There's a really big building project on our route to work, on a no through road that is heavily used by kids walking to 3 local schools and cyclists. It's been going on for months, and will continue for moonths more. I go along the road that goes through the middle of all the building work pretty much every day, often several times a day, either on my bike or walking, sometimes with a Cub or two in tow and sometimes on my own. They are making a right mess of the road surface, and often have bits of the pavement fenced off where they are working, and often there are big trucks delivering and heavy equipment in the road and so on.
However....
The other day as I walked down there with a pushchair, one of the workers had parked a van up half on the pavement and I had to walk in the road. Round the corner, I called through the fence at one of the blokes working and asked if they could get it moved as there wasn't space to get by on the pavement and the pavement on the other side of the road was fence off. They apologised, and said they'd get it sorted. 10 minutes later when I walked back that way it had moved. It's the only time I've ever seen a vehicle parked in an obstructive way on site.
Today, walking down that road, someone was reversing a JCB out of a gateway into the site so I stopped well back. So did he, and said good morning, and waved me past. And waited til I was completely past the back of his vehicle before carefully continuing his manouevre. Every time I go that way and the workers are moving vehicles about they have shown proper awareness of and consideration for cyclists and pedestrians.
And, even though I'm a fat ginger bird with big tits, the buiders have confounded stereotype, and the only thing they've have ever called out is 'Good morning' or 'Hi' or 'Lovely day, isn't it?' apart from the one time that they offered SmallestCub a look in the cab of the JCB. Walking past that building site is a nice part of my day.
Hurray!
