All Change at the Centre?

We've been hearing rumours for a while of plans for some radical changes to traffic patterns around the Centre and Bristol City Council decided to slip the controversial announcement out in the doldrums between Christmas and the New Year. Both the Evening Post and BBC picked it up, followed by a story on bike news site Road CC. The Post story attracted over 200 comments which is pretty good for the middle of a national holiday so they've run it for two more days. The proposals are shown in some detail on the map below (click to enlarge).

 The essential elements of the proposal are that Colston Street and Baldwin Street will be closed to general traffic (except buses and cyclists) at their junctions with the Centre (St Augustine's Parade, Broadquay and Colston Avenue) and the only route through the Centre for general traffic will be north-south (shown east-west on the maps) from below College Green through to Lewin's Mead. Movements via Baldwin Street will not be possible except by circuitous local links. In addition the ends of Denmark Street and St Stephen's Street will be closed off to all traffic to eliminate potential rat runs and further improve the pedestrian realm. The effect of the proposals is more clearly shown on this map.

The Council are consulting on the proposals and to their credit have adapted their 'Ask Bristol' site to become what is in effect a Wordpress blog enabling comments to be posted, viewed and even commented on in turn, in the familiar manner. So far the response to the blog style approach seems to be positive and it's certainly far more engaging that Ask Bristol's previous highly controlled nods towards public engagement.

Comments on the proposed Centre remodelling are predictably mixed and often polarised. Some think the Centre should revert to a glorified traffic roundabout as it was in the 1980s while others think the current proposals far too tame and unambitious. My view is that these are basically sound proposals that strike the right sort of balance between the need to reclaim more of the public realm from the car and the need to accommodate a reasonable level of vehicular access.

Of course there is much more that can and should be done but in reality these things need to be carried through incrementally so that they can bed in and we can all adjust. Too much change in one go will provoke a backlash (and we get a taste of that from the BEP comments) and undermine the longer term objectives. We want to make as much progress as possible but there are limits to how much change people will accept before things get nasty and I suspect these proposals are pushing at that limit already.

The closure of Colston Street in front of the Colston Hall (above foreground) will allow for the creation of a kind of Piazza and complement the work to upgrade the Colston Hall itself. The closure of the end of Baldwin St will remove much of the existing traffic in Baldwin St and even in Park St since Park Row will generally provide the most direct route towards the south and east of the city. Pedestrian movements from the Centre towards the Old City (Corn St) and Broadmead will be much less interrupted by traffic flows into Baldwin St.

The Closure of other streets that currently connect to the Centre, like Denmark St and St Stephen’s St will improve pedestrian permeability and safety and bring those streets into the Centre 'ambience' and perhaps improve trade for businesses in those streets. Restricting the main north-south St Augustine’s Parade traffic to two lanes will allow for reasonable access but discourage through traffic and so minimise the impact of the remaining traffic. This could be complemented by making the whole Centre area subject to 20 mph limits to reduce potential conflict with pedestrians.

There is clearly much detailed work to be done to refine the proposals, for example in terms of accommodating cycle movements and providing priority crossings for pedestrians, but the big battle is to get the main thrust of the proposals accepted. As with the 20 mph proposals, we can play an important role in bringing that about. The Ask Bristol site gives us a suitable platform so let's all give Jon Rogers the support he deserves in trying to bring these much needed changes forward.

Going Down

While public lifts perform a valuable role in the wider world, acting not only as an encouragement to pedestrians and cyclists but also as major tourist attractions, as we see in pictures here from Lisbon (45 metres high) and Oregon (40 metres), here in Bristol, with its proud tradition of technical innovation and now Cycling City, even a modest suggestion for a 30 metre high public lift for cyclists and pedestrians to be built on the side of the unprepossessing Trenchard Street multi-storey car park is met with contempt.



However to his credit the City Council's Executive Member for Transport, Cllr Jon Rogers, has not joined in the popular derision but is, he says, keeping an open mind about the possibility. In fact he made some enquiries about the status quo with the existing Trenchard Street lifts which have been used by cyclists for decades as a way of avoiding slogging up the Park Street escarpment. He helpfully posted the reply he had from officers as a comment on yesterday's Evening Post Traffic Lights piece (in response to an earlier enquiry about why the "NCP car park on Park Row now prevented people - primarily the elderly and disabled from using their lifts") and it's worth a read -

"Trenchard Street Multi-Storey Car Park is serviced by three lifts. The original lift cars were constructed with the car park and are approximately 40 years old. We commenced a major refurbishment programme of the lifts in April 2009. Two of the lifts have now been fully refurbished and the third one should be completed by the end of November 2009. The cost of the refurbishment project is £340,000.

"The refurbishment of the lifts has been undertaken for the following reasons:

"There were health & safety concerns regarding the reliability of the lifts. The age, general wear and tear and vandalism of the lifts had resulted in a significant number of lift failures resulting in poor customer service, and unfortunately, an increasing number of more serious incidents of customers being trapped within the lifts causing distress and inconvenience.

"The increasing difficulty in maintaining the lifts and sourcing spares because of the age of the installation.

"The lifts failed to comply with the DDA 1995.

"It has been found that approximately 60% of the users of the old lifts in the car park were not people who were parking there. Instead they were pedestrians and cyclists who were using the lifts as a short cut between Trenchard St and Park Row. This practice had resulted in fee-paying customers either being delayed or, in some cases, being excluded from the lifts because of the space taken up by the bikes and other users. There were also incidents of customers having their clothes marked by oil and dirt from bikes. Usage of the lifts by non-customers has added significantly to running costs (maintenance and energy), as well as reducing the life of the lifts.

"In view of the above, it was decided that when the lifts were replaced the car park tickets would operate them, as this would improve the environment and service to our customers by reducing waiting times. Limiting their use to fee-paying car park users will also reduce future wear and tear to the lifts, and hopefully also reduce the amount of vandalism occurring. We should also benefit from reduced energy and maintenance costs.

"If we were to allow non-customers to use the lifts again this would counter the above benefits of the refurbishment project for the management of this car park.

