20 mph sabotage at Leigh Woods

Our mid-august coverage of the 20 mph "firstbus" review, was illustrated with a photograph of a 20 mph sign nonchalantly keeling over.


That photo was taken on Bridge Road, the approach to the Clifton Suspension Bridge from North Somerset. If you are driving from Portishead down the 40 mph-limited A369, or sprinted down Beggar Bush Lane from Failand (60 mph), this is the first sign you are entering the Big City where you have to temper your expectations of speed with the need to share the road with people on foot and bike and keep your speed at around 20 mph.

Here's the sign today.

More specifically: it's where the sign was. Rather than repair the sign, someone in the "hypothesised" North Somerset Highways Maintenance Department has decided that rather than repair the sign, they'll just take it down and fill in the hole.

Which means, for anyone approaching Clifton on this road, there is no large roundel here warning of the speed change. There's one on the other side of the road, but it can be hidden by parked vehicles.
As a result: no major cues that you are in a 20 zone.

Does it change people's behaviour? Hard to tell.

Here's a rear-view clip from earlier in the week of one of tax-dodgers (expendable) approaching the bridge and going past where the sign used to be. They're doing 20-25 mph in the 30 mph zone.

If you look at the speed of the car WR07YFL coming up behind, it's probably doing 35-40. And, as they both cross where the sign used to be, the driver decides she doesn't want to slow down for a bike only doing 25 mph, and instead swing past. Which, given our tax dodger is positioned in the middle of the lane, and there's a lane separator fast approaching, isn't going to work. She eventually slows down and tucks in behind, only getting an option to go forwards when the cyclist pulls over on the "they don't have to pay any-more!" cyclist bypass of the toll gate. And then, the same cyclist pulls out in front and speeds up to 20 mph again, enough to stop the car from overtaking. We've documented dangerous passing on this bridge before; at least here the driver was sensible enough to not attempt it —but we wonder, if it had been an oncoming bike, not a car, would she have done any differently?

In town, she drives less aggressively; the cyclist is now "only" doing 20 mph, but so are the cars in front. Seemingly having the reason for the speed constraint being a car, not a bike winds up the driver less. Again though, we have to ask: if it hadn't been for that, would she have made another attempt?

Who knows? And one recorded incident doth not a defensible dataset make.

For now: if caught driving above the 20 mph limit, anywhere in the inner zone, just say "I came in over the Suspension Bridge and didn't see any signs!" Which, if it works, shows that all it takes is some laziness from an adjacent council for the whole 20 mph project to slowly fail.

20 mph: it's OK to support it if you have a fast car

There are a few days left to tell BCC you support 20 mph and don't want the zones to be crippled for the benefit of firstbus and few angry drivers from the suburbs. It'll be interesting to see the outcome. If Marvin Rees does roll it back, he will have to justify spending the money to do so, and the potential cost in lives.

We've sent in our feedback "happy with 20 mph", which raises a question with some of our acquaintances, the question being "but you have a fast car"

For the record: in the Important Car for Important People, it is no harder to drive at 20 mph than 30. Petrol consumption is the same at ~20 mpg; as the engine switches off when idle the stationary bits are free.

We've repeatedly claimed that we are important, yet people have accused us of being arrogant self-entitled car hating-wanker cyclists. Not so: the Important Car for Important People is not fictional, it's a BMW 3-series estate with a 2L twin-turbo engine hooked up to the rear wheels via an 8 speed automatic gearbox.



That said, the difference between the two is quite subtle:

	Cyclist	BMW Driver
Arrogant	Y	Y
self-entitled	Y	Y
Wanker	Y	Y
Think they own the roads	Y	Y
Park where they want	Y	Y
Ignore Highway code	Y	Y

The Important Car for Important People is actually speed limited to 250 km/h; 156 mph. That's a mostly abstract value, visible only in the cost of manufacturer approved W-rated homogulated run-flat tyres you need to buy on the off-chance you take a wrong turn from Cribbs Causeway, get on the M5, and, after a few missed turns, end up on the A8 autobahn between München and Stuttgart. But it is there: the speed you could drive at if you weren't held back by speed limits and slow-moving cars.

