Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2011, Síða 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2011 So, the greater Reykjavík area bus system is pretty horrible, huh?
We get lots of complaints about it in any case? What's missing?
How can it be better? Write us a letter and tell us all about it.
The concept of a ‘trash day’ will soon
take on a whole new meaning for the
hitherto spoiled residents of Reykjavík.
Thus far, taking out the trash in Reyk-
javík has simply entailed emptying the
indoor trash bins into the outdoor bin.
And as such, many people have no idea
when their trash is even picked up.
But imagine this! Starting May 1, in
what would seem like a completely or-
dinary chore to anybody in the United
States, Reykjavík dwellers will face the
laborious task of rolling their outdoor
bin to at least fifteen metres of the curb
for pick up. Yes, you read correctly.
They don’t even have to go all the way
to the curb.
Equipped with measuring tape,
employees of the city have been busy
these past few months visiting all
49.721 houses/apartments in Reykjavík
to record the distance from their gar-
bage bins to the street. If the distance
exceeded fifteen metres, the city has
mailed a letter to the household inform-
ing them that they must now take out
their trash or, if they are seriously that
lazy, pay an extra 4.800 ISK per bin per
year.
Although the city is first and fore-
most thinking about saving money and
not improving the quality of life for
garbage collectors, the new regula-
tion would definitely have made Þóról-
fur Valgeir Þorleifsson’s job quite a bit
easier on the legs. In 2007, then Mayor
of Reykjavík Vilhjálmur Þ. Vilhjálmsson
honoured Þórólfur for his fifty years of
service as a garbage collector in Reyk-
javík. At that time, it was reported that
the average garbage collector walked
10.000 kilometres per year on the job.
That’s tantamount to walking nearly an
entire marathon every day (38 kilome-
tres or 24 miles), five days a week. That
means Þórólfur walked about 1.186
marathons and he probably deserves
some praise for that fact alone.
In any case, it remains to be seen
whether all hell breaks loose in May or
whether Icelanders can peacefully roll
their bins to the street like the 300 and
some million people living in the United
States manage to do. Already though
it seems that those who must now add
‘trash day’ to their calendar are getting
ready to erupt with jealousy toward
their neighbours who can simply carry
on with life unburdened by this chore.
Let’s just hope the aftermath of the
city’s decision to stop picking up dis-
carded Christmas trees last year isn’t
any indication of what’s in store, be-
cause if it is, we can expect to see over-
flowing garbage bins all about the city.
Although spoiled trash would be almost
too poetic in this case.
Society | Trash
Stand at any given busy intersection in
Reykjavík, and one of the first things
that you’ll notice is the car traffic.
Reykjavík is, for better or worse, a car
town. In fact, over 50% of available city
land is devoted to the car in the form
of roads and parking lots. But the city
faces a geographical challenge: a pen-
insula with mountains to the east, there
is only so much land that can be used.
More prudent city planners, recognis-
ing the potential for problems arising
from a focus on car traffic, might turn
their attention towards mass transit.
Reykjavík isn't.
“OUR ICELANDIC REALITY”
Part of understanding why Reykjavík is
a car town involves prevailing attitudes,
often political in nature, about cars
versus buses. Former Mayor Vilhjálmur
Þ. Vilhjálmsson, a conservative, sum-
marised the right's philosophy on the
matter when he spoke to the Grape-
vine in 2005: “Icelanders have decided
themselves to use personal vehicles,
and this is something that we have to
accept. The weather here is always
changing from rain, to cold, to wind and
snow, all very quickly. People just don’t
want to walk 500 to 700 metres to a bus
stop and wait 10 or 15 minutes in bad
weather for a bus to come. This is our
Icelandic reality. We don’t see people
driving fewer cars.”
City council has changed hands
between the right and the left several
times since then, and yet even under
leftist city councils—often the most
vocal advocates of developing mass
transit—not only has bus service not im-
proved; it has been cut back. Stops are
fewer, hours are shorter, but fares have
increased. In the past ten years, in fact,
the standard adult fare has increased
by about 130%.
How does one account for this? The
Grapevine spoke to city councilperson
Einar Örn Benediktsson, who is also the
city's liaison to Strætó hf., the company
that runs the buses for the capital and
suburban area.
“AN INTERESTING DILEMMA”
“This is an interesting dilemma,” he
said. “The passenger pays approxi-
mately 20% of the fare. The municipali-
ties, which own Strætó, subsidise the
remainder. When speaking to Bíllaus
Lífstíll [a group that advocates Iceland-
ers driving less, if at all], they suggest-
ed a much higher fare for better service
to really be able to offer an alternative
to the car. The question is, when limited
financial resources are available, how
much are you willing to pay for a better
system?”
This has certainly been the bone of
contention for many of the city's bus
users—they recognise that the money
has to come from somewhere, and
the choices, as always, involve a mix
of drawing revenue directly from the
public in the form of fares, or indirectly,
through taxes.
But bus service has other, residual
effects on the city's residents. A city
neighbourhood organisation known
as Íbúasamtök þriðja hverfis has, since
at least 2007, fought with the city over
what they see as an inordinate amount
of car traffic—too few stop signs, stop-
lights and speed bumps have created
what are known as “traffic islands”—
portions of residential neighbourhoods
separated from each other by busy
roads. Residents in the Hlíðar neigh-
bourhood, who are represented by
the organisation, have said that these
traffic islands have made life loud and
polluted, and have prevented their
children from being able to cross the
street to play with their friends. These
problems are due to an excess of car
traffic—increased bus service typically
means reduced car traffic, which could
help alleviate these problems for Hlíðar
residents, who still deal with these is-
sues years later.
CHANGES CAN’T COME SOON
ENOUGH
Of course a conservative, pro-car
agenda cannot bear all the blame for
the lack of a vibrant mass transit sys-
tem in Reykjavík; the design of the city
itself, much of the downtown area's
street patterns from hundreds of years
ago, still remain. And this is something
the city recognises as well.
“The spread of the city has not
helped public transport,” Einar Örn
says. “Hopefully this might change
now in the next few months, as a new
directive for public transport will be
announced. The biggest change in it
is that the public transport system of
the Reykjavík area will be regarded as
part of the whole country's transport
system. This will [emerge] in the form
of funds from the state. This will have
[parts of the routes] funded, which will
free capital to use to better the exist-
ing system, make it more tightly-knit
into the suburbs—something it does in
a limited capacity today.”
Great state funding, and further in-
tegration into the suburban area, could
effectively reduce the amount of traffic
coming into and out of the city. The city
also recently announced it would be
closing Austurstræti (between Lækjar-
gata and Pósthússtræti, at least) to car
traffic, with plans in the wings to make
more streets pedestrian-only. Whether
or not these changes will pay off for the
city—and whether they will be enough
to satisfy Reykjavík's commuters—re-
mains to be seen, but for those who rely
on Reykjavík's bus system, the changes
can't come soon enough.

Society | Public transport
Making More With Less
How the city hopes to improve the bus system
Taking Out The Trash
Reykjavík residents learn a new chore
PAUL FONTAINE
H0RðUR SVEINSSON
ANNA ANDERSEN
H0RðUR SVEINSSON