"Arguably if we were to introduce a charge for using the lifts the associated additional maintenance and energy costs could be recovered but customer wait time would increase making it a less attractive car park for users. It would also be difficult and expensive to introduce a charging regime for non-car users. If a scheme of charging none car-park users were to be introduced we would once again encounter problems of lift overcrowding and the potential for customers to damage their clothing. On balance therefore it is believed that the current limitation on lift usage is appropriate.

Jon Rogers goes on to note in the comment that "The interesting thing about this response is that it does show a demand for the lift in Trenchard Street by cyclists, pedestrians, parents with buggies and disabled people who don't have a car parked there. This was part of the suggestion from Chris Hutt for a bicycle lift up the outside of the car park."



Indeed the officer reply informs us that the majority use of the lifts was by pedestrians and cyclists rather than motorists! Clearly such an intolerable situation could not be allowed to continue in Cycling City and they have now spent a substantial sum on a mechanism (above) specifically to deny the opportunity of using the lifts to mere cyclists and pedestrians. Need I say more?

Carnage in Cycling City

Almost every day there seems to be another report of cyclists being injured by vans and lorries here in Cycling City. Yesterday a Bristol Traffic reporter witnessed the aftermath of such an incident in Ashley Road where a cyclist in her 20s was run over by a left turning lorry.

The day before a 52 year old cyclist was hit by a van on Winterstoke Road and is now reported to have died from his head injuries (yes, he was wearing a helmet). Later on the same day a cyclist in his 20s was run over by a left turning lorry at Old Market. Last Thursday a cyclist in his 30s was run over by a left turning lorry at the bottom of St Michael's Hill. Finally (sadly only for the purposes of this piece) just four weeks ago a cyclist was knocked down by an ambulance at the bottom of Tower Hill.


View Cycle and ped injury incidents in a larger map

We cannot comment on the individual circumstances of these collisions beyond what basic information is given in reports (and even then we must be wary of accepting such reports as accurate). But we can make a few observations about the circumstances that seem to be common (though not necessarily contributory factors) to several of these incidents. Firstly all involved commercial vehicles presumably driven by "professional" drivers. Secondly three involved lorries turning left. Thirdly in most cases there were cycle lanes which it seems the cyclists involved were using.

If my experience is typical then cyclists need to be more wary of "professional" drivers than the average motorist. This applies to many bus and taxi drivers as well as those of vans and lorries. There are many reasons for this - they tend to be driving bigger, wider vehicles, they are under pressure to meet schedules and they tend to be over-confident and blasé, even arrogant. But should we not expect higher standards from "professional" drivers?



Left turning lorries are well documented as a problem for cyclists, especially the younger and inexperienced ones and it seems particularly women (as in yesterday's Cheltenham Road - Ashley Road incident and a string of recent deaths in London). This may be because lorry drivers are negligent about checking their left side for clearance before turning and because inexperienced cyclists have not yet learned to be wary of lorries. But should cyclists have to compensate for what is arguably negligence by the drivers involved?

In many cases cyclists are encouraged to overtake on the inside of potentially left turning traffic by the arrangement of cycle lanes. The Cheltenham Road - Ashley road junction is a classic where cyclists mostly going straight on are funnelled into a cycle lane on the left side of the left turning lane. This so obviously sets cyclists up to be in conflict with motor traffic that one wonders at the sanity of the world, or at least of the so-called 'cycling' officers responsible for it.



Final point - what support are these cyclists getting from Cycling City? If I was running the show the first thing I would do is set up a Cyclists' Support Centre, somewhere where cyclists could drop in and get a sympathetic hearing and practical support in their struggle to assert their right to use the public highway. But as we know almost the first act of Cycling City was to vilify cyclists who rode through red lights and so to fuel the antipathy to cyclists expressed in many of the online comments to the Evening Post reports.

Thanks to Bristol Traffic for the pictures.

Hourbike Launched with a Whimper

A report in today's Evening Post tells us that Hourbike has been officially launched in Bristol with four hubs, each with about 4 bikes, in central Bristol to complement the four pilot sites at Bristol Parkway and UWE (map here). The story includes a quote from my previous blogpost on Hourbike where I gave a predictably downbeat verdict. But it seems I'm not the only one with doubts about the viability of the scheme.



The Cycling City project seem to be disowning the project, claiming that the funding of £12,000 from Bristol City Council isn't Cycling City money and that Hourbike is not part of Cycling City. This is quite remarkable since all the evidence is that this was envisaged as being an integral part of Cycling City. The media certainly gave that impression at the launch of Cycling City last year and nothing was said to disabuse them of that idea.

The Post report says nothing about any official launch ceremony and so we might conclude that Cycling City don't want it to have a high profile. Even the inevitable Jon Rogers quote is quite guarded.

"Anything that encourages people to leave the car behind and find a healthy, sustainable way of getting about the city has to be welcomed. This pilot scheme will give us the opportunity to see what kind of demand there might be for a more widespread network in Bristol. We certainly wish Hourbike all the best."

Damned by faint praise? But it seems that the promoters of Hourbike have more than enough chutzpah to compensate for the fainthearts elsewhere. Dan Cooper, 28, Hourbike's sole employee in Bristol and nephew of Hourbike boss Tim Caswell (now, now, let's not hear the N word), said

"This can definitely work in Bristol. It cannot fail as an idea."

Mr Cooper goes on to say that there could one day be 2,000 of their bikes on the streets of Bristol (and will it endure for a thousand years too?). But he neglects to mention that the best known automated bike hire schemes, in Paris and Barcelona, were actually launched with thousands of bikes available from hundreds of locations, not just eight hubs that don't as yet even include the central railway station (a minor detail overlooked by the promotional video below).

According to Mr Cooper there are plans to open new hubs, subject to planning permission, in Temple Meads and Temple Quay. One wonders why they need planning permission at these locations but not elsewhere, and why have they been so tardy about progressing a hub at such a key location as Temple Meads. Are First Great Western perhaps lukewarm about encouraging cycling or getting cold feet about their involvement?

If Mr Cooper and family are so confident about the future success of the Hourbike project why have they come cap in hand for public funds to support it instead of raising the funds privately? Surely if it "cannot fail" then it can only succeed and prove a profitable venture? Or is it that no private investor will touch it with a barge pole?



Video summary. Desperation (How to get to the train station in 5 minutes?), Pacification (Ah, an Hourbike Hub), Expectation (This is quick, I'll soon be there), Acclamation (Ah, Temple Meads at last), Realisation (There's no fucking Hub here to deposit the bike!).

Cycling City - New for Old

There's an interesting debate going on in connection with Cycling City. What constitutes a "new" route as opposed to an existing route that has been improved in some way? The latest installment in this debate occurred yesterday with this story in the Evening Post claiming that "Two new links from the Bristol and Bath Railway Path could benefit cyclists and walkers living in Speedwell, St George, Redfield and Whitehall ".



The routes in question, shown on the map above (click to enlarge) by #24 and #25, are essentially existing routes (shown on the map below) which are already used by cyclists. However 'improvements' are proposed, including such things as light controlled road crossings and improved surfaces and realignments in places. So is it right to call them "new links"? As you can see from the comments on the article I accused the council of 'lying' over this use of the word "new" but Jon Rogers, the Executive Member for Transport, said -

This is a public consultation to create two new cycle links. True, the paths already exist, but the plan is to consult local residents and users of the Railway Path on improvements to the links to make them more suitable for cycling and walking. Words like "upgraded" or "improved" might strictly be more accurate than "new", but to accuse Bristol City Council of "lying" seems a bit strong.

Chris, we had the same sterile and pedantic discussion on the St Werburghs to Muller Road path, but if you travel along it you will see there is a "new path". The path is also "improved" and "upgraded".

The council press release for the opening of the St Werburghs path said "Bristol's trailblazing Cycling City programme has delivered the first completed kilometre of a new off-road cycle route". Note "route" rather than "path", so the "new" claim refers to the overall existence of the route, not some facet of it such as the new asphalt surface of the path. Yet it is well known that the very same route has been used by cyclists for at least the last 20 years.


The as yet non-existent link to Speedwell, actually built in 1980s.

The problem dates back to the beginning of the Cycling City project. For example the promotional leaflet issued in February of this year, at the first (so far) relaunch, included the map above which shows proposed "new infrastructure" (dark blue lines) and "new infrastructure on existing network" (broad cerise lines). So clearly the "new infrastructure" (dark blue) is by implication NOT on the existing network.

But the St Werburghs route (#2 on map above), which might reasonably be described as "new infrastructure on existing network" is in fact marked in dark blue and therefore as "new infrastructure" NOT on the existing network. Likewise the proposed "new link" to Speedwell (#24 on the map above) is shown as "new infrastructure" (dark blue) when it is in fact based on the existing network and so should properly be marked cerise). Are these "sterile and pedantic" distinctions?



Oddly enough the other "new link" (to St George) claimed in yesterday's Post story is shown merely as "existing network", but for a small element within it. So they can get it right occasionally, if only because they can't manage to be consistent about anything, even their deceits. The map shows many other examples of existing routes which are misrepresented as "new infrastructure", in fact most of what is marked in dark blue within the Cycling City area is existing cycle route.

Cycling City claims that it will deliver "13 miles of new track and 18 miles of improvements to the existing 73 miles of off-road track". So far, one year into the three year project, they have delivered less than half a mile of improved track. The 13 miles figure is pure fiction (and probably the other figures too, although I'm not yet in a position to prove that) and that fact will continue to be exposed on this blog until such time as the council come clean and withdraw all the false claims made in support of Cycling City.

Prince Street Bridge - More Evasion

At last the Bristol Evening Post has picked up on the story about the proposed closure of Prince Street Bridge to cars as part of the Bus Rapid Transit plans of the West of England Partnership. Despite the obvious evidence of their own published plans the West of England Partnership are still trying to pretend that nothing has been decided with this extraordinary comment from spokesperson Julia Dean-

"The idea is at a very early stage. Just because this idea has been put forward does not mean it will happen. We don't work out all the details before putting a bid in because you would never put in a bid."

So here we are with details published and a bid submitted for Government funding with the prospect of construction within a few years and they actually expect us to believe that it's still just a rough, back-of-the-envelope idea and they haven't even decided on such a key element and major cost item as whether a new bridge will be required at Prince Street.



Fellow blogger Stockwoodpete has also looked into this same issue in his more thorough and painstaking way and highlighted the contradictory position of the Conservatives on this issue. Their leader Richard Eddy has been a prominent opponent of the closure of Prince Street Bridge to cars over many years and confirmed for the Post -

"I would strongly oppose any design solution that would banish private traffic from using Prince Street Bridge."

Yet his Conservative colleague Cllr Barbara Lewis cancelled the Scrutiny Committee of the West of England Partnership which was due to sit yesterday and which could have asked pertinent questions.



The truth of course is that there is absolutely no chance of a new bridge at Prince Street and the BRT bendy-buses will have to use the existing bridge, possibly with some strengthening to take the weight and with the east side footway removed but otherwise unmodified. To allow BRT buses relatively free movement on the approaches to Prince Street Bridge, including stops on the north side and egress from the planned busway behind the new Museum of Bristol, requires that most other traffic is displaced. But of course in true Bristol Fashion that simple truth must be kept from the public for as long as possible, especially in the run up to local elections.



Later edit (12 noon) - Mark Bradshaw has kindly supplied a link to the report to Bristol City Council on 2nd February, item 7, which gives the general background, although on Prince Street Bridge it says little more than "the existing bridge will need to be modified or replaced to provide a crossing for Rapid Transit whilst retaining local access".

However the report on the initial consultation refers to concern expressed over the impact on Prince Street Bridge by English Heritage, Redcliffe Community Forum, Bristol Urban Design Forum, the City Urban Design Team (BCC Planning), the Harbour Master and an assortment of 'Environment Goups'. In addition the Broadmead Board favoured the removal of traffic from along The Cut and Prince Street Bridge.

New Infrastructure or Old Rope?

