City Driving Sucks - Valencia, Spain
Around the world driving, and parking in cities pose challenges quite different to country driving. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that cities are not meant for driving in at all. I have been researching several cities to get a feel for what the experience is like in each. Today, I will start with my own city, Valencia, Spain.
Sensibly, we live in the outer suburbs of Valencia in the mountains that are a forest of orange trees. Here life is tranquil and idyllic. From time to time I have to make that dreaded trip into the heart of the city. To do so I usually leave the car parked on the outskirts and take public transport, such as the metro or bus to get to my destination.
On rare occasions I brave it and actually drive into the city. My reasoning on those occasions is that time is short and I don’t have the luxury of parking the car and waiting for public transport. Almost always that is a fallacy because if luck is against me I can get caught up in the crush of traffic for very extended periods of time. Even if things flow smoothly, just the stress alone is not worth it.
First, there are the road works. They are constantly tearing up the road to do something perhaps other than to admire the hole they made. It seems to me that they give motorists only a certain period of time to enjoy unimpeded driving, like two weeks, before starting all over again.
Then you get to somewhere in the area where you need to do business and you look for a parking space. There are several underground parking spaces that grow more expensive seemingly by the day. Most people really can’t afford to pay these rates on a daily basis, so they park on the street. If you are really lucky to find an on-street parking spot, as in winning-the-lottery kind of luck, you will find when you get back to your car that another line of cars have been parked alongside yours, effectively locking you in for the foreseeable future.
Supposedly, the drivers will leave their cars in neutral with the handbrake not engaged, but there is always at least one person who doesn’t do that, and everybody gets screwed. What you can do is call the authorities and ask them to come clear away the illegally parked second line. Just don’t let it get out that you were the one who dropped the dime.
For some strange reason, people who do park “in doble fila” thereby making a double line engage their hazard lights that draw attention. When the cars are being taken away hooked up to the tow truck, everybody knows that your car didn’t simply breakdown. They know what you did wrong.
Valencia’s city roads feature several points where there will be a line-up of about eight to ten lanes of traffic that needs to squeeze into two lanes as it crosses the street. Sometimes, to add excitement, interconnecting roads are added to a semi-circular turn; and to top it all off drivers on Spanish roads know absolutely nothing about lane discipline. It is not uncommon to have a driver completely cross all lanes honking and yelling as he goes.
At the time of the city’s greatest fiestas, Las Fiestas de la Fallas” about 600 of the city's roads get closed off. You have to imagine the chaos. I can’t possibly describe it.
Add to all that stress are the boy racers and the death wishers, and the buses and bloody taxi drivers who are convinced they own the road, and by the time you leave the city your nerves will be a wreck.
Here’s the really very curious thing: in travelling into the city in eleven years I have never come upon an accident scene except the one in which I was involved. That happened because I stopped behind a column of cars at a red light and a real prize winning, well-dressed businessman jerk, driving a BMW drove up the back of me because he was talking to his passenger while looking directly at her. This was a man who has excrement where his brain is supposed to be.
When visiting Valencia with the need to get around town, if you bring your car with you I think you should choose a hotel on the outskirts and take public transport always.
Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael
Around the world driving, and parking in cities pose challenges quite different to country driving. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that cities are not meant for driving in at all. I have been researching several cities to get a feel for what the experience is like in each. Today, I will start with my own city, Valencia, Spain.
Sensibly, we live in the outer suburbs of Valencia in the mountains that are a forest of orange trees. Here life is tranquil and idyllic. From time to time I have to make that dreaded trip into the heart of the city. To do so I usually leave the car parked on the outskirts and take public transport, such as the metro or bus to get to my destination.
On rare occasions I brave it and actually drive into the city. My reasoning on those occasions is that time is short and I don’t have the luxury of parking the car and waiting for public transport. Almost always that is a fallacy because if luck is against me I can get caught up in the crush of traffic for very extended periods of time. Even if things flow smoothly, just the stress alone is not worth it.
First, there are the road works. They are constantly tearing up the road to do something perhaps other than to admire the hole they made. It seems to me that they give motorists only a certain period of time to enjoy unimpeded driving, like two weeks, before starting all over again.
Then you get to somewhere in the area where you need to do business and you look for a parking space. There are several underground parking spaces that grow more expensive seemingly by the day. Most people really can’t afford to pay these rates on a daily basis, so they park on the street. If you are really lucky to find an on-street parking spot, as in winning-the-lottery kind of luck, you will find when you get back to your car that another line of cars have been parked alongside yours, effectively locking you in for the foreseeable future.
Supposedly, the drivers will leave their cars in neutral with the handbrake not engaged, but there is always at least one person who doesn’t do that, and everybody gets screwed. What you can do is call the authorities and ask them to come clear away the illegally parked second line. Just don’t let it get out that you were the one who dropped the dime.
For some strange reason, people who do park “in doble fila” thereby making a double line engage their hazard lights that draw attention. When the cars are being taken away hooked up to the tow truck, everybody knows that your car didn’t simply breakdown. They know what you did wrong.
Valencia’s city roads feature several points where there will be a line-up of about eight to ten lanes of traffic that needs to squeeze into two lanes as it crosses the street. Sometimes, to add excitement, interconnecting roads are added to a semi-circular turn; and to top it all off drivers on Spanish roads know absolutely nothing about lane discipline. It is not uncommon to have a driver completely cross all lanes honking and yelling as he goes.
At the time of the city’s greatest fiestas, Las Fiestas de la Fallas” about 600 of the city's roads get closed off. You have to imagine the chaos. I can’t possibly describe it.
Add to all that stress are the boy racers and the death wishers, and the buses and bloody taxi drivers who are convinced they own the road, and by the time you leave the city your nerves will be a wreck.
Here’s the really very curious thing: in travelling into the city in eleven years I have never come upon an accident scene except the one in which I was involved. That happened because I stopped behind a column of cars at a red light and a real prize winning, well-dressed businessman jerk, driving a BMW drove up the back of me because he was talking to his passenger while looking directly at her. This was a man who has excrement where his brain is supposed to be.
When visiting Valencia with the need to get around town, if you bring your car with you I think you should choose a hotel on the outskirts and take public transport always.
Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael
