A few Sundays ago I got up early and went for a swim. I felt like a hero who had triumphed over the forces that wrapped the sheets around the legs and the inner voice that told you, “absolutely, for a day…”. I hit myself with a traffic jam on the highway. We have reached that point. At eight o’clock on a Sunday morning in low season, the road collapsed, everyone stopped and the emergency lights came on. Fortunately, not everyone went to the municipal swimming pool. The famous 15-minute city that many talk about but few manage to live in would have had a public sports facility in the neighborhood or easy access to the nearest one, but that’s not the case. As the dream of postmodern urbanism turns into reality, we get used to living in constant circulation congestion. Peak hours are no more, all times are rush hour, even for those of us who have kept their car use to a minimum. It’s interesting that we can waste time in traffic jams, but we don’t invest that in using public transport; spend money on parking lots that will never be enough, rather than improve trains and buses. Cities that are the perfect size to travel on foot or by bus are plagued by noise, pollution and the predominant presence of private vehicles.