Old habits die hard in Bristol City Council. Despite pledges from the new Cabinet Member for Transport and Sustainability, Jon Rogers, for a more open and honest regime, we find the stream of misleading press releases remains unabated. Take this simple report in today's Evening Post (which we must presume to be based on a Council Press release although nothing is shown at the time of posting on their site) under the headline "Plans for new Bristol cycle route"-

Views are being sought on plans to create a cycle link between Muller Road and Constable Road in Horfield. Bristol City Council is building a cycle route from the city centre to the north of the city as part of its £22.8-million Cycling City project. Work to build a path between St Werburgh’s and Muller Road has begun and the council has drawn up proposals for the route from Muller Road, through Petherbridge Way, along Dovercourt Road and into Constable Road.

Innocent sounding enough, but totally misleading. The cycle route "being built" by the City Council to the north of the city is not "new" at all but has existed and been in use by cyclists for decades. For the most part the work consists of improvements such as path widening and surface upgrades. Generally welcome stuff but hardly justification for claiming a "new cycle route". Even the "link" being "created" is not "between Muller Road and Constable Road" as claimed but is just 100 metres from Petherbridge Way (B&Q access) to Dovercourt Road. All the rest of the 1.2 km from Muller Road to Constable Road already exists.



Granted this short link at the bottom of Dovercourt Road could be useful if well designed (a big 'if'). It will save about 100 metres (about 30 seconds of travel time) compared to the nearest available existing route and may link more easily into the upgraded path from St Werburghs. The Council's own background paper gives a perfectly reasonable outline of the proposal so why not just announce it as a useful link rather than pretend it constitutes some major new route?

Sadly most of the proposed Cycling City infrastructure is of the same nature. A sprinkling of more or less useful links, new or upgraded, along existing cycle routes but talked up into being completely new cycle routes. How does this wilful misrepresentation fit with Jon Rogers' call for openness and honesty? Someone somewhere just isn't getting the message.

More Brunel Bungles

Bristol's Cycling City project seems to have an unlucky streak when it comes to trying to link schemes to our local engineering icon I K Brunel. Back in December this blog exposed the underhand attempt by the City Council and Sustrans to quietly drop their previous commitment to bring back into use Brunel's Swivel Bridge which lies forlornly under the shadow of the 1965 high-level swing bridge at the Cumberland Basin.



The story was picked up by the Evening Post, who reported the claim made by Sustrans' President John Grimshaw back in December 2007 that the use of Brunel's bridge would be "the icing on the cake" for the proposed cycle route. Grimshaw said "One key part will be the reinstatement of Brunel's so-called forgotten bridge". Then late last year the City Council apparently decided it was a daft idea after all and opted for a new crossing built on top of the existing lock gates (which may find English Heritage less than impressed).



So you would think the Council might tread warily in seeking to find some new pretext to associate this cycle route link with Brunel. But not so. Yesterday their latest proposals for the new link across the top of the lock gates were published, entitled the Brunel Lock Link, so named of course because it's a link designed to provide a new crossing of a lock built by, er, Thomas Howard.

Brunel did build a lock nearby, an upgrade of an earlier lock built by Jessop, but it proved inadequate and was abandoned in favour of Howard's new entrance lock, built in 1873 and used to this day. The abandoned lock is already crossed by a replica of Brunel's Swivel Bridge (foreground below) and the proposed cycle route will also use this crossing, but it still seems a rather tenuous connection with the Brunel name when the principal feature will be a crossing of the Howard Lock which signally fails to use Brunel's original Swivel Bridge.



The odd thing about this Sustrans / City Council obsession with establishing a Brunel themed link across Howard's Entrance Lock is that it actually fails to serve the main desire line for cyclists which will be towards the city centre, much better served by the swing bridge over the Junction Lock at the other end of the Cumberland Basin. If English Heritage cotton on to this they may be even more reluctant to agree to what would inevitably be a discordant addition to the historic lock structures.

Carbon Bullshitters

This one's already been covered by other bloggers but it's a classic so here goes. It comes from an Evening Post story posted last Friday which reported that an Easyjet passenger flying from Bristol to Inverness had inadvertently carried some shotgun cartridges onto the plane in his coat pocket and that this had not been picked up by the security screening at Bristol Airport, although they managed to detect and confiscate his toothpaste and aftershave.



But the really interesting bit of the story, apparently unnoticed by the Post reporter or editor, is that the passenger was one of a group of four from the 'green consultancy' Carbon Managers, of Beckington near Bath, who were on a business trip to plant trees in the Highlands of Scotland. I need hardly spell out the contradictions in this. According to the Carbon Neutral flight calculator the four of them together will have generated no less than 1,200 kilograms of Carbon Dioxide by flying the 750 kms between Bristol and Inverness, plus of course that generated by driving at either end, hotel accommodation, etc.


It would of course have been much less damaging if they'd travelled by train, even taking account of the longer distance by rail (900 kms instead of 750 kms). According to CO2 balance their CO2 emissions if travelling by train would have been around 440 kgs, although if the four had shared a small car this would have brought the figure down to 330 kgs of CO2. But even these levels of CO2 emissions are nothing to be complacent about since they're still more than the emissions of one person making the return flight.

The strangest thing about the story is that it didn't appear to occur to these so-called 'green consultants' that publicising their flight to Inverness to plant trees might not make terribly good publicity. I guess they are so out of touch with the green debate that they thought it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

Brunel Bridge in Post

The story about the Brunel Swivel Bridge being dropped from the planned Festival Way cycle and walking route, which was broken here earlier this week, has now been picked up by the Evening Post. The Post article gives more details of the 'promises' made by Sustrans to the effect that the historic swing bridge would be included in the route. According to the Post -

A year ago Sustran's former chief executive John Grimshaw told The Post work on the bridge would be "the icing on the cake" for the new path.

Speaking about the scheme last December (2007) Mr Grimshaw said: "One key part will be the reinstatement of Brunel's so-called 'forgotten bridge' now enjoying the media spotlight of national and local news coverage". But now it appears that is off the table.

