Also available in: Dutch

We were already warned that you need a car to get around in the US. In our area, there are only a few bus lines and the time tables don’t match with the local train service, so public transport sometimes takes more than twice as long as going by car. So, like the Americans, we drive a lot.

Although there live several million people in Silicon Valley, it’s basically one big suburb. There are a few small town centers, though we haven’t seen one that was much more than a single street.

Sunnyvale’s city center

Live revolves around home, the office, the big supermarkets and when you need something special, the mall. It seems to us that people socialize in the restaurants located around parking areas. It all requires getting around by car.

Pretty much the whole valley consists of a repeating pattern: for every three to four streets with houses or an apartment complex there’s a big avenue. Except for the repetitive planning rather than organic growing of the grid, that’s not unusual in Europe. But! Look at how wide these streets are:

And then take the avenues: they’re almost as wide as a Dutch freeway!

Yes, you see ridiculously sized cars all the time.

Traffic rules are slightly different than in Europe. Not necessarily simpler, but the Californian penalty system basically doesn’t punish drivers for minor offenses – unless a major offense has been made on top of it. So people don’t indicate, but jump on their brakes when there’s a stop sign, because ignoring one would be a major offense. We believe that people don’t really seem to know the rules anymore, other than that they have to stay under the speed limit. Anyway, driving is quite laid back: only few people are speeding and at cross roads drivers are waiting for one another to go because it’s so unclear who has the right of way. On the other hand, there’s totally unpredictable driving behavior too, like overtaking on the right-hand side and subsequently changing two lanes to the left. Without indicating, that is.

Even little Cupertino has a few of these big freeways.

Yes, we’re complaining a bit, because we’re so used on getting around by bike and trains. But it definitely is a luxury to be able to drive anywhere and always be able to park close to your destination. If only we didn’t have global warming …

In one of our earlier posts we also complained a bit about the bad quality of the road surfaces. We still find that the freeway is no match for the Autobahn or snelweg: there are pot holes and at times it can be so bumpy and rough that it feels and sounds like your driving with a flat tire. It seems typical now: make a lot of stuff, make it big and don’t care too much about what will happen next. We’ll save that story for another time.

Edit: Freeway image added.