Look at the difference between that theoretical maximum speed and those of Bristol urban roads

Max Speed	Limit	Difference
156 mph	30	126
156 mph	20	136

See that? Noise.

It may matter to Ford Fiesta drivers who get upset being stuck behind someone cycling 20 mph in the 20 mph zone, but from the perspective of a BMW owner, you are crawling along at either speed. And so: you may as well embrace that crawling along, in order to have a city better to live, walk and cycle in.

Having fiesta drivers tailgate you flashing their lights for you driving at 20 mph is then quaintly amusing, given that it's Fiesta drivers who can't go above 85 mph which hold you back on the M4. For that is where trying to stay close to the limit is hard. Not enough cues around you, you need to keep an eye on the speedo, tell the car itself to beep above 85, waze to chime at 80, and, with attention, you can drive vaguely close to the limit when heading up and down the motorways.

In town: much, much easier

1. Get in car
2. Turn Waze on to beep at speed + 5.
3. Set off, gently tapping the accelerator.
4. Look at speed of car, compare with speedo, get to 20 mph, or, if too high, coast down.
5. Carry on at this speed so you get familiar with how it feels.
6. Keep driving round town, do whatever you intended to do.
7. If waze beeps, it means you are going too fast, or you think you are driving in a 30 zone where it is really 20. Most useful when coming off a faster road (M32) into town.

You don't need to look at the speedo all the time as it doesn't take long to calibrate your driving at the start of the journey. With the whole inner city at 20 mph, it is easy to get used to it, and straightforward to know what the limit on every road is.

Make the bus routes 30 mph, and all that calibration goes away. You'll end up driving at 35 in a 20 zone, and that's how you earn speeding points. And let's be honest: there's nothing impressive about those kind of speeding tickets. Try showing off to other BMW drivers about getting a ticket at 33 mph —you'll only get laughed at.

Twenty mph works great in Bristol, because it is everywhere. You can calibrate driving at that speed with ease, and you don't have to worry about whether you are on a 20 road while doing 30.

Save your speeding for the M4! Get your response in today!

20mph: get your opinions in or lose to FirstBus

Bristol Council has a ongoing consultation on 20 mph limits.


We are happy supporters for the 20 mph limit in Bristol, for various reasons including:

• We live in the city and want one which is good to live in.
• Our children walk and cycle round the city, and we like them to come home alive.
• A defensible study on the 20mph zone concludes that it directly saves lives.
• If you live in the Red Zone, you want the council to do things to get people using cleaner transport options than driving, and this and RPZs, along with more aggressive actions, are needed here.
• In the Important Car for Important People, driving at 20mph is no harder than driving at 30 mph; fuel consumption (in a vehicle which turns off its engine at lights and in traffic jams), the same. 

Now, regarding the consultation, there's a large list of roads where raising the limit is being considered. 

This proposal is fundamentally wrong.

1. The roads they propose are the roads people cycle on. 
2. They are the roads children walk to school on.
3. They are the roads which anyone walking round the city has to walk on and/or cross.
4. Some of them actually have schools on.
5. Many of them are shopping streets, where encouraging people to visit and walk to shops, even across the road, is much more important than a nominal peak speed of 30 mph.

Everyone who lives in that inner city, and wants their streets to be more than rat-runs for the suburban visitors, should get their opinion in, support the proposals as is *and argue against changing the limit on any road in the zone.

Changing the limits will massively increase the costs, as now every 20mph-30mph turnoff/junction will need speed-limit-changed signs (go to portsmouth to see this). And at peak hours it will do nothing for journey times.

Why then the proposal? And why the choice of roads? Presumably Marvin Rees & team are trying to keep some groups of people happy. But whom? Well, one little reference is to "stakeholders". And what do the majority of those listed roads appear to have in common? FirstBus buses run on them.

