COMMENT Europe 2007

Community radio in Vienna and Zurich

2007-03-26T02:48:00.000-07:00

I had arranged to visit some community radio stations as part of my land trip across Central Europe - first, Orange 94.0 fm in Vienna, and then Radio LoRa in Zurich.

Orange 94.0fm
Orange 94.0 fm, 'the free radio of Vienna', has been providing a forum for themes and groups which are underrepresented in the media since it started broadcasting in 1998. Free radio in Austria is relatively new - until 1993 only the state broadcasting organisation ORF was allowed to broadcast and there was much pirate activity to try and change this.

Orange now has a wide range of groups broadcasting across its schedule, in many different languages and from different sections of the community.

I had arranged to meet

In Zurich I visited Radio LoRa

Transport in Europe

2007-03-04T05:49:00.000-08:00

Transport in Europe is a dream - in the countries which I visited it was generally clean, cheap (in comparision with Britain), frequent, well publicised and INTEGRATED.

Bicycles
Travelling by coach through Ghent in the small hours of the morning, I noticed the ranks of bicycles parked everywhere - in the town centre squares as well as in gardens and attached to lamp posts outside buildings. Why so many bikes left in the town centre, I wondered.

Then a friend told me that many commuters in Belgium and the Netherlands have two bikes - one to ride from home to the station and one to ride from the station once you arrive in the town where you work. So all the town bikes spend the night by the station of arrival.

Imagine Waterloo or Kings Cross stations (in London) with sufficient cycle parking for commuters to leave their London bike safely overnight! For more information and discussion on cycle parking provision, see this entry on the KonSULT website (KonSULT is the Knowledgebase on Sustainable Urban Land use and Transport, edited at the Institute for Transport Studies at the Universit of Leeds).

A brief overview of my trip

2007-02-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

My trip lasted from the 1st to 24th February and took in Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Germany. Despite good intentions, I found that I was not very good at blogging at internet cafes along the road and so arrived back in London without posting a single entry on this blog! Instead, I kept a diary on paper - low-tech, it's true, but as I could write it up on trains, in cafes, whilst waiting around and indeed anywhere else I fancied, it served me very well.

One of the aims of the trip was to travel without flying, and the first part of the journey was by coach, from Victoria coach station in London to Frankfurt. It was an overnight journey and the route was via Ghent, Brussels, Maastricht and Cologne. From Frankfurt, I travelled by train to Salzburg, changing at Munich.

I spent almst six days in Austria, in Salzburg, Graz and Vienna. Whilst in Vienna, I visited the community radio station Orange 94.0, the women's organisation Frauen Solidaritaet and the black women's organisation Schwarze Frauen Community.

I hadn't originally planned to visit Bratislava, but it was so close and so easy to get to that I decided to do so, and I was glad that I did.

I then went on to Hungary, spending five days there, in Budapest, Pecs and finally one morning (changing trains) at the tiny border town of Gyekenyes.

My time in Croatia was all too short, split between the capital Zagreb and the vibrant port town of Rijeka. (If it's not already twinned with Algeciras in Southern Spain, it should be!)

On to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, where I stayed for two days. Next was a whole day on the train travelling between Ljubljana and Zurich, passing through some awe-inspiring mountainous country and marvelling in the efficiency of the Croatian, Austrian and Swiss railways.

In Zurich I stayed with friends for six days and during that time I visited the community radio station Radio LoRa.

For the final railway section I took short hops northwards from Zurich towards Frankfurt, using regional services and stopping briefly at towns in between. I had intended to stay in and explore Freiburg-am-Breisgau, but everywhere affordable was full (I hadn't bargained for German school Spring holidays), so I moved on, staying instead in Offenburg, before heading up to Mainz.

I used the S Bahn to get to Frankfurt, where I caught the coach for London and home.

It was an excellent and memorable trip, with some very interesting people, and inspiring lots of new ideas.

Footprints across Central Europe

2007-01-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

Here in the UK, our ecological footprint is 5.6 global hectares per person. That is one of the highest in Europe, requiring around three planets' worth, if everyone were to live in the same way. Below are the footprints of some of the countries of Europe (some of which I hope to visit), all much lower than the UK, as follows:

~ Czech Republic (4.9)
~ Austria (4.7)
~ Switzerland (4.7)
~ Germany (4.4)
~ Netherlands (4.4)
~ Hungary (3.7)
~ Slovenia (3.5)
~ Slovakia (3.4)
~ Croatia (3.0)
~ Bulgaria (3.0)
~ Serbia & Montenegro (2.5)
~ Bosnia Herzogovina (2.2)
~ Macedonia (2.2)
~ Romania (2.1)

I am interested in concrete examples of good practice, methods and lifestyle which we could use as a model, to reduce our own footprint.

European Journey, Spring 2007

2006-12-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

There is much we can learn from the rest of Europe about living in a more environmentally friendly way.

In February 2007, I plan to travel by train through Central Europe , visiting community radio stations, environment groups, libraries, schools and women's organisations to discover how countries with a smaller footprint than ours are meeting the challenge of global warming. I'll also be gathering tips for sustainable living from people who I meet along the way, especially in countries where the way of life still includes traditional, less resource-heavy methods of doing things.