The guest: sweetness for everyone in town

Once is not customary, let us first weave a crown of compliments in Lausanne. Since Covid, the Vaudois capital has greened its public spaces by adding the appropriate elegance and lightness. On the sidewalks, at the foot of the trees, explosions of grass instead of dog droppings. In the parks, low fences pretend to protect the statues of our great men which are already surrounded by poetic plantations. I discovered Juste Olivier in the Milan park thanks to the shades of greenery and tulips which then surrounded his stone bust. Since then, I’ve given him a friendly glance as I pass by.

Instead of games in this underground station park, lovers squat on the couple’s swings. Instead of the tiny sandboxes of yesteryear, a giant sandy hill attracts the buckets and shovels of the neighborhood’s offspring. And in good weather, we see almost naked bodies lying between the strips of wild grass which stretch across the lawn in carefully maintained arcs.

Caught in the spirit of the times, even my landlord no longer rakes the lawn in his garden every week.

So, how can we further improve common life in this glimpse of a green paradise? The City could, for example, remind garden owners that the days of thundering machines are over and that daisies should not be slaughtered in the spring. So much for privacy, lawn mower only allowed once a month!

The City could also create paths covered with sawdust in its parks, like those on the Vita trails. An alternative to asphalt driveways. Soft terrain under our feet as an introduction to real gentle mobility.

A Vaud PLR MP was able to summarize the evidence recently in a free newspaper: so-called soft mobility is designed in Lausanne primarily for young people in good health. We know it well, the cyclists who rejuvenate our streets violate traffic rules with impunity while shouting “calmos!” paternalistic to those, pedestrians and motorists, who hinder their winged advance.

What options does this city offer to tired seniors and to all human beings who do not climb Avenue d’Ouchy as a dancer with two toddlers on their bikes? The solutions to be invented are perhaps less joyful than our city councilors, themselves still in the prime of life, would like. But the question arises. Today, elderly residents are fighting over the last places to park their SUV or moving forward, hunched under their shopping bags, towards the metro stops and those of the buses on the main roads. For decades, I have dreamed of small shuttles crisscrossing neighborhoods on a regular schedule.

And the dogs…

Finally, what can we say about the gentle mobility offered to dogs in Eden Lausanne… Their droppings seem to be under control, but the control of behavior remains to be refined. And now that summer is coming, how can we all coexist in a city that is greening and calling us to gentleness? Aside from the paths covered with sawdust and the inter-district shuttles to be inaugurated quickly, will it be necessary to imagine routes reserved for dog walks? We can already barely contain the grill lovers at the edge of the lake, which has become unfrequented on Sundays for vegetarians.

No need for Securitas to protect the smiling bust of Juste Olivier against the very improbable attacks of feminist commandos. It’s already that.

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