Another Council Cock-up

It's sometimes seems that no weekend walk or cycle ride is complete without coming across at least one example of civic incompetence and last week-end was no exception. Down at the Hotwells end of the Floating Harbour the Junction Lock swing bridge, aka Merchants Road (shown in red below), was closed to road traffic including pedestrians to allow upgrading of the operating mechanism and other renovations to take place. So the only means of crossing the docks was at the other end of the Cumberland Basin, either via the Plimsoll Bridge (in green below) or the Entrance Lock gates.


View Cumberland Basin crossings in a larger map

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?

Cycling City - Constructive Suggestion #6

My last suggestion for south Bristol seemed to generate a more positive response than usual so here another idea to improve links between the city centre and the Southville / Bedminster area, an area that is mostly fairly flat and all within one and a half miles of the centre. General traffic routes are constrained by the River Avon and New Cut, so traffic congestion is high on the main river crossing at Bedminster Bridge.



Cyclists and pedestrians however have the option of using a number of traffic free bridges of which Gaol Ferry Bridge is the most popular. In fact Gaol Ferry Bridge is itself quite congested at times (above and below), with cyclists and pedestrians channeled into narrow 'pens' in a crude attempt to minimise conflict between them. If cycling continues to grow the limitations of Gaol Ferry Bridge will become even more critical. The other traffic free bridges are either remote from the main desire line (Ashton Avenue Bridge) or unsuitable for cycle use due to access problems (Vauxhall Bridge).



So how about a new pedestrian/cycle bridge over the New Cut, say halfway between Gaol Ferry Bridge and the next crossing point, to relieve the growing pressure there and perhaps give users a more direct link towards Prince Street Bridge? Such bridges need not be particularly expensive - perhaps around a million pounds - providing the approaches and abutments can be engineered fairly simply.

The most logical locations (shown as red links below) would feed directly into the best available links to Prince Street Bridge, either the link under Cumberland Road or near the southern end of Wapping Road. I favour the former link because it minimises conflict with motor traffic by passing under Cumberland Road and could make use of existing structures to provide abutments. There may even be a case for building bridges at both locations!


View South Bristol Routes. in a larger map

The map above shows how such bridges could link on in, including back to my last suggestion at Ashton Gate where a direct link can be made with the proposed Colliters Greenway to continue into Ashton Vale. Improved links southwards to the Malago Greenway would also be desirable and might be more readily achieved from a new bridge than from Gaol Ferry Bridge.



Providing the project was handled by an outside agency rather than the City Council it might all be achievable within a modest timescale and budget, possibly within the remaining two years of the Cycling City project. As with my other suggestions it's up to others to pick up and run with this if they think it sounds promising. But if we don't look at resolving the capacity constraints in corridors like this then cycling will not be able to grow to its full potential.


Cycle Bridge Chic - is it just me or are cycle bridges really sexy?