IT'S WHERE THE ORANGES COME FROM. NO! NOT TESCO'S YOU THICK PILLOCK!!

Seville goes green

Based on a report -'Eco-tourism in Spain'  06 January 2012 | By Brendan Sainsbury, Lonely Planet

 This Spanish city has bidden adios to the organized urban chaos found in so many cities and embraced a more sustainable outlook.

 Kick-started by proactive city mayor, Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín in 2007, the lightning pace of Seville’s “greening” defies its laidback fiesta and siesta image. In the span of just five years the Sevillanos have instituted: a community bike-sharing scheme, a surface tram, an underground metro, two high-speed train links, a pilot electric car programme and -- 20km away in Sanlúcar la Mayor -- the first commercial solar power plant in Europe.

Strewth!! All that shit in just five years! That's not playing fair, is it? What have we got in the last five years?  Rid of our trains, rid of our stations, rid of our bridge, rid of our market, rid of our warehouse, rid of most of the shops in the town, rid of our swimming pools and libraries, rid (almost) of our old Town Hall, rid of most of Derker, rid of every leisure amenity, rid of Yorkshire Street as a venue for decent folk, rid of a sane garbage collection routine, rid of hope that a tram will ever rumble up Union Street. We also got rid of Fill Woolyarse so it's not all bad news, then! 

The inauguration of Seville’s bike-sharing scheme in April 2007 was something of a godsend, even for avowed car users. It was the second bike-sharing initiative in Spain--and it is the fifth largest scheme of its kind in Europe, with 2,500 bikes on offer. Grab a two-wheeled machine from any of the 250 docking stations and you will quickly discover that cycling suits this flat, balmy metropolis. Unlike Oldham the barmy metropolis, full of hills and potholes. Cyclists have been known to vanish without trace in some of these potholes which are more like caves really. A trial bike -sharing scheme was tried a short while ago in the town but failed due to renters not returning bikes to the allotted docking stations. Most were found parked in e-bay, Cash Converters and 'arry's scrap yard!

Seville has 120km of  bike lanes and the first 30 minutes of usage are free. Beyond that, it is one euro for the first hour and two euros an hour thereafter. Oldham has 35 yards of bike lanes and the first 5 seconds of usage are nearly free. Beyond that it is four quid for the first hour or per part of per hour and eight quid an hour or per part of per hour thereafter.

Cycling down Seville's Avenida de la Constitución, inhaling the aroma of ripe oranges, will bring you within a wheel’s width of museum-queuers, horses and carts, and attractive señoritas in red-and-white polka-dot dresses -- but no cars. Central Seville’s main arterial roads were pedestrianised in 2007 to make way for a new tram system, the MetroCentro.   Cycling down  Oldham's Union Street or Avenida de la Pollo Frito, inhaling the aroma of stale cooking oil and burnt chicken nuggets, (which part of a chicken does the 'nugget' come from?), will bring you within a gnats bollock of Job Seekers, drunken arseholes and peroxide slags with faces like a slater's nail bag, wearing dirty anoraks -- but also -no cars. Nearly every street in Oldham became traffic free when they were all dug up to make way for a new tram system, the Metroshite. This failure dogged piece of crap may or may not arrive within the NEXT five years, but don't hold your breath. TfGM or The fucking Great Mistake plan to continue fucking the whole town over once they've managed to drag all the dead trams off the streets of Manchester and the five year old kid designs another operating system.

Seville's original tram-line -- a modest 1.4km in length -- was extended in 2011 to incorporate an extra 1.1km. The introduction of revolutionary new battery-powered technology meant that ugly overhead cables have been dismantled. Now the plan is to extend the tramline as far as Santa Justa, Seville’s main railway station, where new high-speed trains head off to Madrid, Cádiz and (by 2013) Granada.

Oldham's ongoing saga of the tramlines continues. At present all those involved are trying to bring the line to Mumps where a perfectly good station was demolished to allow a station to be built. In two thousand and plenty they are going to dig it all up again to drag it along Union Street. A new station will have to be built at Mumps cos the line is pissing off in a different direction. Are you following all this? If we were getting battery powered trams they could be recharged at Little Jimmy Pudden-Face's proposed electric vehicle charging station at Hollinwood. Just think of the leisure time we would have waiting for a charge. You couldn't rely on buying replacement batteries. The shops are always closed just when you need one. So what we are getting?  Ugly overhead cables! Our pride and joy will take us to Victoria, one of Manchester's railway backwaters, where slow speed trains head off to Wigan, Blackburn and Darwen, and by 2025 one will have reached Leeds via Rochdale.

In Seville there is a tram stop right outside the majestic Gothic cathedral. The tram also connects with the bus station  and the new subterranean Metro.   In Oldham there will be a tram stop right outside the nissen-hut like Sainsbury's. Our tram, unfortunately, will not connect with any of Oldham's fifteen assorted bus stations as they are all on Cheapside, up a five hundred foot sheer cliff face.  
A lot of the trams will stop outside Failsworth,  Hollinwood or any other of the myriad stops en route. This is not planned, it is called a breakdown. When this occurs the whole town will come to a standstill. Outsiders will notice no difference.

In Seville you could consider hiring an electric car to get around. Renault chose Seville as the city to launch its three new zero-emission models in October 2011, and ultimately these vehicles and others will be able to make use of 75 battery-recharging points that are being built around the city as part of a government-sponsored plan to boost electric car use.In Oldham you could lash out thousands on an overpriced 'lectric car and run down to Hollinwood if you need a boost. (That's when and if any of this pie-in-the-sky ever becomes reality.

Finding parking remains a perennial problem in both towns and here we have several things in common.  Seville has built on many of its traditional car parks, most recently in March 2011 with the daring, ultra-modern Metropol Parasol in the Plaza de la Encarnación, which harbours a museum, a market, a restaurant, a plaza and a panoramic walkway. Professing to be an architectural icon in a liveable city core, this giant structure, purported to be the largest wood structure in the world, is best described as a forest of mushrooms welded onto a flying waffle . Oldham has taken a slightly different approach and built, where we used to have interesting buildings, many daring, ultra-modern car parks, harbouring pay-and-display ticket machines, traffic wardens and panoramic views of the Tower of Babble. These have been constructed by the biggest wooden structure in Oldham, namely our local Councillors, who are known to be as intelligent as mushrooms and full of waffle.

Oh!  We nearly forgot. We are getting MAHDLO though!!!!

If the thick mushrooms were in control of this town for fifty years they still couldn't come up with anything like these plans!

If there is anyone still out there!!!    HELP!!!!