I’m in Warsaw for a few days. So far I’m very impressed at how walkable the city center is. Wide flat sidewalks with tactile markings, good crosswalks, biking infrastructure, parks everywhere.. Oh, and trams. I might get on one shortly.
The specialty coffee scene is also pretty good, I had a lovely cappuccino just now.
I’m super impressed at how conscientious drivers are about the white cane. They drive slowly enough at intersections that they notice me and then they stop to let me cross, even when they’d have had time to drive through.
At home it’s a guessing game and I can usually only cross after the first car.
It’s not like there aren’t a lot of cars either, the center is all about four lane roads and multi-stage crossings at intersections with the trams lines in between.
Gigantic LED panels with the line number and destination on the trams, very cool.
The lights by ford surprised me though, it’s a very interesting way to make stepping off and on safer. I haven’t seen level boarding though.
Plus train mastodon already knows Warsaw has some of the very best tram drivers in the world.
Metro station entrances: a hole in the ground with stairs, escalators if you’re lucky. Super boring.
Not in Warsaw. They have awnings to keep you out of the rain which is great. They’re not just functional though, they’re beautifully designed: glass panels angled so as to end in a letter M-shaped cross-section, matching the metro logo.
The stations I used have tactile markings throughout, Braille on the hand rails, truncated domes, contrasting steps… some even have lights in the pavement indicating the edge of the platform and the escalators.
The trains are similar to the trams, in broad strokes, but I noticed the door-closing signal is a chime synchronize with flashing lights above the doors.
Very good indeed.
The central train station has all that cool stuff plus various amenities (cafes, stationery stores, pharmacy, etc.) and a tactile and Braille map with all of them labeled.
Buses. I don’t love busses, but I’ve never seen one stop this close to the curb. I can’t even tell you how close it got, because I didn’t bring my calipers.
They also have lights flashing in sync with the chimes over the doors.
The transit system is multi-modal and it’s very smooth about it with stops and stations close together.
What I don’t like about the transit system in Warsaw is paper tickets. I have a sighted traveling companion with me, so that’s less of a headache, but all but the long term passes are small paper stubs with magnetic strips that have to be inserted into machines in the right direction to be validated. I’m super used to swiping in NFC-based systems.
I also like the Berlin transit app system. There are apps here, but I couldn’t figure them out as a tourist.
I only have a couple more notes.
Circling back to bikes (pun intended, I’m very proud of it) it’s very cool to notice that couriers, including for food delivery, all use bicycles.
On a gig-economy adjacent note, Uber and Bolt cars all have liveries like taxis. In other places they blend in much more. It seems each country has its own journey with regulating this market.
One thing I really don’t like is the glare from all the glass-clad buildings. When the sun is low it feels like there’s no direction you can turn to get out of your face.
MostlyBlindGamer