We are now around 1 month into construction works in Zagreb targeting one of the most critical parts of its infrastructure - the traffic circle in Savski Gaj.
The traffic circle itself is nothing fancy. Three lanes with four entrances/exits but it is one of the main hubs for entering Zagreb if you are coming from the south or west. Every day, according to official accounts, around 100,000 cars hit this point and cause major traffic jams during rush hours - go figure.
There were talks about rebuilding it ever since I was in school but now the EU has stepped in and is financing 80% this, I think, 300 million kuna (around 55 million dollars) monstrosity so they had to get things going.
And they got things going indeed. They started building new roads which will go around the construction site and once they finish them up it will stay like that for around one and a half years.
A few days ago they held a meeting to explain everything to the people living around there and once questions from the public were allowed, one came up instantly. “How will pedestrians and cyclists be able to navigate this part? There doesn’t seem to be any infrastructure build for them.”. The response by Zdenko Lanović, one of the guys working for Elipsa S. Z. which were instructed with designing the temporary traffic regulation, said “Our main priority was to enable public transportation to function without problems because two tram lines and sixteen bus lines cross this part. Then there are more than 100,000 cars which pass here daily. We have worked on alternative routes for them for months. Unfortunatelly, pedestrians and cyclists weren’t a priority in this case. They will be able to navigate around the traffic circle but less than before.”
Let’s now have a look at how they envision “less than before”.
Original state - getting to one of the main tram/bus stations
Above you can see how you had a 1.6 km walk to the one of the main stations in Zagreb where you can jump on some of the trams that pass there and reach any part of the city. If you didn’t want to walk the entire part you could hope on one of two tram lines which had a stop directly in the traffic circle.
First alternative - mud, sweat and tears
This is the first option you will have as a pedestrian/cyclist to get to the same point. Just 130 meters more. Not to bad you might think. The problem with this route is that you will have to walk on the embankment of the river Sava. Now all is still fine since it’s dry but in a few weeks the grass will be wet in the morning and once snow falls we might see some husky transport startups popping up. Having hope that this will be kept clean is non-existing because - you are not a priority.
Second alternative - let’s go for a walk
The second alternative has a nice 1.05 km more for you to walk or a 60% increase. This one offers you a detour though another neighbourhood and will enable you to enjoy your mornings a little more.
I didn’t include public transportation in both cases because once all traffic will be redirected though the temporary roads all of these cars will create a traffic jam that will prolong your commute by a good amount.
I also have to mention that both alternative routes cross the new temporary roads and that so far I haven’t seen any work on parts that will make it safe for you to cross them but since I am just a computer scientist I will give them the benefit of the doubt until November when the new traffic regulation will kick into action.
It pisses me of that instead of trying to make a leap into the 21st century by promoting non-car traffic we will end up with perpetual traffic jams which will decrease the air quality even more.
Once again the City with our idiot mayor leading the way is missing out on changing for the better. I hope I will be wrong but so far it all looks like a big - I told you so.