The question that inevitably arises is whether the promoters of the Festival Way, Bristol City Council and Sustrans, ever really thought that using the Brunel Bridge was a realistic option. To those of us familiar with Sustran's modus operandi it would come as no surprise to learn that the the idea of using the bridge had only been incorporated into the plans to win support from influential local groups like Clifton & Hotwells Improvement Society (CHIS) and Hotwells and Cliftonwood Community Association, both of whom have supported the restoration of the bridge.

No doubt every effort will now be made to show that the restoration of the Brunel Bridge to working order would be prohibitively expensive, but will the assessment of the options, including the current plan for a new crossing on top of the lock gates (pic below), be made public so that we can see for ourselves and, if necessary, get a second opinion? Up till now it appears to have been handled in a typically secretive way, even though the project is being funded by the public.



Another complicating factor has come to light. For technical reasons it is necessary to keep the lock gates open at times of high tide (about 200 times a year) to allow water heading up the river to spread into the docks rather than flood. At these times, which can each last for up to an hour, a lock gate crossing, as is now planned, would be closed to users who would then have to follow diversions which would bring them into conflict with motor traffic. The Brunel Bridge could remain in use at such times.

What is at stake here is more than just the restoration of the Brunel Bridge but the status of the planned cycle/walking route which needs to 'showcase' a change in priorities away from catering for cars and towards catering for people-powered travel. That means that salient features like bridge crossings need to be perceived as prestigious as well as commodious, in the way that has been achieved with a string of new traffic free bridges across the Floating Harbour further upstream such as the Cheesegrater Bridge.



Of course it is not inconceivable that a new crossing built on top of the lock gates could be prestigious and commodious, but given the evidence that the Festival Way project is now being driven by a parsimonious approach to funding on new infrastructure it seems unlikely. If however significant funding is available for the creation of a suitably prestigious structure, why not kill two birds as it were and combine that with the restoration of an important example of Brunel's engineering genius?

Police Raid PR Archives

Avon & Somerset Police appear to be quite concerned about suggestions that they are carrying out a purge against cyclists following their high profile attempts to enforce traffic regulations being breached by cyclists over the last week. Media attention has been intense with hundreds commenting via the Evening Post's online edition.



Claims of discrimination against cyclists are based on the fact that most traffic offenses perpetrated by motorists continue to be almost entirely ignored. However on Wednesday a story appeared in the Evening Post giving details of 'Operation Safer Bristol' which uses Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to detect vehicles that are stolen or not taxed and insured. More than 1,000 vehicles have been stopped, 93 people arrested and 200 vehicles seized.

Good news, but just how 'new' is it? Much the same story had appeared in the Post the previous day and that in turn was a rehash of the original story that appeared back in October, when the bulk of the enforcement was actually carried out. So why has this old story suddenly reappeared twice in quick succession, just as some cyclists are asking why only they are expected to obey road traffic regulations?

Cycling at Christmas - that's a £30 fine

As I write Mark Bradshaw, Bristol City Council's executive member for transport, is speaking on Radio Bristol and seems intent on making himself loathed by another section of Bristol's traveling public by fronting a joint Council and Police purge against cyclists who are trying to cope with Bristol's notoriously cycle-hostile streets by sometimes cycling on pavements. The hapless Bradshaw, who is not even a cyclist, presumes to tell us how we should conduct ourselves when he has little understanding of the issues.



For at least 30 years cyclists' groups have been pleading with Bristol City Council (and its precursor Avon) to make the road infrastructure safe and convenient for cyclists and pedestrians. We have even promoted, on our own initiative and at our own expense, a wide variety of ideas to address this including traffic calming, 20 mph speed limits, contra-flow cycle lanes and home zones, yet little of this has been implemented and the highway network remains overwhelmingly dedicated to giving priority to speeding motor traffic.

The manifest failure of the Council to heed the warnings has resulted in them being ill-prepared to accommodate the growing popularity of cycling. Their fumbling and bungling approach to Cycling City illustrates this very well. Is not the fundamental purpose of Cycling City to 'encourage' cycling? So what is one of the Council's first Cycling City initiatives - the persecution of cyclists to appease a minority of reactionary Evening Post readers!

Cyclists, being a smallish minority group, have always been perceived as convenient scapegoats to blame for society's traffic ills, as I can attest from direct experience sitting on a road safety committee 25 years ago (when cyclists did by and large obey traffic regulations but were nevertheless always cited as the greatest threat to road safety). So we now see that Bristol City Council's approach to Cycling City includes the encouragement and legitimisation of the scapegoating of cyclists!



Famous Jewish joke. A Nazi asked a Jew who is to blame for society's ills. The Jew says "the Jews and the cyclists". The Nazi says "Why the cyclists?". The Jew says "why the Jews?".

New Cycling City joke. Bradshaw asks a cyclist who is to blame for the traffic problems. The cyclist says "the cyclists and the Somalis." Bradshaw says "why the Somalis?".

Who's "Completely Pointless"?

George Ferguson has responded in a typically bullish fashion to the belated reporting in the Evening Post of the questions to Cabinet tabled by Tory councillor Ashley Fox referring to the city council's sale of Railway Path land to Squarepeg. Ferguson dismissed the land as "a completely pointless bit of scrub land".



As can be seen from the picture below the embankment slope earmarked for development by Squarepeg supports 150 metres of mature hawthorn hedge which dates back to the days of steam railway operations. This type of hedgerow is very characteristic of former railways and provides a prominent landscape feature and valuable wildlife corridor, as evidenced by the designation of the Railway path as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI).

Prior to Ferguson's involvement, the hedgerow and embankment slope had been cited as worthy of preservation by Bristol City Council itself in 2002 in connection with the housing development along Greenbank Road affecting an eastward extension of the same land. The council's Nature Conservation Officer then said "the hedge adjacent to the cycleway should be retained......The area of more mature trees at the Famous Names end of the site should be retained for wildlife purposes".

In the same report the council's Landscape Officer said "the mature hedge is of merit in landscape terms and also forms a valuable part of the Citywide Site of Nature Conservation Interest covered by NE5, represented by this section of the cyclepath. It is imperative that it be retained. Its root zone should be protected. The 'garden area' at the Famous Names end of the site which had scrub and small trees on it ... should be fenced off completely during the development period to protect the existing flora and fauna".

