The conquest of the asphalt
Last Sunday I ran on the green road.Resigned decades ago not to have a great and good metal route, of those through which the trains pass and that connect the populations in a sustainable and safe way, as in Villena in Almansa or in Caudete, because we have to settle for having theGreen.Our ancestors decided.
It was a very pleasant race: sunny day, with hardly any wind, ideal temperature for running with not much clothes, light slope of descent in the first leg, which helps to get away from the helmet and make a longer race, although also harder to thereturn, music in my ears, and the best, zero cars, not a single car by way.
Normally my exits are for the Lentiscar, the Rider and the Decarada, and while we run, we walk or walk, we have to go on the circulation.On more than one occasion I have finished in the ribazo for fear of being hit.(Would it be on purpose and not accidental?)
Most people who drive their vehicles for those andurrials ignore us.We are not pedestrians, or relaxed neighbors, nor do they accept us as walkers enjoying the outdoors.For me that for them we are just lumps to dodge, obstacles to save, and if it is without brake to step on, better.
We are interruptions in their continuous comings and goings: time to start working in the morning, to take the children and pick them up, to go to the purchase, to return to work ... what a country stress.
So what could be nearby, close, pleasant, and many very long.
But there could be another possibility.Imagine that these paths were in one direction and not two, and that in them there was a protected area for walkers and bicycles (as on the green road), and some bank under some shadow and source, and that our countrymen see us asTo such too.How to enjoy roads!And so close, although they are not called via.
And it is that those who live in the villages do have our advantages in relation to those of the city.Too bad we miss them almost all.
Another enviable advantage is simple mobility, closeness to almost everything.The next thing we are from schools and work centers, bars, leisure sites, shops, etc..While we, Yeclanos, talk about minutes walk, urbanites talk about hours in cars or public transport for any displacement.
Well, you know that this is not a simple advantage, but it is a global trend.Now it takes cities where "everything is 15 minutes walk".The cities are finally to walk them.
I recently read that our streets are not narrow, but were designed for cars and people and not for cars.Recover their splendor and see them again wide is not impossible.
It is as simple as questioning the current situation.For example, is it necessary that all the streets of Yecla have the possibility of parking cars on both sides?Do we have to park our cars at the door of our houses?Couldn't the sidewalks grow and the roads decrease?In the end it is about putting the Andantes in the center, designing solutions for them too.
What seems simple, however, it is not so and we find that, in the reform of any alley, the asphalt remains fashionable in Yecla.
The asphalt, that material that has been chasing us for centuries, black bitumen, sheet metal, which is viscous and sticky, and that as soon as we neglect, we are endive.Miguel Golf Street, Don Lucio, Numancia, have been the last three to fall victims of the asphalt.
Alleys that were of a traveling vocation, cobbled years ago yearning a future full of walkers, and where, tacitly, drivers recognized the priority of pedestrians, have now been defeated by asphalt, yellow line and invisible sidewalk.Again, passersby cornered against the wall.
Don't you think it's ridiculous for cars to circulate, for example, along Miguel Golf street?Drivers forced to difficult maneuvers to enter it, at the height of the Concha Segura Theater, and that end up touching their rearview mirrors on the walls, at market height.Dangerous crosses due to corners without visibility, with pedestrians that must be put aside to circulate.And let's not talk about older people, or with reduced mobility, or those who carry stings for a walk.All these people are also good.
Our alleys, small and narrow thought to safeguard us from the cold winds and the torrid sun of summer, would make sense again if we recover their initial functionality: walk up and down and down.
I wanted to share the sadness that it produces to see how in each urban reform we move away more than the goal of making Yecla a more living, more sustainable, more beautiful and healthy, appetizing people, a enjoyment enjoyment.
A brand town.An authentic people, who respects their origin and that enables the relationship of their people in its streets.Make Yecla a differential, genuine, original, saying things to visitors.
As experts say, every innovation process is to unlearn, to reset the mind and think about a new purpose.
It is about getting out of that town called "Confortalia", where nothing changed because for any unforeseen there was a solution that always repeated us in the same place.
The same town in which the tribe of the "m’eopongo" always imposed that of the
"I propose".(*)
The future is designed, it is not guessed.It is designed and created.It depends on us.Tell them to the green road.
(*) I quote Ignacio Villoch and his book "The Journey of Diana").
