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Health & Fitness

Transportation Here and There

Driving abroad compared to the US.

I recently visited London, Paris and central and southern Switzerland.  Along with the usual tourist spots I noticed some vast differences in personal transportation, some good and some strange by our standards.

Most people live in or near an urban area unlike our Chelmsford like suburban or ex-urban homes.  Consequently, as expected, there is more extensive mass transportation: rail, bus and tram electric lines.  

I once lived in New York City and still visit the city so I am very familiar with their subway system, the largest in the United States.  The London and Paris system are also large but less confusing: lines are coded by color and station names and signs are clearer.  Signs indicate where you are and where the train is going on each track.  The trains themselves have displays in each car indicating the next stops.  Displays at each station indicate the time until a train to a given route ending will arrive on a track.  There are some slight differences with our subway rides: the London 'Tube' comes from what we would consider the wrong direction given the British proclivity to drive on what we consider the wrong side of the street and the Paris 'Metro' sometimes requires manual opening subway car doors at stops, a practice I shutter to think of what would occur if this act is on our subway lines.

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I remember once reading the major determinate of people using mass transportation is living within 1,000 feet of a station or stop.  This rule is fulfilled in urban areas in Switzerland.  Tram and trolley stations are frequent with shelters at each point and machines to pay fares.  In addition, each station has a display of what is the arrival time for each vehicle for each route stopping at the point.  Displays onboard indicate the following spots and time to each spot. 

Surface transportation, especially cars, has some differences.  I expected smaller cars in all locations, but this occurred only in London.  Interesting small car models, especially from Ford and Germany manufacturers we don't see in the States.  Gas is expensive, around $7.50 a gallon, but the presence of large cars questions the idea high gas prices will result in more efficient vehicles; Prius type vehicles, frequent here, are rarely observed.  Many vehicles run on diesel and unlike in the States, gas combined with ethanol is rarely found.  

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Along with cars, Paris and Switzerland have a proliferation of motor cycles and motor scooters.  Add bicyclists to this mix and driving can be chaotic.  Imagine driving your car with a tram track with a rapid tram to your left and bicycles to your right, with the latter ducking in and out of traffic.  (To add to the excitement, have many 'roundabouts', what they call our rotaries, making Drum Hill look like a relaxing country drive, and have the bicyclists without helmets and in their own world with headsets plugged into their ears.  An added bonus is adults using Razor scooters like kids in the street and on sidewalks.) 

Parking is the bane of driving in urban areas, but the Swiss make the task easier.  Each lot has a sign indicating the number of vacant spaces and each parking level indicates the number of vacant slots at the level.  You enter, get your ticket and before you go to your car enter your ticket into a machine determining the parking fee and pay the fee.  You swipe the paid ticket when leaving the parking lot.  In addition, if you fortunately find limited parking on the street in London, your cell phone can receive a message telling you are near the expiration time for your parking. 

Some of this transportation information should be implemented here as they are technically feasible: information on empty parking spots, when the next train/tram/bus will arrive, next stops and when parking will expire.

However, to our credit in the United States, when I travel aboard I consistently see we are advanced in a major area: facilities for the handicapped.  Parking spaces, ramps, elevators, etc., make it possible for all to participate in activities more so than other nations. 

And I can't forget the unintended almost comical Germanic precision on Swiss roads.  The roads make extensive use of tunnels due to the terrain, and each tunnel has a sign at the beginning giving the tunnel length.  The signs are the same if the tunnel is a precise 3.2 meters (about 10 feet) or 20 kilometers (about 12 miles).

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