Damned If You Do … : Road works

“Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” An expression widely attributed to Bart Simpson, whose familial association seems apt if you side with the critics of the Homer Simpson approach to road works and traffic systems in Mallorca. As Homer once said: “If they think I’m going to stop at that stop sign, they’re sadly mistaken”.

Homer, some might suggest, appears to be in control of re-modelling the main road through Can Picafort. How to build a road with no actual road. But he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. It wasn’t in fact Bart who first coined the expression. It was apparently an American preacher by the name of Lorenzo Dow. There are a fair number of Lorenzos knocking around in Can Pic, damning this and damning that, the main road in particular. “Dow!”, or is it “Doh!”? exclaim the Lorenzos in exasperation.

This main road, the Carretera Artà, has long been a joy of an unstable surface, crossings designed to have in mind the propelling of inattentive tourist pedestrians into orbit, and insane side roads some of which you can enter or exit, some of which you can’t. Much like other main roads on the island therefore. Far from unreasonably, the highways department wants to improve it. Something not meeting with everyone’s approval.

The road works are having a negative impact on bars and other businesses. They are making difficult the movement of residents. Thus go the criticisms. They do rather neglect the fact that building what in effect is a whole new road system, and one that is necessary, does require a bit of disruption, even if it does also mean that you can’t quite figure out how you are meant to navigate what is currently the non-road.

Why the fuss? It’s not as though as any drivers used to travelling along the whole stretch of road between Puerto Alcúdia and Can Pic these past few years won’t have already experienced exactly the same issues since the plan to re-model the whole stretch was started back in 2006. The fuss smacks of criticising anything that can be criticised. The fussers are probably the same ones who have been demanding improvements. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Part of the reason for the fuss is the timing. Just as there is a start to the official tourism season (1 May), so also there is a start to the let’s-snarl-everything-up-by-doing-some-building-work season. Usually the first of February. Why so late, enquire the fussers. Budgets normally. Or maybe the chaps just prefer to hang around drinking beers, in a Homer style, until the Mr. Burns’s from highways appear.

What Can Pic will end up with is a system like that which has come into being in Alcúdia and Playa de Muro. Apart from a better road surface, this will mean more roundabouts. Part of the justification for the re-modelling of the main road has been improved traffic circulation. It’s spin of course, because circulation in summer is as bad as it ever was, but at least pedestrians run less risk of being mown down than previously. Well, this is the theory behind all the crossing-points. The practice is rather different, tourists traversing the road wherever is convenient, lightly-held lilos in hand which are caught on sudden gusts and plant themselves across windscreens. But at least you can’t blame the highways people for trying. Except if you’re in Can Picafort and you’re a Lorenzo.

The new roundabouts will have the added advantage of giving Trafico greater work opportunities. Currently, they have limited numbers of roundabouts in Can Pic at which to stand about looking ominous or sheltering under trees when it gets too hot. Once the new road is finished, they’ll be spoilt for choice.

And the finished road will add to the general appearance of Can Pic, just as the re-developed carretera did to Playa de Muro. When its stretch was completed in May 2009, various dignitaries turned up and one, Francina Armengol, the president of the Council of Mallorca, announced that it (the road) was “magnificent and emblematic”. Emblematic of what exactly? Tarmac?

Ah, but what we all failed to appreciate was that this was part of a different strand of tourism. Road tourism. Come to Mallorca and admire our roads. Marvel at how level they are (until a good deluge of rain or two breaks them up again). See how many crossing-points you can ignore. Be inspired by the white lines and markings that fade rapidly and have to be repainted each year (normally in June just to aid more the traffic circulation). Yes, this is it. Road tourism, a whole new type of tourism promotion. Brought to you by Homer Simpson.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

White Stripes: Why did the tourist cross the road?

Sledging in cricket has produced some fine moments of insult. One of the most famous exchanges went along these lines … Bowler inciting batsman who was not hitting the ball: “it’s red, round, in case you were wondering”; batsman responding, having hit the next ball out of the ground: “you know what it looks like, now go and find it”. The true origins of sledges have tended to become confused. This one is sometimes attributed to South Africa’s Shaun Pollock and Australia’s Ricky Ponting, which is almost certainly wrong. More commonly, it is attributed to Greg Thomas of Glamorgan and the West Indies’ Viv Richards. Not that it really matters. This is not an article on sledging.

The sledge has, though, occurred to me when driving along the local main roads. It would be something like: “it’s white, striped, now walk on it.”

The re-modelling of the main road (Carretera Arta) through Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro and ever eastwards is to enter its third phase in October when the grotty thoroughfare in Can Picafort is given a similar makeover. The whole scheme has been about giving priority to pedestrians, and to a large extent it has been successful in this aim. What has not been wholly successful has been convincing pedestrians to use the white stripes and the non-striped islands as the means of crossing the road.

Bone idleness, especially while on holiday, is pretty much a given, but the planners have failed to comprehend this. True, it might bring traffic to a complete halt were there to be crossings every ten metres – you can have only so many of them, and doubtless they’d still be ignored anyway – but there are some points along the road where the non-crossing is glaring and potentially dangerous. One of the most striking is near to the Palma roundabout on the Playa de Muro-Alcúdia boundary. The Marítimo hotel is just before this roundabout. There is an island a few metres to the left where one comes out of the hotel to cross the road. Who uses it? No one. It’s in the wrong place, assuming one accepts the bone idleness theory, and I am who subscribes to it. I don’t use the crossing either. Another example is given by the hordes who head out of the Delfin Azul and Port d’Alcudia hotels. The straight line to the beach is halfway between two islands. Consequently, they are also unused.

Why did they undertake the road remodelling in the first place? It was to make the road safer. But how can it be described thus, when there are pedestrians, centre road, waving damn great lilos around and attached to the ubiquitous baby-buggy? The buggy has become that de rigueur that one wonders whether it is used solely for the transporting of infants or whether it houses all the other paraphernalia without which no day on the beach would be complete. Whatever. I am uneasy as I pass a family or several in mid road whilst a truck or coach approaches in the opposite direction. And woe betide if you stop to allow them to cross. Inevitably it takes an age for them to appreciate the fact that you have stopped for that purpose, and meanwhile matey-boy behind is getting into a strop.

When they re-do the road in Can Picafort, they’ll probably make the same mistakes, such as the beautification of the Playa de Muro stretch with its crossings where emerging pedestrians are obscured from drivers’ vision by parked cars, hedges and palm trees and the failure to prevent the inner roads parallel to the carretera from being used as rapid rat runs. One can but hope, though. The current system of Can Picafort crossings and side roads into which or out of which you can neither enter nor exit is confusing enough as it is, without having to contend with the lilo-flapping jaywalkers. Least they can do is get a new walk, don’t walk system: it’s white, it’s striped, now use it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.