Gridlock Guy: Lessons learned as commuters in the Azores

Vacation is such a palate-cleanser in so many ways. Out of the grind, we heal and recharge. We can gain perspective, if even for a few days. But we hopefully retain that learning and apply it appropriately in our everyday lives.

I certainly try to do this from a traffic and commuting perspective every time my wife Momo and I travel. And we certainly gained some rich insights in the hours we spent on foot and in cars on the beautiful island of São Miguel in the Azores.

The Azores, consisting of nine major islands and some other smaller ones, belongs to Portugal and is roughly 900 miles west of the Iberian mainland. This means that the archipelago beats to its own rhythm and life moves on island time in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Ponta Delgada, São Miguel’s biggest city and biggest in the island group, was our hub and our hotel was right in the center of its busiest zone. This ordination made walking to some of the main tourist sites or restaurants incredibly easy.

Ponta Delgada, a city of more than 67,000 and the largest in the Azores, does not have ride-sharing, and São Miguel is much too small and sparsely populated to warrant any kind of train system. But a local public bus did operate and people could hail taxis.

We did not need either, as the city is extremely walkable and the excursions we booked outside of walking distance included guided transportation.

Being a pedestrian in any environment is a delicate song and dance because of the difference in speeds, shared spaces, and the fact that fast, heavy machinery holds a major protective advantage over the people outside of it.

In Ponta Delgada, many streets are incredibly narrow, simply because of the city planners having had to build for population density in a confined geographical space with rugged, volcanic terrain. Three- and four-story buildings line the corridors uniformly, apartments atop of storefronts. Very European.

This also means some sidewalks are also about one person wide. So people on foot often have to dip into the streets to avoid parked cars, construction workers, or other pedestrians.

But the narrow roads also help keep the speeds of drivers down. This phenomenon keeps that tango between people and cars mostly a harmonious one.

We spent hours in vehicles across several days, as tour companies took us to the island’s grand and beautiful sites. We observed our drivers behaving similarly to the ones that passed us when we were on foot: steady and chill. Azoreans move in vehicles on the aforementioned island time.

Those chill vibes radiate into their attitudes and actions, meaning aggression was an iota of what we are used to seeing on metro Atlanta roads. From what we saw, native drivers on São Miguel seemed to have an understanding. Their highs and lows were not too extreme. The only time we heard tires squeal were when cars had to make sharp turns on the basalt cobblestone, which makes up many of Ponta Delgada’s interior roads.

Momo and I actually walked about 3 miles from the city center to the airport’s terminal on our day of departure, something neither of us has ever done in any city of any size.

See how walkable Ponta Delgada is?

However, island time also factored into our only negative commuting experience. Ponta Delgada’s airport needs a lesson from Hartsfield-Jackson on moving people.

We arrived at a dozens-deep double set of lines at the ticket counters that took about an hour through which to move. Then our passport control line took roughly another half hour.

Azoreans are sweet people and are in little hurry. And their airport is woefully inefficient. Thank goodness ATL churns more than 100 million people through it each year like butter.

If Ponta Delgada faced the sprawl and population surge that metro Atlanta has for decades, my view of commuting there would probably sour. But spending hours on foot and in cars in the dense city center shows me that narrowing roads, making room for people on foot or on bikes, and lowering in-city speed limits in Greater Atlanta’s various cities could make multimodal commuting a lot safer and more attractive.

Even more important, many American drivers could use a little dose of island time before honking, speeding, swerving, and throwing the bird. That little adjustment, that crack of the throttle is contagious and could take the edge off that daily grind.

Doug Turnbull has covered Atlanta traffic for over 20 years and written “Gridlock Guy” since 2017. Doug also co-hosts the “Five to Go Podcast,” a weekly deep dive on stories in motorsports. Contact him at fireballturnbull@gmail.com.