Has FirstBus just given the mayor a list of roads in the 20mph zone where their buses go round and said to him "if you make these 30 mph all our scheduling problems will go away, FirstBus will be wonderful and Metrobus a success?" Because if they did, it's a lie

Looking at that list of roads, comparing it to a bus map, and its hard to conclude that the names aren't from firstbus, and are driven more by their belief it will help scheduling than any concerns about the safety and wellbeing of the inhabitants of Bristol's 20 mph zones.

If you don't want FirstBus to be setting speed limits in Bristol, make your opinions known ASAP.

Photo: the 30mph/20mph boundary on Bridge Road approaching the suspension bridge from As, someone clearly didn't see the speed limit sign and decided to go straight into it. That road isn't on the review list, while nearby roads (Pembroke Road, Clifton Down) are. But then, FirstBus buses aren't allowed over the bridge, are they?

Causes of Congestion in the Greater Bristol Area: hint: not 20 mph zones

What has made congestion in and around Bristol worse —for those people driving or sitting in buses?

Some people are saying it's common sense that it's the 20 mph limits, and that common sense beats data. No: thinking beats common sense.

we can argue about whether @georgeferguson_x did things to make traffic worse;

RPZs didn't; they add more passing places to the narrow roads, and if they discourage people from driving in, could reduced traffic levels.

20 mph a factor? Not given average weekday traffic speed. (Source: Waze)



One key point is that if the average speed in a road is 2-7 mph, as Stapleton Road is enjoying, then 20 mph is an unrealised dream. It's not the problem. Question is: what's causing that delay?

The main factor is the number of people choosing to drive. Evidence of this comes from looking at the M4 heading away from Bristol, which is going at 12 mph.

By choosing an away-from-city route we can avoid blaming metrobus related roadworks or buildup from urban congestion. There's none of : cyclists, bus stop buildouts, traffic lights or 20 mph to blame rather than accept the root cause of the traffic jam is the decision of you and others to get in the car that morning..



It's people driving places. Which may be correlated with population growth, and the growth of north fringe sprawl housing and offices. North Lockleaze, or, as it pretends to be, Chiswick Village? New. Those fields north of the A4174 by Emerson's Green? Houses you get to see from the M4. That's a change: more suburban housing, more people driving around the city.

Secondary factors to motor traffic in town:  junctions, buses stopping, vehicles turning right, cars parked where they shouldn't. All amplified by traffic volume: bigger queues, longer waits, more turning vehicles, more people "just parking for a minute" in a bus lane, so forcing the bus to try and pull out and increasing overall unhappiness.

Traffic lights? They have a worse (but fairer) throughput compared roundabouts; see Modeling Roundabout Traffic Flow as a Dynamic Fluid System (skip the pictures and look at the pics on P8-11, knowing that "flux" means "number of vehicles arriving per second"). Essentially, all of junctions overload, but two-lane roundabouts get the most through.However that paper assumes that you can get off the roundabout, which as we know at peak hours (Hello Bearpit! Hello St Pauls Roundabout!) doesn't hold. Furthermore by modelling traffic as an incompressible fluid, they miss out on the game-theoretic aspects of the problem, as in: why you'd pull out in front of other vehicles, even if you know it will block others.

Because one problem roundabouts and traffic lights both have is people blocking junctions, so stopping cross traffic getting through. If anyone has evidence of yellow-hash do-not-block zones ever being enforced, we'd love to see it. We lack that evidence. What we do believe is that it would reduce junction deadlocks and so boost cross traffic. Again, evidence would be good. Perhaps the council could run an experiment —like enforcing the law for a week.

Fast moving cyclists? Nope. They just go past the queues and have an average speed above cars at peak hours. This clearly upsets some people who resent the fact that they have to drive a Fiesta 1.1L up the A38. We would hate driving a Fiesta 1.1L too, even on an empty road.

