Transit-free Monday

Well, after a successful - and sunny and warm - car-free Sunday two weeks ago, tomorrow is to be the opposite - a transit-free, car-filled Monday (and probably rainy and cold, like today, to boot).

This is no 'control' experiment to analyse the results of the reverse of the environmentally-friendly car-free days. It is simply a general strike called by the three major unions in the public sector. The problem - and advantage, sometimes - in Belgium is that each of the three 'pillars' (socialist, Christian democrat, and liberal) has its own trade union present in every workplace, and they don't always act in a concerted way. So in some cases only one-third, say, of the bus drivers may be on strike, depending on the union they belong to.

This time, all three have called for the labour action - so presumably most if not all trains, buses, trams, metros, etc. will be off the job (or, as the French expression goes, 'crossing their arms'). The supermarkets will also take part, as well the post offices and government offices, and some banks. Funny thing about the supermarkets - some smaller 'corner shop' versions of the big chains (which have been cropping up all over the place to try to displace the small independent corner stores) are franchises, and so when the big stores are closed due to strikes, the small ones are still open.

What is the strike all about? General dissatisfaction with the rising cost of living and the failure of salaries to reflect these increases, as far as I can make out.

So tomorrow will be a day for bicycling, walking, car pooling (maybe we'll even see a few horses riding into Brussels from the pastoral fields of the 'rand' or surrounding suburbs?).

As for me, I think I'll go by bike - but the downside of the transit-free days is that, unlike on the car-free days, the streets are likely to be even more congested by all the cars (that will more than make up for the noise and smell of the buses).

Actually, maybe the experience will have the same result as the car-free day: showing people just how unlivable the city becomes when the 1.5 million people who work in Brussels all take their cars rather than use public transit.

Wish me luck!