Remember the silly traffic light? I passed it again, found it useless and confusing again, and decided to at least try to do something about it.

Saturday I asked our friendly neighbour the town councillor who to turn to, and got a name. Yesterday I sent mail to that person: “Dear Mr Traffic Man, Councillor X recommended you; here’s a photo, this is the situation; would it be a good idea to put up a sign allowing cyclists to turn right at the red light, as everybody is doing it already anyway?” This morning when I came back from swimming there was a message from the traffic coordinator (who Traffic Man had sent my mail to), saying “You’re completely right. I’ll order a sign and have it put up.”

Next time someone says in my hearing that people in the town offices don’t listen to the public, I’ll have a story to tell.

I thought at first that this was a lamp for the road-builders to see by, but it turned out to be a lamp-post that someone must have driven into last night. When I came back an energy-watch man was sawing it into one-meter pieces of scrap metal and the road was too busy to take another picture.

This seemed a completely useless traffic light until I was editing the picture.

It looked as if it didn’t make sense to make either cars or cyclists stop here unless it is for pedestrians, and the pedestrian crossing is request-only anyway (and very quiet at that). But now I see that it’s actually to protect cyclists going straight ahead, towards the bridge, from cars turning faintly right into the street that runs alongside the bridge until one has to turn either left or right at the river quay. As I’ve hardly ever done anything except turn faintly right into that street myself, I hadn’t noticed.

Not that it wouldn’t be a good idea to make right-turning cyclists exempt from the light: there’s plenty of room for them to the right of any cars.

Finally they’re doing something about the old tumbledown town-house between the weigh-house (now historical museum) and the toy museum. The meters-high sign seems to imply that it’s going to be a Russian restaurant. (Not much information yet behind that link; they say sneak preview soon.)

But the text the publicity people probably think looks Russian…

… is all Greek to me. Gibberish, as if someone took some lorem-ipsum text and put it in a symbol font. When it’s so easy to get real Russian lorem-ipsum text (took me less than a minute to find, and I’m not even a publicity person).

If this is XXS, what will M be like? Or XL?

More about the “fietsers” signs.

This sign says “beware! cyclists”, because the cyclists are going in both directions on a path designed for only one direction. “Cyclists, beware of cyclists” seems the right interpretation. Motorists don’t have to beware of cyclists here: they can’t go anywhere near that cycle-path because of all the fences.

Just how the cyclists are going to end up in that lane —or leave it at the other end— is a mystery, because before they can reach it they’re sent to the right to go where that car is going, and end up at the other two signs. Perhaps the “beware! cyclists” sign is only for people who actually want to go somewhere on the road that’s being dug up.

(Ljouwert, May 2005)

“Baker, your butcher”.

Confusing, innit? This pair of signs doesn’t seem to give any information, not even whether it’s a warning of cyclists (“fietsers”) or for cyclists. That last is easy: any motorist who isn’t from a country without any bicycles will recognise the street as one likely to contain cyclists, so the signs are probably meant for the cyclists themselves.

At first sight they look completely spurious: cyclists have been using this street in both directions since the invention of the bicycle. Also, if there was only one sign it would be clear to them where to go, but the fact that there’s a pair invalidates that. It becomes clearer when you realise that the signs are there for cyclists who have already been diverted from a road that’s being dug up and restructured. Any cyclists going along that road in the direction of the left-pointing sign (towards the town centre) are sent to turn right, and can then see by the left-pointing sign that this, too, is a way to go where they’re going.

The right-pointing sign is for cyclists coming from the town centre (like me this morning): it says to them “dear cyclist, contrary to what you may have read in the paper, the roadblock that this arrow points to isn’t meant for you, just for the cars.”

There might have been a sign with an arrow pointing up as well, encouraging cyclists to rise into the air go straight ahead (to the right of the parked cars) and end up at the river, where there was a roadblock until recently but isn’t any more; but seeing that all but one of the cyclists who passed me when I was standing in the middle of the road trying to take this picture did indeed go straight ahead, that sign would have been superfluous.

I’d think twice before entrusting my “heating, warm water, indoor climate” to something called that!