I Am The Magnificent

There was a sort of official opening a couple of days ago. The mayor of Muro and some worthies from the Mallorca Council stood on the bridge over the untroubled water of the canal in Playa de Muro and posed for the camera, announcing - in the words of the Council's president - that the works that have created the newly laid-out stretch of road that runs the five kilometres between Can Picafort and the fish-hook, some say pointed thing, roundabout are "magnificent and emblematic" (taken in translation from "The Diario"). Fine words indeed - for a bit of road. The crowning glory of the five kilometres of Muro tarmac is the bridge itself, now with pavements to both sides and a not unattractive metal barrier on one side. It's all been done, so says the report, with the safety of different users in mind, be they on foot, in car and probably also on trike, in road-going train, on roller blades or in baby buggies as a roller-blading mother pushes them across the bridge and down the road. I'd like to believe that there will indeed be an avoidance of accidents, an aim of the road and bridge.

The problems with the new bridge are that the road has effectively been narrowed, that people cross over it, not at a crossing-point, but from the path from the sea to the entrance to Albufera, and that the not unattractive metal barrier has a gap in it where a tree remains - what chance some likely drunk lad fancying a bit of a dive into the canal on his staggering walk back to the hotel one night? The concrete barrier on the other side of the road is really something of a hazard; it requires not a great deal of imagination to foresee a vehicle coming into heavy contact with it. Of course, the design of the road and of the bridge is such that, so long as drivers and others use it sensibly and so long as drivers do not speed, there should be no accidents. "Sensibly." Not a word one hears too often in connection with road use of any form. I wonder if the starting-point for such design should be irrational behaviour rather than rational. Take for example the cyclist who suddenly emerged onto the bridge and made a car swerve and almost go head-on the other day. Where was the rationality with that cyclist? I have previously mentioned the fact that pedestrians are obscured by hedges, cars and trees at some of the crossing-points.

I once referred to the bridge road as being "nuts". At least there is now a pavement where there used not to be one; it is less nuts than it was. But it is still nuts in that it doesn't take full account of the nutcases. I hope I'm wrong.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Arctic Monkeys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLS_CAzJCwQ). Today's title - well no, not me, but the road. This is from ... ?

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