Cyclists at under 12 mph? No data. They are easy to pass when there is no oncoming traffic, so as the overall traffic volume increases, get harder to pass. Having bus lanes and functional (i.e. not blocked by parked cars) bike lanes, lanes considered safe enough by cyclists that they use them would eliminate that problem. And, if parking spaces taken away for them, reduce justification for driving in.

Oncoming traffic? This is a problem in much of the inner city: there isn't space to get through down a road in the presence of oncoming vehicles. As well as traffic volumes, we have to consider whether the rise of the Urban SUV amplifies the problem. Not only does that oncoming Volvo XC 90 on the school run take up more space, the VW Touran parked alongside the Audi Q6 means that there is less open road to play with anyhow.

Roadworks? We know about those, especially: in the centre, on the M32, along the A4174, the A370 and by Cumberland Basin. Hopefully they will be transient, as in "fixed before 2020"



One thing is for inevitable: the cost of delays caused by these roadworks won't have been included in their already broken cost model.

When that Metrobus work is finished, will the problems go away? Not without some fundamental change in how people get into the city —which means that you need a compelling story from places like Yate, from Portishead, and the other dormitory towns. A railway from Portishead here is potentially compelling, because you get a direct line to Templemeads without traffic delays.  It's a shame that central government beliefs (trains bad, BRT viable) and local government issues (naive optimism) have caused a focus on FirstBus as a solution.

Will Metrobus be compelling for those actually in its catchment area? We have no idea whatsoever. Which gives us something in common with the metrobus team.

Anyway, to close: for anyone saying "it's the 20 mph zones", or "its the traffic lights", we say "explain how the M4 moves at 12 mph on a weekday morning?"

Bristol's Parking Problem: 2016 style

There's an article up on the evening post saying for the first time in a generation, a majority of people are using either buses, bikes or walking to work instead.

This is fascinating. Too bad there is no coverage of the methodology of the survey other than it's "a survey of the commuting habits of thousands of city residents". How did they conduct this survey? A random call of Bristol numbers? Did it include s survey of the rural backwaters of S Gloucs and N Somerset? Did they look at the distances travelled to measure commute-miles, rather than just journeys? Did they ask firstbus and wessex bus lines for data, along with ANPR logs and phone company travel datasets? These are the things we need to know.

Anyway, in the list of people the paper called for an opinion, they reached for their Fax Machine contact list and got in touch with Hugh Bladon, Bristol's member of Association of British Drivers, who is always woken up from his sleep for a quote. Hugh Bladon actually lives in Weston Super Mare, a town which is still looking forward to 1974, so it's always surprising that they can contact Hugh for a quote. That's 20 miles away, a distance quoted by Google maps as 38 minutes drive from Stokes Croft on a Sunday evening. If Mr Bladon really does commute into Bristol every day, he'll be spending an hour each way, first on the A370, A38 or M5+ portway, then in stop-go mode through town to finally reach his destination. And for what? To live in Weston? That's the place where Banksy hosted his Dismaland Exhibition —and that's not a coincidence. Probably the main problem they had there was people walking round town laughing at stuff and taking selfies in front of the sea front, not realising they weren't actually at the exhibition yet. Why would anyone voluntary live there? If you have children, think of what it does to their minds? And, think what it does to your life, with 2+h a day sitting in a car.

Essentially, you can't trust the judgment of anyone who lives in WsM of their own volition. So the fact he is called on to be the ABD spokesman is a bit worrying for them: can't they find anyone else?

And what did he have to say? Rather than go for the survey methodology —always the first line of attack—, he accepted the findings and then blamed the council

I suppose people are getting fed up with travelling into the city. here is not enough provision for people to park, and I suppose more people are using the park and rides. I would also think George Ferguson and his 20mph scheme are frightening people who think they might get a ticket for doing maybe 23, or 24mph Those are the sort of things that drive away people.With the expanding economy, I would have thought more people would be in cars. It might also be there is not enough parking. Cycle lanes now take up a lot of tarmac where road parking used to be.

This is hilarious. We have never heard of anyone too scared to drive into the city in case they get a ticket(*).

