Last Sunday was ‘Car Free Day’ here in Brussels. This is the one day a year when all traffic (emergency vehicles and the ubiquitous police excepted) is banned from the city. I think it’s to promote exercise, or reduce pollution, or something. To give them credit, the Belgians fully embrace these kinds of initiatives, so the main roads into town were blocked, and the police were on strict orders to ticket anyone who attempted to drive their car within the city boundaries. Even the businesses jump on board – I saw a banner at one public car park in the city center proudly announcing “Car Free Day – Free Parking!”. (Think about it.) By all accounts it was quite a success, with all roads in the city center effectively becoming pedestrian precincts for the day, and people being able to walk across pedestrian crossings without fear of being mown down by drivers they didn’t quite manage to make eye contact with.
Thankfully we live far enough out of the city itself that we weren’t covered by No Car Day (or if we were, no-one paid it any heed). So in our village, it was the usual Sunday story of traffic jams around the bread shops and churches (just about the only places open in Belgium on a Sunday), and ‘vintage’ car rallies (this week, Porsches). And, of course, there were the usual multiple road closures and detours to accommodate the cyclists.
Cycling is a serious activity here (blame Eddy Merckx), and there are many ‘teams’ (loosely defined as a couple of dozen fat, old blokes in matching spandex) who wend their way through the country lanes of a weekend. And good for them, I say. But why it is necessary to close whole sections of roadway for several hours to accommodate them is beyond me – especially as the detours can take you miles (or at least kilometers) out of your way. On Sunday I nipped out to the paper shop, and by the time I’d turned round and headed back, they’d closed the road on me! I ended up round the back end of nowhere, where the ‘Detour’ signs suddenly petered out – presumably they reasoned that you were now far enough away from the cycle route to avoid interfering with it, so it didn’t much matter where you went from there…
Still, at least they give you enough advance warning of the road closures. The signs typically go up a week in advance (and starting from a couple of kilometers away) warning you that the road will be closing at set hours. Again, I’m not sure it is worth telling you a week in advance, but as the cycling club has to apply – and pay – for permits to put the notices and detour signs up, it at least provides another form of revenue for the Government.
Where we live is apparently on one of the main cycling routes (by virtue of us being atop one of the few hills in the area) so the road is closed almost every weekend, which means that there are always notices up, which means that you no longer notice them. Which makes it all the more annoying when you can’t get back to your house after picking up a Sunday paper, because you’ve got to wait until the last fat knacker in the pack of technicolor eyesores has wheezed his way up the hill, weaving from side to side as he wildly flails one of his arms behind him, trying to swat away the flies that are happily sliding down his sweaty arse-crack like kids on the log flume at Disneyland.
Next year, I’m going to petition for a ‘No Bicycles Day’ instead, and then maybe we’ll see peace and tranquility returning to Sundays in the countryside…
Leave a Reply