More recently in the case of the previous planning application for the Chocolate Factory site by Persimmon (which did not include any railway path land) the council were keen to stress that measures should be taken "to ensure that vegetation along the cycle track be protected during construction", the same vegetation that they are now happy to see condemned as "completely pointless". As for the "garden area" of "more mature trees" referred to by both officers in the 2002 report (pictured below), that is now to be largely destroyed for a 4 storey block of flats just 4 metres from the tarmac path.

Ferguson goes on to claim that "the sale of (the "completely pointless" land) enables what will be one of the most interesting, mixed-use regeneration schemes in the country". Not true, since the development would have been more or less as viable without the extra land. indeed Squarepeg went ahead and bought the Chocolate Factory land for £5 million in January of this year, at a time when the City Council were indicating quite clearly that the Railway Path land was not for sale.

Bristol City Council, not to be outdone even by the greenwash meister in the disinformation stakes, waded in with "(the council) is finalising an in-principle agreement to sell a small strip of land so that some houses could be accessed by bikes from the cycle track". Again not true. The land being sold is to accommodate a 7 storey tower and several houses. The Council spokesperson appears to be 'confusing' the land sale with a separate arrangement to allow 'easements' across a long strip of the grass verge of the Path for access purposes.

So Ferguson's "completely pointless" jibe may not find favour in many quarters, but such is his unassailable self-belief that he chooses to confront the concerns of ecologists and environmentalists head-on. It seems that every scrap of green space left in the city is only of value as a blank canvass for the works of our great architect.

Bridges, Bikes and BRT

The Prince Street Bridge saga continues with a new exchange of fire last week. First the Bristol Cycling Campaign issued a Press Release which appeared in Wednesday's Evening Post under the headline "So who does want this bridge ban?". We (I'm one of them) pointed out that there were few benefits to cyclists in the proposed closure of half the bridge to motor traffic and some quite significant disbenefits like having to jostle for space with pedestrians and squeezing past queues of cars, engines running, waiting for the shuttle signals to change.



We also pointed out that the partial closure seemed to be inspired by the need to pave the way for the proposed Bus Rapid Transit route from Ashton Vale. This was supported by the simulation (now reissued with cars driving on left hand side of the road instead of the right!) and map issued by the BRT promoters themselves the previous week which showed the route passing over Prince Street Bridge and was further confirmed by the Council declining to take the opportunity to comment on why their original Press Release bizarrely referred to Prince Street Bridge having only one footway.

But last Thursday a response came from BRT promoters West of England Partnership (WoEP - who for practical purposes are Bristol City Council) with a story appearing in Friday's Evening Post headlined "New harbour bridge for Bristol's rapid transit bus route" and implying that the BRT buses might cross the Harbour on a new bridge alongside the existing swing bridge. However the WoEP spokesperson's quoted comments said no more than "... the city council is also looking at ways to cater for access over Prince Street bridge". Hmm, not exactly what it says on the tin.

We are told that the budget for the whole BRT route is just £26 million. This already has to cover the construction of new guided bus track work from the Long Ashton P&R site right through to Prince Street Bridge, including a new bridge over the Portbury railway line, a new foot/cycle bridge alongside the Ashton Avenue Bridge (old railway bridge), which itself will need renovation to take buses, and relaying the single track railway along the Cut. According to the WoEP spokesperson "...bridge works are expected to be almost a quarter of the costs at around six to seven million pounds".



Now bridges don't come cheap, especially not opening bridges capable of carrying bendy-buses (which weigh in at 16 tonnes each) in a 'heritage' area, where appearance will be hugely important. The current view of Prince Street Bridge from Harbourside is one of those iconic views of Bristol. If that view is to be obscured by a new bridge they're not going to get away with some utilitarian steel and concrete structure.

Even in the less environmentally sensitive area of Temple Quay the new, non-opening Cheesegrater footbridge came in at £2.4 million, so they'd be lucky to get a new opening BRT bridge for the whole of their bridge budget. And it looks as if a new bridge would have to span a much wider gap than the existing swing bridge. In any case wouldn't it be cheaper to build a new footbridge for walkers and cyclists, which could be raised higher to minimise the need to open it for navigation, and keep the existing bridge for the bendy-buses? The figures and the facts don't really stack up.

So it looks like WoEP (alias Bristol City Council) are hyping up the notion of a new BRT bridge just to take the heat off Bristol City Council (alias WoEP), who are looking increasingly out of step and isolated with their ill thought out plan for partial closure which they tried to pass off as a benefit to cyclists. The Council must be wondering why they're getting such poor advice on cycling matters from their Cycling City partners Sustrans.

Ministry of Silly Walks

A few weeks ago the Evening Post reported the launch of a new web site, walkit.com, giving walking routes between places in and around Bristol. You can choose the most direct route or a less 'busy' one to avoid traffic. It even tells you the distance, likely journey time and how many calories you burn up and how many kilograms of CO2 you 'save' in the process.

All the power of modern computing dedicated to making route finding a piece of cake. So much better than just pointing yourself in the right direction and hoping for the best. Err, actually no. The database is so sloppily prepared that it often dishes up the most absurd routes that even an inebriate staggering back from a pub crawl would be hard put to rival.

Many hours of amusement can be had putting the site to the test, so I've decided to launch a competition to find the most absurd walking routes. The prizes will be £10 vouchers for consumer goodies from a Clifton deli, one prize will be for the 'direct' walking route with the highest ratio between the walkit route and the real world direct route and the other prize will be for the most 'entertaining' walkit route in terms of its failure to identify the best available walking routes. Competition entries can be posted as a comment below.



Here's my entry for highest ratio of walkit distance compared to reality. It's a 2 km walk from Pill to Shirehampton, which of course can be made via the Avonmouth Bridge (above) in about 20 minutes. But not if you follow walkit, which will send you on a 3 hour, 14 km trek via the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which gives a walkit/reality distance ration of 7! That's good but not necessarily unbeatable. Remember it's the ratio that scores, not the distance differential, so quite short walks can and often do throw up equal absurdities.