Blaming the RPZ for removing a large amount of free-at-point-of-use commuter parking is something he should have gone for, but instead he imagines that people are scared of getting a ticket for driving at 24 mph. That's like saying people are scared of using the M4 in case they get a ticket for driving at 74 mph. They aren't, you don't.

As for the "Cycle lanes now take up a lot of tarmac where road parking used to be.". He must have a different cycle map than everyone else. The purpose of cycle lanes is to provide short stay parking. Even bus lanes are only closed to parking for 3 hours a day, 21 h a week.

But he does have a bit of a point: there isn't enough parking. Only what you want to park has changed.

Look at this video of a Bristol (not a WsM) resident cycling to the shops on a weekend.

1. There are no cycle lanes.
2. There are still people driving, not scared of getting a ticket for driving at 23 mph.
3. A lot of the people driving don't seem to looking where they are going.
4. None of the car parking space has been re-allocated to cycle lanes.
5. There are lots of bike racks,  about 8 opposite where Havana Coffee used to be, two over the road by that, then more by costa coffee and sainsbury's.
6. All of these bike racks are full.

There is nowhere to park a bicycle



Our reporter cycles down hill, avoids getting hit by the 4x4 turning from Aberdeen Road without looking, and the hatchback pulling out from the other side of the road without looking, carries on a bit, having to wait with a car in front for a driver taking their time to reverse park, then pulls over themselves to find somewhere to park. First rack: 12 bikes; no room for more. Visible across the road: two racks, four bikes, no space. They continue down to Whiteladies Road. On the far side of the road, there's space for about 30 bikes, looking fairly full. On this side of the road, 6 more racks, space for 12. Except, again, full.

One of the bikes there half of an abandoned frame, lying on its side. So the the tax dodger gets to do something nobody who drives in from WsM can get away with; they stick their own bike on top of it, lock up, and go to the shops. So we see approximately six cars worth of space allocated -all from the pavement, we note- for bicycles, which is a fraction of the space allocated to car parking. What we see in this video is, on Cotham Hill alone, 32 cars, two spaces free. For bikes, 48 spaces: all taken, albeit some with dissolving relics.

Is this an unusual event? Not really; the same situation was encountered on Gloucester road an hour earlier: one space outside Maplins, someone else queueing for it before the tax dodger had even unlocked. Because on that side of the road, there are about eight bike stands, from Zetland Road up. In contrast, if you wanted to drive there, there's more space.

Essentially, we are seeing a shift to cycling as a transport option in some parts of the city —and we aren't seeing the city adapting to that.  Hugh can complain about removal of parking, but there is significantly more space allocated to parking here than any other other form of transport.

This little stretch of Whiteladies Road is interesting, as it is what the ABD use in the videos calling the council "bonkers", showing how shops have suffered from a lack of parking and have had to shut down.



Well, our anecdata beats theirs, at least in terms of being up to date, and what it says is "Bristol does have a parking problem, but it's not just for cars".

(*) If you have —or know someone who has— stopped driving around out of fear of getting ticketed at 23 mph, please get in touch.

"VW cheated —so we need 30 mph!"

Someone called, entertainingly, Pointer2null , comments on one of our 20 mph posts and argues that:

Because VW cheated its customers and governments round the world, we need a 30 mph limit.

It's the pollution, you understand.

He cites two papers, so let's look at them.

An evaluation of the estimated impacts on vehicle emissions of a 20mph speed restriction in central London, City of London Study,  2013:

The opening paragraph says

Average speed models suggest that a lower speed limit in urban areas may result in higher pollutant emissions. However, the stop-start nature of traffic in central London means that such a method may not be suitable, and further investigation is required.

That's the scientific way of saying "its the acceleration from 0 mph that uses fuel, stopping wastes it —so simple models of constant speed are unlikely "may" to apply. Give us some more money and we'll tell you. Actually, the VW debacle has shown that some real-world experimentation would be the strategy. Fit a car with the sensors, drive round an area the month before a 20 mph rollout, then the month after -and see what changed. Back-to-back tests should be relatively accurate, though term-times and weather patterns are factors to consider.

