I am referring to those few hours when the pedestrians and bikes were allowed on the bridge. No one knows why, but even the wedding party from the little church nearby came to have their pictures taken on the bridge. Many curious people rushed in for a couple of hours. Bikes came out of the blue. And the roller skaters too!
After all, that made everyone happy: those who walked those who rolled, those who looked up in wonder at the stunning engineering of the joints, and those who contemplated from there the city of Bucharest. As deteriorated as our capital city is (yet full of opportunities and potential as they say), Bucharest made people happy on that Saturday afternoon. For a couple of hours it did have that air and gaiety of the most spectacular project in New York: that high line I had experienced a few days before at the Archiprix Prize Awarding.
The High Line (www.thehighline.org) is the freight railway tracl that stood there as a relic of the industrial period in mid Manhattan. Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor, fell in love with it. He loved not just the line but its terrain, a good one for opportunities & full of potential. From this point of view, a group of city and NGO activists started an all embracing protection movement addressing this small heritage object and resisted until recently, when Michael Bloomberg shifted his policy and placed pedestrians on the first place. We are going to tell you more about this project later, yet the main point is that the entire railroad track was turned into a pedestrian zone. What a crazy, stupid idea! some may say. How could one put money only for pedestrians and suspended gardens in the heart of NY? The initial investors were refunded with square meters of built space in other zones; on the other hand, the money displaced by the park went back to the city hall as taxes from all residential and business developments rising along the highline.
MY CONGRATULATIONS END HERE THOUGH
As I’ve said, the Basarab Bridge enjoyed its moment of glory only for a couple of hours. Even if there were no gardens or the landscape project, thousands of people walked to and fro happily. During those hours I realized they wouldn’t relish too soon that sense of freedom unfortunately. In a way I did feel the danger of being caught in a jam on a hot day due to traffic stifling at the ends of the bridge. Against common sense, in 2011 there is no pedestrian zone on the bridge, not even for emergencies; if anyone wished to carry a stretcher, he couldn’t. As the city hall flaunts the statistics about the thousands of cars per day driving on the bridge, it’s but easy to imagine that jams and accidents could occur, which is also a matter of statistics. Since there is no intervention strategy it is likely they will use the tram track … I would suggest a rail car to replace the ambulance for extracting someone at a loss. Of course, there should be a bike lane!
Mr. Mayor was afraid of accidents, but no such accident would happen if someone thought about a protected sidewalk for pedestrians and a similar one for bikers. Since pedestrians and bikes are not equal to cars (a sign of cultural and material prosperity for some social strata), it is natural things should look as they are now. What about bikes and pedestrians? Ha ha! Look at those NGO guys! As far as I can see, the “NGO” has become a sort of wow-wow for the current administration, and what is worse, for the developers, etc, too. Well, here is the most important urban project in a city crazy about money (New York, I mean) has been started by activists. This is to prove the NGOs are good for one and could lead to successful political initiatives. We’ll talk about it later! It’s summer now, enjoy the street cafes, events and the new issue of zeppelin.