And here's my entry for the most entertaining category. It's from Temple Meads station to Princess Street in the Dings, just the other side of the River Avon, and as we all know there's an almost perfectly straight link between the two using the Dings Railway Path (above) and the Cheesegrater Bridge, but walkit send us on a much more entertaining route around the houses, doubling the distance and of course the calories consumed, so they obviously have our best interests at heart.

But before you get carried away with the idea of calculating your annual calorie consumption and/or carbon savings you might like to compare a journey from say the bottom of Park Street to the top, and then the other way around. Yes, you guessed it - the calorie consumption figure is the same. In other words the site takes no account of gradients, which in a city like Bristol is quite a significant consideration.

I hear that the same bunch of incompetents who cobbled together the walkit site are now working on a cycling site, presumably to be called bikeit. This should be even more amusing if previous risible efforts are anything to go by.

A Pack of Lies

You know how it is when you read a newspaper report about something that you happen to know about and you're aghast at how many facts are just plain wrong, not to mention the malicious spin put on it to serve editorial purposes. So it is with Bristol City Council press releases.

The press release which contained the revelation about Prince Street Bridge having just one footway is in fact a masterpiece of deception with no less than ten misleading or untrue statements within its 16 paragraphs. Here's a breakdown.

Para 1. "the city council and its partners prepare ... to turn the south west's biggest city into one of the best places in Europe to be on a bike."

Wrong. It's ludicrous to claim that Bristol could become one of Europe's best places to cycle. It's never going to be in the same league as cities like Copenhagen (dk), Malmo (se), Amsterdam (nl), Ferrara (it), Basel (ch) and Muenster (de).

Para 2. “Plans …. include two new major ‘off-road’ commuter routes”

Wrong. The off-road routes proposed are not "new" but upgrades or extensions of existing routes and not even major ones at that.

Para 4. “Councillor Mark Bradshaw… said: Our city already has a tremendous range of facilities and routes for cycling”

Wrong. With the exception of the Railway Path, facilities and routes for cyclists are widely regarded as poor quality and ill-thought out.

Para 7. “The city council is prepared to take some tough decisions, such as tackling safety concerns on Prince Street Bridge”

Wrong. The tough decision would have been to close the bridge entirely to cars and assign one half to walkers and the other to cyclists. As it is they’ve opted for the easy option of keeping it open to cars and forcing cyclists and walkers to share an inadequate width.

Para 9. “One of the new ‘off-road’ routes proposed …. will link the city centre with Lockleaze …. via a new path between Hopetown (sic) Road in St Werburgh’s and Muller Road, Horfield.”

Wrong. The path from Hopetoun Road to Muller Road already exists and has been used by cyclists for 20 years or more.

Para 10. “The other new ‘off road’ route ….. will enable cyclists to travel into the city centre from south Bristol via Hartcliffe Way and an improved Malago Greenway”

Wrong. Cyclists can already cycle this route and have been doing so for 20 years. Upgrading the route does not make it “new”.

Para 12. “The first phase of Cycling City work also proposes to deliver an improved route for cyclists and pedestrians alike across the city’s Prince Street bridge.”

Wrong. There is no evidence that the route will be improved for cyclists who will find themselves forced onto half the width they currently enjoy and probably into conflict with pedestrians.

Para 12. “This narrow swing bridge over the historic Floating Harbour has a slim pavement on one side only and poses a danger for cyclists…”

Wrong. There are pavements on both sides and there is no evidence of significant danger from this to cyclists.

Para 12. “The Cycling City proposal will see the introduction of more space for cyclists …”

Wrong. Cyclists will have less space than they enjoy at present and it isn't even clear how pedestrians will benefit.

Para 13. “Initial improvements … will include new direction and information signs for the popular Bristol to Bath ‘Railway’ Path through eastern and central Bristol”

Wrong. The Railway Path does not go “through” central Bristol, just east Bristol.

As if all that wasn't enough the author of the press release, Simon Carplan, made a comment on the Bristol Blogger site yesterday complaining that his colleague Kate Hartas had been criticised for writing the misleading press release when in fact he had written it (but not put his name to it).

Carplan went on to claim that "the decision to focus on the proposals for Prince Street Bridge in this piece of publicity .... was deliberate and designed to ensure that the council were open and honest with the public about the scheme". But the news about Prince Street Bridge is hardly the focus of the press release, that being Cycling City.

It would be closer to the truth to say that the Prince Street Bridge news was ‘buried away’ inside the Cycling City news. It doesn’t get a mention until the 7th para and isn’t dealt with until 12th para. That doesn’t sound like a “focus on the bridge” to me, given that they knew very well that it was easily the most contentious element.

And it really is stooping low to try to ‘blame’ the Prince Street Bridge restrictions on cyclists so we get the flak in the Evil Post. Cyclists, rightly or wrongly, get a lot of resentment from motorists and pedestrians. Fanning the flames by saying the traffic restrictions are required to benefit cyclists is hardly consistent with the stated aims of Cycling City.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

The latest twist in the Prince Street Bridge saga leaves some questions unanswered. In the first place why did Bristol City Council's Press Release claim that the bridge had only one footway when it plainly has two? A simple mistake? Yes, a mistake to put that in the Press Release but there must be something behind it, such as a plan showing only one footway, a plan of what the council intend perhaps.

So why would the council want to remove the east side footway? To widen the carriageway to allow wider vehicles, like buses, through? It certainly fits with their intention to create a BRT route from Ashton Vale to Emerson's Green via Prince Street Bridge and Temple Meads. Adapting the existing bridge would be vastly cheaper and quicker than having to build a new bridge and we know how anxious Bristol are to force BRT through quickly in the face of growing public scepticism.

Given that the west side footway is already unable to accommodate the number of pedestrians crossing, removal of the east side footway would only be possible if the west side footway were substantially widened, which can only be done at the expense of the roadway on that side, effectively closing it to motor traffic.



So there we have the rational for the changes. BRT is the driver, the overriding demand which is providing the impetus for the council to finally confront the Evening Post fronted car lobby. Previous attempts to restrict car access to Prince Street Bridge on behalf of cyclists and pedestrians haven't got anywhere, despite quite widespread support, so something has clearly changed.