Looking at both the 30 mph and 20 mph modes, they noted that in a 30 mph zone more time was spent accelerating (==higher RPM), while the cruise at 30 mph may more fuel efficient, its not there for very long. with slightly different roads in the study at 20 & 30, you could argue about whether the cruise and acceleration profiles would be the same at 20.

They then go on to conclude

• It is concluded that it would be incorrect to assume a 20mph speed restriction would be detrimental to ambient local air quality, as the effects on vehicle emissions are mixed 
•  The short-comings of using average speed models is highlighted, with the specific example of the potential to underestimate emissions of NOX from diesel passenger cars

Pollution metrics were taken off stated manufacturer levels, so, as we know: massively underestimating the pollution of the diesel fleet, while much more accurate for petrol. This means well have to discount one paragraph

Emissions of NOX and CO2 are seen to be higher over 20mph drive cycles for petrol cars and generally lower for diesel cars. PM10 emissions improve for smaller vehicles over 20mph drive cycles (less than 2.0 litre engine size), but are shown to increase for larger vehicles. The order of magnitude is such that future trends in fleet composition will be important.

The authors of the paper would really need to take the real-world figures for petrol and diesel and model the pollution levels based on those numbers, using the acceleration/speed profiles gained in this experiment. Perhaps a future paper is forthcoming.

20mph roads and CO2 emissions, The AA, Undated

This isn't a paper, more a press release. You can see it in the headline, Lower limits can increase fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Scientists would be more circumspect, and use the word "may" in their work, especially for one single experiment.

The article is about an AA field test measuring fuel consumption in petrol vehicles. Like the CoL paper, it calls out stop-start driving and implicitly the acceleration profile, as the real killer:

• Change 30 mph zone to 20 mph: increases fuel consumption by 5.85 miles per gallon, or 10.1 per cent.
• Add speed humps to a 30 mph zone: increases fuel consumption by 27.3 miles per gallon, or 46.9 per cent.

It doesn't look at diesel, and the initial measurements are from the steady state "driving at 30 with no traffic jams". The Millbrook Proving Ground they mention does have a "city track",  hopefully that was the one used. A real paper would provide such information.

What it shows is that speed bumps are the enemy of breathable air. The fact that the Bristol rollout doesn't have them, must therefore be viewed as a good thing.

Comparing the AA press release with the CoL study, it is the CoL one which is scientifically defensible. They discuss the experiment in detail, how they cleaned up the data, the maths to reach the conclusions. And even in the conclusions they state their uncertainties. They are scientists? The AA: an organisation which came to the experiment with an expectation of what the answer would be, ran a field experiment which is unlikely to reflect an inner city, didn't describe that experiment very well —and came to a simple headline conclusion which failed to represent the uncertainties in the findings.

Were that to be be a paper submitted to the Bristol Traffic review team, it would have been rejected due to lack of scientific rigour.

PointerToNull, reads them and comes to the conclusion:

It's all over the news today - the NO2 figures for diesels has been faked. So this make the decision to force all petriol vehicle to observe a speed that INCREASES NO2 emissions by 8% even more short sighted (this is a measured increase by the study and not a claimed one by the makers). Given the state of diesel, petrol will probably be the dominent fuel and so in a single stroke of stupidity, all the gains made by better engine technology in petrol vehicles over the last decade has been wiped out. To press the point, the number of people who will die from air pollution will increase more than those who are saved by slower vehicles.

We're not going to disagree with anything here. They (he? she?) focus on the better of the two papers, and while skipping the "more data needed" bit of the conclusions (academics like that, it's how they get more money), makes the case that speed limits should be driven by what is optimal in terms of pollution profile.

This is a dangerous argument to use. Why? Because to say "we must choose our speed limit by optimal CO2/NOx levels", then you have to be pushing for the motorway limit to be 60 mph. Fuel economy drops significantly after that, and pollution levels increase.

