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For walkers that represents quite a big detour, over 500 metres, so what about providing a more direct alternative? The most obvious alternative (orange above) would be to use the walkway across the top of the new Stop Gates just 85 metres to the east and easily accessible and viewable from both sides of the closed bridge. So what do Bristol City Council do? They erect security fencing either side of the stop gates to prevent people crossing! After all we can't have people resolving their own problems in a simple, straightforward and inexpensive way because then we might start asking ourselves what we actually need the Council for.
Instead the Council concoct a complicated, obscure and expensive 'solution', by funding (with our taxes) a 'free' ferry to connect across the east end of the Junction Lock (blue above). The designated ferry landing stages are at the Pumphouse and the Nova Scotia, each about 100 metres from the closed bridge. But of course it's not possible to view one landing stage from the other, so where does the ferry wait? It waits on the opposite bank at the Cottage landing stage because from there it is just possible, with good eyesight, to view both of the designated ferry landing stages.
So there we have our expensive and complicated 'solution', but how to make it obscure? Now this is where Bristol City Council come into their own. Most of us would take it for granted that such an arrangement would require very careful signing to ensure that people arriving at the bridge to find it closed were made aware of the alternative arrangements, in particular the location of the ferry landing stages and the procedure for attracting the ferry. But not Bristol City Council. What is blindingly obvious to the rest of us simply doesn't occur to them.
The end result is total confusion - no official signing except a pathetically (and ungrammatically) improvised bit of wood jammed in the railings on one side of the bridge, "half of Bristol" scrambling around security fences to try to get across the stop gates, cyclists and pedestrians wandering around trying to find an alternative crossing, a ferry boat waiting forlornly at a remote location on the opposite bank trying to observe potential passengers at landing stages over 130 metres away and walkers looking at deserted ferry landing stages wondering if and when a ferry might arrive. Who but Bristol City Council could manage to oversee such a hopeless cock-up?
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5 comments:
I couldn't help observing that the advance notice closure signs posted on the bridge a couple of weeks ago said, if I recall correctly, the bridge would be closed to traffic and pedestrians. I always thought pedestrians WERE traffic; yet another council cock-up.
Of course pedestrians are traffic but that's not widely understood so I think it fair that the signing should say something like 'closed to all traffic including pedestrians' to make it clear. But to say 'traffic and pedestrians' implies that they are separate entities.
It's not widely understood that a footpath can own a ferry either, so good that they put up the sign to educate people. What font is that they've used? It's got a very urban, modern, almost handwritten feel to it.
I expect the font's custom created by the Council's Graphic Design Services, at great public expense.
I should have pointed out that the arrangements for diverting motor traffic appeared to be quite thorough and well thought out with all the proper signing. It was only pedestrians (and cyclists who don't want to be diverted onto Brunel Way) who were neglected, so there's a surprise.
It's lucky we're paying a strategic leadership team and various hangers-on 6 figure salaries isn't it?
Imagine the state of the signage if the managers at the council were paid, say, a measly salary of just £50k per year.
Someone should send that photo of the sign to the FA to show what this city could do on the world stage ...
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