Maybe the title should be, ‘Not wishing to open old wounds.’ I don’t want to take sides either, merely observe, because that is what I do, and perhaps, to offer a warning. Well, I’ve been unusually vociferous these past few days, so in for a penny, in for a bag of them, I say.
Wednesday this week. I went down to wave some people off on the boat. I mean, they were on the boat, not me. I waved from ashore. This was where the Sebeco boats pull in at the bottom of the miss-named Lazy Steps (which are actually further along the harbour). The boat was due to leave at 10.40 and arrived about 15 minutes before this packed with day-trippers and tour groups. I stood in the shade behind the parked cars away from the road, which was half taken up by minibuses waiting for passengers and pilgrims alike, as were a few transfer cars, and a small gathering of departing visitors.
The port authorities had all this under control, with a barrier behind which the departing can wait on the pavement. As the boat arrived the keen rushed to be first in the queue, only to spend the next 20 minutes in the glare of the sun while waiting for the boat to empty.
Here’s a Symi tip: It’s not going to go without you. Wait in the shade until you are called across, or at least until the last of several hundred people have alighted. That’s one thing, the next is what happens there at this time of day.
The boat empties and confusion ensues. Mainly confusion among the arrivals, looking to see where they are going, looking for their rep, wondering which bus might be for them, and meanwhile gawping at the scenery while those in the know try to herd them away. All this blocks the road, much to the annoyance of drivers trying to get into and out of the harbour, and in that, I include mopeds, private cars, working vehicles, taxis, and at the height of scrummage, the bus.
Madness. Complete and unavoidable. Or is it? (That’s the debate I don’t want to get into.)
That’s one thing, and apparently, this happens on Mondays and Wednesdays but is not so bad on other days. Another thing, though, is what Alan Sillitoe might have called, ‘The Ignorance of the Long-Distance Tour Guide.’ No disrespect, mate, but if you are going to herd 60 people, all wearing identical blue caps, around an island, and you want to gather them in one place before setting off, don’t use the bloody bus stop, yeah? And if you do, when you see a great big yellow thing reversing gradually towards you and your charges, take the bleedin’ hint, yeah? No good saying, ‘I won’t keep you long,’ when the bus is at an angle across the street, blocking the cars and trucks, and it’s pretty obvious this isn’t a cattle pen but a parking space for a necessary service. Sheesh! It took Neil a good bellow of ‘It’s a bus stop, malaka!’ before some dared break off from the herd realising they would soon be beneath the wheels, and yet you still say, ‘I shan’t keep you much longer.’
It’d be funny if it so wasn’t.
This observation, of course, raises the thorny issue of cars, roads, and traffic in general, and how there is too much of it. I hate to return to the visiting Armitage Shanks family of Reformton, but we have, for years, listened to complaints of how ‘Cars are ruining my island,’ trilled as a threat, and ‘There are too many vehicles now. I shan’t be coming back.’ Trilled as a promise. (That’s one less vehicle we’ll need then, bravo.) In the winter? Not a problem. In the summer when off-islanders pour in and bring their cars… Well, that is a different matter. Add in the nine or more day-trip boats a day, the multitude of hire cars and mopeds, the fleets of new tour busses, and the day-to-day deliveries and working of the island, and subtract the amount of road space and parking space, and what we have is a recipe for a disaster of some sort, and certainly one for the climate.
Which then raises the next question of what can be done about it? Ay, there’s the rub.
“Another hundred poeple just got off of the…”
If you ban traffic at certain hours, you cut off deliveries and supplies. You can’t say, ‘Deliveries only between 8.00 and 16.00’, for example, because deliveries often rely on boats, and not all go to the Petini port. You could widen roads and somehow make more parking spaces, but that only invites more vehicles until you’re forced to do it again, and the island becomes nothing more than a motorist’s convenience.
I don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t want to debate it. It’s up to the municipality, and I am sure they are doing what they can. I don’t drive, I don’t live in the harbour, and I spend most of my time up here, so it’s not my place to say the ubiquitous ‘They’ should do this or that. I can only sit and watch, as I did on Monday night, while someone parked on a corner causing an instant tailback in both directions, police involvement, flared tempers and quite a spectacle which, although I enjoyed the entertainment, would have done nothing to impress visitors.
It reminded me of a radio play I once didn’t write because I didn’t know how, but it started with the premise: What if there was more length of vehicle on the road than there was length of road? Well, at times, it looks like that’s what we’re soon going to have, if we don’t have it already.
