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Date:         Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:10:07 -0700
Reply-To:     Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Subject:      Tales from Europe and VW campers (part 5)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

The story from Europe continues. While the French generally say they don't embrace American ideals, they have sure embraced the personal automobile. Grenoble is a city of size similar to Gothenburg, where I grew up, but has a pretty crappy public transportation compared to cities in Northern Europe. If one goes out at night and stays beyond 8 or 9 there's simply no more bus to take home. In true north American fashion office complexes and shopping centres are mushrooming outside the city, and to get there you have to drive. The research centre, INRIA, I'm visiting is in such a place. It is about 10km outside the city, on former farmland. When I first visited as a student in 1996 it was one space-age building still in a mudpool from the building activity, with quaint fields around it. By now it's become a high tech centre with lots of companies around, and a branch of the local engineering school nearby. There's just one field , and single herd of cows left to graze there in the summer. In the mornings the cows turn their heads one way as they see a steady stream of Renaults, Peugeot's, and Citroen's, going strictly in one direction car after car, bumper to bumper, from the expressway exit to the high tech campus. In the evening the entertainment for the cows repeat, but in the other direction.

However, the main traffic jams in Grenoble are not related to people going to work. Instead, every evening it's the "find parking" jam. About 6:30pm the density of traffic in the inner city increases, and saturates about 7pm. If one observes a small section, one will observe the same cars coming around again and again looking for a free parking spot. However, by 7pm all the legal spots are gone, and only the occasional person will leave and free up a spot. Hence by 8 or 9pm the "wild parking" time begins. Any space is up for grabs; sidewalks, parks, wider sections of the roads. Since the sidewalks and bike paths are not respected by the motorists, the city has tried to block auto access physically with metal or stone columns, but enterprising motorists still seem to get in here and there. By midnight things quiet down a little bit, and in the wee hours (1am,2,3,or 4 o'clock) when people have left the bars and stopped partying one can again find the occasional free spot.

The other big traffic jam is "ski jam" and occurs Sat about 9 or 10am when everyone tries to get out of town. My first weekend I got thoroughly stuck, and didn't get anywhere for half a day. Idling in traffic jams is of course the worst case scenario for a gas engined vehicle, and on the last tank of gas for the VW Westy, I it used a whopping 19l/100km (compared to 12-14l/100km in Germany and Switzerland). On advice from my colleagues I now know to raise early on weekends and be out of the city by 7am.

Some pictures from the VW camper I bought in Germany and now drove to France are on:

http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/vw/

(click Popul)

Martin


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