Rome: impressive. Bucharest: not so impressive.
Bucharest is an interesting place, but probably not one in
which I would consider taking a vacation. The place is either falling apart, or
should be.
From a quick, one-day stay, it appears as if they have never
fully recovered from WW2, but giving them credit for where it’s not really due,
they are making it look as if they are trying. I guess it’s a combination of
the destruction during the war, and then the takeover by the communists, headed
by that lovely human garbage scow, Nicolae Ceausescu, who met his death,
fittingly, from pneumonia, caused by a hail of cold bullets to the chest. At
least, that’s how the locals tell it.
The old buildings that survived WW2, have pretty much lost
their facades, and are falling apart. You wouldn’t want to walk on the same
side of the street for fear they will disintegrate just by the vibration caused
by your footsteps, or the energy bestowed upon them from your gaze. There are
many, many open lots where, I assume, the worst of the worst have been razed,
because the worst are still standing - barely.
There are some reasonably modern looking buildings housing
businesses, but they are few. All the others are either from the turn of the
century, or from communist days – boring, rectangular, communist-era blocks.
Traffic
I think that the biggest things that impressed me, if you
can call it being impressed, are the traffic, traffic lights, parking, and the
drivers. I had a chance to go walkabout (interesting choice of words from an
American in a central-southern European city,) and can report on the following
state of the city streets.
Traffic lights, you know, those things on the corner that
have the three colored lights that are supposed to manage how cars and people
interact, appear to be limited to the major roads that have at least three
lanes in each direction. After that, it’s hit or miss, mostly, you get hit.
You, as a pedestrian, take your life into your hands should you decide to cross
a street without one of those unusual looking things. However, I highly recommend
against it. But since you’ll have to go a mile or two out of your way to find an
intersection with a light, you have little choice. Just hope that your medical
insurance is paid up, and you have identification. It could be ugly.
On the streets of Bucharest, there appear to be no rules, or
if there are, everyone makes them up as they go along without telling anyone
else. I almost got crushed in a well-marked crosswalk where one might sanely consider
that at some point, the cars would stop. I thought wrong. It was a game of who
could cross the crosswalk first; me moving parallel and within the crosswalk,
or the car moving wherever it wanted to go, primarily towards me. Remember, there are
few traffic lights. However, since I’m still here, I guess I won that round. But I did have to scoot pretty fast and felt
the wind at my back, even though there was no breeze that day.
Now, I’ve been to Mexico City, and most recently, Milan and
Rome earlier on this very trip, and I can truly say the drivers in those cities
have some modicum of sanity, probably because for some reason, they appear to have
some empathy that the people crossing the street might wish to survive, go
home, and see their families. Every once in a while, rightly or wrongly, the
drivers in those cities seem to take that into consideration. Not so in
Bucharest. This is the wild, wild, west of driving. They are totally undisciplined,
uncivilized, and without concern for your desire to make it across the street -
alive. It’s them against all else. You are an unwelcomed irritant on their
street, as are any other vehicle. Let me give you a few examples.
Let’s first examine how North American drivers make a left
turn, a fairly simple maneuver, and then compare that to Bucharesti drivers.
In North America, assuming the left turn light is red, drivers
will eventually stop and line up one behind the other in a reasonably straight
line. If there are two left turn lanes, the same can be said for the other
lane. Once the light changes, each car stays in line, following the markers, if
available, and eventually makes the turn. In some cases, one car might encroach
into the adjoining lane because she is putting on her makeup or chatting with
her girlfriend on her cell phone, but a quick honk and curse from the man in the adjacent
car usually resolves the problem without a smudge. Experience counts.
However, in Bucharest, there are no left turn lanes. Oh,
there are markings for left turn lanes, but the city could have saved a lot of
money in paint costs by just eliminating them because in the drivers’ minds
they don’t exist. So here’s what happens.
Let’s assume our driver (we’re sitting in the back seat of a
taxi, white knuckles and all) is first into the intersection, and the light is green
(in most cases the color of the light won’t matter, but let’s just fanaticize
together for the moment.) In some cases when a driver is attempting to make a
left turn, and there is oncoming traffic, he may slow, appearing to wait for
the oncoming traffic to stop, but not in all cases. Mostly it’s a game of
chicken. The turning driver usually loses, but frequently, oncoming traffic is
forced to slow or stop, causing the oncoming cars to angle in all directions to
avoid the turning vehicle. Chaos ensues.
Ok, so that’s one example. Here’s another. Assume, er,
fanaticize for the moment that you are turning left when the light is green,
but your driver is too chicken to try to complete the turn simply because there
is a significant amount of oncoming traffic (I know it’s hard to believe, but
it does happen occasionally.) Also
assume that other drivers behind you also wish to make a left turn. Instead of
lining up behind the first car, your car, turning left, they pass you up and circle
to the outside, as does each succeeding left turning car, until oncoming
traffic has stopped for one reason or another, with the most outside left
turning car now well into the opposite crosswalk in the oncoming side of
traffic! So the left turn lane(s) can frequently exceed 5 cars wide and several
dozen deep. Lovely. Chaos ensues.
Parking
As in most of Europe, parking in Bucharest is in short
supply. Why building and city architects don’t plan for cars is a mystery to
me. You know, like underground parking, above ground lots or multi-story
garages. There are plenty of empty lots in Bucharest from where they’ve razed
the old, decrepit buildings, or where they should be razing the old, decrepit
buildings. They would make very good parking lots. And they would be quite
profitable too.
In Bucharest, parking, as with left turns, has become a fine
art. But the artwork in this case comes from a three-year-old child. Very
messy.
Along with what little parking there is, usually head-in diagonal,
in any angle a driver decides is best for his car, many cars park parallel to
the curb, with two tires up on the sidewalk, leaving a reasonable amount of
space for one, maybe one and a half persons to get by between the car and the
adjacent building or 15 foot sink hole that’s currently under repair. However,
many streets aren’t so fortunate as to have a sidewalk, or if so, they are quite
narrow. So on many streets the cars are parked with their noses or sides right
up against a wall, or sink hole, forcing us pedestrians out into the street to
fend for ourselves against the Bartertown-like vehicles and drivers aiming to
get us. Chaos ensues.
So that’s my take on my 24+ hours in Bucharest. I’m hoping
that no one from Bucharest reads this, or that they have a very hearty sense of
humor, as I believe my life will surely be in danger. Mad Max, where are you!?
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