica
That is way too many lights. And, too much math for me. I didn't come here for an Algebra lesson!
Have a great day!
Your Friend, m.
p.s. It takes me 5 minutes to get to work. m.
That's a lot of lights!
I take a longer journey to work to avoid lights. I met someone once who had the job of programming traffic lights. Apparently a lot of thought goes into it.
Would you believe it????
That's a lot of traffic lights!!
My commute to work is about 25km but via D roads into Loches. Takes me 25 mins.Thankfully with just the odd light in Loches proper. In my previous life it took me 2hrs to get to work in London so that was 4 hrs every day!!
I don't envy you that Martine and yes I remember the song well... it's lovely. You need to work from home... my commute is 30 seconds into my home office :)
Just returned from a morning ride with friends - one of them just returned from a Bike study trip to the Nederlands and tells me how fantastic the bike scene there is.
She did however say that Brussels was a bit like Melbourne and not so bike friendly.
Is that so?
Leon
L & S, Same here, I love the job but hate the travel ...
Veronica, We really are 'spoiled' when it comes to bank holidays. But somehow, I just can't get enough of them :) Btw, you once mentioned that you used to live in Kent and know Deal rather well. Are you still living/working close-by?
Mark, Five minutes? You must be joking!!! Lucky you. Sorry about the algebra lesson. I never was any good at it, but I just wanted to show that I can still do my maths!
Gaynor, I can imagine that it takes a lot of thought to program them the right way ... which unfortunately doesn't seem to be 'my way'. Well, you can't win them all, can you?
N & A. How I would like to drive to work along those D roads. It would feel as if I were on holiday all the time.
Craig, Last year my employer replaced my desktop by a laptop. And I thought: 'This is it. I can finally work from home.' However, the laptop came with a note: "This is not to encourage working from home." The truth is, they had bought too many laptops (probably buy 12, and get the 13th one free) and were handing them out to the people who had been 'chosen' to work from home in case of a worldwide Pig flue epidemic! So that 'business could go on as usual'. :((
Leon, The answer is a blog post of it's own! However, to make a long answer short: Holland (or the Netherlands) have been bike friendly for decades, simply because it's such a 'flat country'. No hills to climb ... This mentality has also led to the cities being more bike friendly. We, in Belgium, however, have 'mountains' (well, not really, but there are hills and steep climbs all over the place). So bikes were not really popular until ten years ago, when 'sport' and 'biking' in particular were promoted and encouraged by putting in separate bike lanes along busy streets. Brussels, however, remains very 'car'-minded. Personally, I would never use a bike in Brussels. Cars still rule there.
Martine
I was brought up in north Kent and my parents used to live in a village just outside Canterbury when they retired and that isn't far from Deal. I now live and work near Brighton on the south coast in the neighbouring county of East Sussex, rather more lively than Deal. That's about a couple of hours drive from the east Kent coast where Deal is.
Veronica
Veronica, Any chance of running into to you in Deal in the beginning of July? :)
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