On Friday the Evening Post responded to the proposal in its characteristic pro-car, anti-cyclist manner with the front page headline "FARCICAL" below a picture of the hapless Mark Bradshaw standing in front off the bridge. An editorial chimed in with outrage that half the bridge should be given over to "the minority of people who cycle into the city" calling the partial closure to cars "spiteful, short-sighted and wholly without merit". Strong language indeed.

But then on Saturday the tone changes dramatically with a piece acknowledging that opinion is divided and quoting some supporters of the proposed partial closure. It seems that little opposition is likely to materialise, even from Richard Eddy's Conservatives. So has someone had a whisper in Post editor Mike Norton's shell like, perhaps explaining that this is really paving the way for the all-important BRT, which Norton supported so strongly when launched early this year?



And what about cyclists, who are supposed to be the principal beneficiaries of the scheme. Apart from taking all the flack for this "spiteful" scheme, what's in it for us? We will effectively lose the right to use the east side roadway and will find ourselves competing for space with pedestrians within the 3.5 metre width of the west side of the bridge, which at peak times could provoke a lot of conflict. Is that a benefit? I'm not at all sure, but for sure we will be paying for it all to the tune of £40,000 out of Cycling City funds.

Maintaining the status quo at Prince Street Bridge just isn't an option anymore, so the real question is not whether but how it changes. Compared to the alternative of complete closure to motor traffic and the allocation of one half to pedestrians and the other to half to cyclists, what is now planned is bad news for cyclists and pedestrians and good news for motorists, who will at least retain use of the bridge. Perhaps that was the message that finally got through to Mike Norton.

(See below for lead post and also Bristol Traffic , Southville Roads and Bristol Blogger.)

A bridge too narrow?

Bristol City Council have finally summoned up the courage to push through changes to bring to an end the intolerable situation on Prince Street Bridge (map) where large numbers of pedestrians have to use footways just 1 metre wide, too narrow for two people to pass comfortably, with traffic passing just inches away.



Previous attempts to resolve this situation have seen the Council back down in the face of objections from some motorists, vociferously articulated through the Evening Post, who believe that any restriction of car traffic on Prince Street Bridge will have a knock-on effect elsewhere, mainly on the nearest alternative route crossing the Floating Harbour via Redcliffe Bridge.

Significantly widening the narrow footways is not possible without displacing motor traffic since the adjacent roadways are themselves only 2.4 metres wide (the width of a bus) and wide vehicles are already prohibited. The Council also want to run buses over the bridge as part of their proposed BRT route from Ashton Vale to Temple Meads which would not be possible with the current arrangement.



The Council Press Release attempted to slip the news out buried in with lots of other detail of measures proposed for the initial stages of the Cycling City project, but it seems that the Evening Post spotted it and gave it front page treatment under the headline "farcical", backed up with a biased editorial comment, in line with its previously hostile and extremely partial coverage. The relevant section of the Press Release is -

"The first phase of Cycling City work also proposes to deliver an improved route for cyclists and pedestrians alike across the city's Prince Street bridge. This narrow swing bridge over the historic Floating Harbour has a slim pavement on one side only and poses a danger for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists as they compete for limited road space. The Cycling City proposal will see the introduction of more space for cyclists and pedestrians on the same side as the existing footpath, with traffic lights providing alternative one way working for motorists - carefully managed to keep traffic moving smoothly during peak hours."

Of course the Council managed to get the facts wrong, stating that "This narrow swing bridge over the historic Floating Harbour has a slim pavement on one side only". Really? As the pictures here show it has footways on both sides. So where did they get this notion that it only has one footway from? My guess is that they've let slip that they intend to remove one of the two footways in order to allow buses to cross.



If so then it looks as if all the pedestrians and all the cyclists are going to be pushed onto the west (left in pics) half of the bridge which is only 3.5 metres wide overall. During peak times pedestrian and cycle flows are already large and likely to grow, especially if conflict with motor traffic is diminished and the route from Southville (Gaol Ferry Bridge) to the centre and Harbourside (via Pero's Bridge) become increasingly attractive.

Two-way cycle and pedestrian paths each need to be at the very least least 2 metres wide if conflict is to be avoided and when flows are as high as they are in this case at least 2.5 metres would be indicated. So there is clearly no chance of accommodating separate cycle and pedestrian paths of adequate width.

What about a common shared path then? This would be the optimal way of using the restricted width (so probably not what is planned!) and would be similar to the situation on Pero's Bridge (width 3 metres), but given the higher flows of commuters in a hurry, and especially the much higher number of cyclists, it must be questioned whether this is wise.

At present cyclists have the use of 2.4 metre roadways in each direction and pedestrians have 1 metre paths on both sides. The proposed changes, if they include scrubbing the east side footway as suspected, will effectively halve the overall width available to cyclists and pedestrians combined, yet the Press Release claims "The .. proposal will see the introduction of more space for cyclists and pedestrians...". Only Bristol City council could manage such an absurd claim.



However the 3.5 metres is sub-divided between cyclists and pedestrians we both will end up with less space than we currently enjoy, albeit replacing conflict with cars for conflict with each other. There have been many earlier examples of the Council attempting to 'improve' conditions for cyclists by forcing them onto footways where they come into conflict with pedestrians and such conflict is becoming an issue of major public concern. Do we really want more of it?

There is an alternative. If both halves of Prince Street Bridge were closed to motor traffic and one half (the west side) allocated exclusively to pedestrians and the other exclusively to cyclists both would enjoy relaxed and safe conditions. A complete closure to motor traffic would also improve conditions on the approaches to the bridge as Wapping Road would then become largely motor traffic free rather than full of queuing cars with engines running.

Needless to say the Evening Post and certain businessmen based in Queen's Square would go ballistic if faced with such a proposal, but sooner or later that reactionary attitude has to be confronted if we are to make any real progress towards a civilised and healthy city environment, so why not now?


Cycle commuters waiting for Prince Street Bridge to open in 1964.