Cleaner Transport
The connection is “windows”. The shop window is in Bordeaux and here’s a bus stop window being cleaned in Birmingham. The idea of course is to maintain public assets and also to make using the bus a bit more attractive by keeping the associated infrastructure presentable.
I think I was very lucky to get this photo: firstly through having a camera with me, secondly because it was out of the bag when I saw the scene and thirdly due to the various settings being about right for the available light. Like other people I’ve missed many pictures due to failing on these three points, to the extent that the images simply exist as memories. Oh well. I’m wondering how long it will be before I simply blink my eye and a device fixed to my glasses captures the image. This makes me wonder how close or far away this will be from what we understand photography to be. I’m tempted to conclude that there will, like music, be two types of photos, good ones and bad ones. I’m not sure where the above one lies, perhaps in the highly populated category in between good and bad that only stimulates indifference. Perhaps this will be known as “imehgery” (sorry).
Anyway, back to “maintaining assets”! The photo below is from Paris at one of the many Velib bike hire stations. As with buses, if the bikes are going to be used, a large amount of resources need to be put in place to look after them. A step further than this would be complementary measures such as restricting motor vehicular use in the city and/or segregated cycle lanes. The same would go for increasing the use of buses, which although generally clean these days, still suffer from late-running due to congestion caused by other vehicles. Bicycles don’t tend to suffer from congestion, but many new or returning bike users tend to be ex-bus users when what we really want is to tempt car users either into buses or onto bikes. Wait a minute, I’m meant to be on holiday from work!
Ah, that’s better, a reminder of the summer holidays. Blue sky and beach huts in Paignton…oh and there’s a chap sweeping sand. To be honest I wasn’t really sure where he was sweeping the sand to. Perhaps he was dealing with a diesel spillage. This assumption could lead me onto all sorts of comments about diesel spillages (from over-filled lorry and bus fuel tanks) being lethal for cyclists and motorcyclists, or even the poor air quality resulting from burning diesel fuel. I did however say that I’m on holiday.
In a similar “maintenance” vein, here are some telecom workers or maybe traffic signal engineers in Barcelona. I liked their use of a table to sort out the wires etc, which seems a lot easier than the UK equivalent situation of kneeling inside one of those red and white striped tents or next to a green cabinet. I suppose the drier weather in Barcelona enables a more “picnic” style approach to the work.
The last photo in my mini-series on maintenance is from Prague. Comments could be made about the apparent contrast between the occupations of the two chaps. Comments could probably also be made about using small blocks of stone for surfacing a pedestrian footway whereas in the UK the same facility would simply be surfaced with tarmac…which although less attractive might be better for mobility impaired people.
