We have driven over 1200 kilometers in France and Italy, in big cities and small, small villages, and I have yet to see any road in as poor a condition as almost all of the roads in Sonoma County, especially those in the unincorporated area. Maybe I’ve become more sensitive to it because I’ve started bicycling more; I frequently ride up Faught Road and Chalk Hill Road, and those are painful because of their condition. It doesn’t seem like heaping more and more asphalt piles on bigger and bigger holes is a very good maintenance plan. Particularly given Sonoma County’s tourist economy, you would think the roads in the unincorporated areas, especially those frequented by tourists (and especially Faught Road and Chalk Hill Road) would be better maintained.
As I said, the roads in France are impeccably maintained. This no doubt has to do with the high taxes the French pay and the high percentage of people employed by the government. I don’t want to start a political discussion, but I personally would pay a little more to have the roads kept up as well in Sonoma County as they are here. I'm sure the Board of Supes would, too, if they had the wherewithal to do it. (You can take this to extremes, though: Yesterday as we were driving into Grenoble we saw a truck with a strange arm-like attachment sticking out to the side, and realized that it was in the process of mowing the grass, not at all long as it was, on the embankment beside the road, work that was, as far as I could tell, completely unnecessary, even for aesthetic reasons. I suspect this was a way to keep snowplow drivers employed during the summer, since the operation took five men (one to drive the truck, one to watch/guide the arm, one to watch those two, one to man a warning sign downhill from the work, and one to man a warning sign uphill from the work. Did I mention that I think I read somewhere that almost 50% of French workers are employed by the government. Not that there is anything wrong with that, necessarily.) Driving here is really a joy: The roads are so smooth, and so well signed, really a pleasure.
I was also thinking about traffic circles or roundabouts, which are at almost every intersection on two-lane roads that go into the country, and at many large intersections in cities. I started asking why you didn’t see many of them in the U.S. They have a number of advantages. First, you cannot overshoot a turn, since you have the option of going around again until you can turn off the way you intended. I myself have gone almost twice around one until I found the right route, just on this trip. (In principle, you could stay in a traffic roundabout all day, I suppose, without anyone really noticing that you were going around and around and around, since most cars are only there for a short time). The second advantage is safety; it would be very difficult to get injured seriously in a traffic roundabout, since everyone has to slow down going into it (traffic in the circle has the right-of-way). Roundabouts would do away with deaths that occur when someone pulls onto a highway from a smaller road and doesn’t see an oncoming car.
So why aren’t they used in the U.S. Driving around today it occurred to me that part of the reason is precisely that traffic roundabouts treat smaller roads and larger roads exactly the same. It doesn’t matter if you are on the main road from Vizille to Grenoble, or on a smaller road from Poduncville, you still have to slow down and go around the circle. Why shouldn’t traffic on the big road get preference? Why should cars going 90 kilometers/hr have to slow down just because some idiots pull out from small roads without looking, and get killed? Me, I love the roundabouts; they are safe and remarkably efficient, and do away with the need for stoplights.
Those are my traffic rants. Fix the roads in Sonoma County, and install roundabouts.
Now for the day – a trip to the Grenoble Museum in the morning (preceded by a walk around the market area and followed by a lunch of foie gras, cheese, and bread), and a trip to an “Air Park” (a kind of do-it-yourself ropes course) in the afternoon, which was mostly for the kids. A few pictures follow, of the Grenoble Museum:
One of my favorite paintings in the museum, of God casting out Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which I've named "You're outta here" (God looks like he's calling Adam out on a third strike). Check out the body language on the man – ‘Hey, man, it wasn’t my idea ... come on, God, we’re tight, I never would have eaten it if she hadn’t told me to, what’cha say she goes and I stay, eh?’
My favorite object in the museum (which had a quite good modern section, very refreshing after an hour and a half of crucified Jesuses and martyred saints), a large wire ball that would show different internal shapes depending upon how you looked through it.
And Suzie and the boys at the airpark (j’ai eu peur).
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