Anyone advocating 30 mph urban for the sake of pollution levels, must also advocate a 60 mph limit, else they are picking data to suit their opinions.  If you did care, you won't drive short distances on cold days, or when pollution levels are already over the limits. 

Then there's also the painful fact that inner bristol's air pollution levels are beyond the legal limits, even before the 20 mph rollout, and includes the M32 corridor.


That is

-Bristol's NOx problem predates the 20 mph zone.
-it seems to correlate with some of the main bus routes: A38 and stapleton road
-it also covers the M32, which had a 60/70 mph limit in 2012.

Leaving the limits at 30 mph would have done nothing to address this problem. And while VW and friends were promising to everyone that all they had to do was wait for the Euro6 rollout, that's not going to cut it either. Which means we'll have to try other things.

The goal of the 20 mph zone is to get more people walking and cycling, not driving their kids to school in turbo-diesel cars. Then if we can get people in the core to not drive on short journeys, potentially increase traffic flow overall.

The future of urban cars is probably hybrid, maybe electric, though the economics and logistics are still dodgy there (expect some post on Tesla vs Google soon —TL;DR you'd have to be driving a lot for a Tesla to make sense; if you buy one you almost want to drive more to reduce that cost/mile). Certainly we don't need to be looking ahead to city centres with diesel, because dieselgate may be the trigger to accelerate restrictions or C-zone charges for them in Bristol, possibly starting with the RPZ.

"the number of people who will die from air pollution will increase more than those who are saved by slower vehicles.

This is potentially -and terrifyingly- true. But the response to NO2 problem should not be 'let's have 30 mph limits in town', because that will not address:

1. The fact that with the average speed of cars in Bristol being ~16-18 mph at peak hours, even on the M32, the 20 mph limit is irrelevant at the time most cars are driven in the city.
2. The fact that as fuel economy on motorways peaks at < 60 mph, if we want to address NOx pollution from motorways, the peak limit should drop from 70 to 60.
3. The lack of data we have on what percentage of Bristol's NOx pollution comes from buses and taxis. If we knew, then from a pollution perspective, that could be an area to focus on.

To close then, we congratulate Pointer2null for digging up an interesting paper on the impact of 20 mph limits on city of london's pollution levels, and may email the authors asking for any planned recalculations.

Assuming that Pointer2null going to become the city's advocate of pollution-scient-driven-transport policy, we also hope to see any papers they can now dig up on effective speed limits for fuel economy and pollution on motorways. Now that £80M has been spent on the Managed Motorways, it would now be possible to drop the speed limit there on high-smog days. Having some insight into the effectiveness of this would be something to help shape regional transport policy.

where are the speedo-watching crashes?

Here are the two petitions to look at

Speeders: Scrap the 20mph limit in Bristol and restore common sense  now at 8045
Keepers: Keep and extend 20mph limits now at 1680

One claim in the Speeders' petition is

"roads will only be made more dangerous with frustrated drivers and people watching the speedo rather than where they're going!"

We haven't noticed that ourselves, as we have a special speed limiter in our car called "the gear stick". Put it into "speed band 3", or "3rd gear" as it is sometimes known and it burbles along quite happily at 20-24mph, except in the special case that someone drives so close that you can see the driver's nostril hair and you slowly lift your foot of the accelerator to drop to precisely 19 mph just to see the expression on the driver's face in your rear view mirror.

Anyway, it may be that the speed petitioners don't have manual transmissions, or are somehow unable to determine road speed, and do have to look at the speedo all the time.

This is something we can test now that the central 20 mph zone is over a year old. All we have to do is look at the data.

One irony here is that if they do occur, the fact that they will take place at 20 mph means the police aren't likely to get involved. Any crash involving pedestrian, cyclist or stationary object will be less likely than at 30 mph to injure anyone, so they may not get called out. Indeed, even the insurance companies may not get a look in if people care about their no claims discount. head-on collisions will still have 40-50 mph of energy, so are more likely to show up. This means official data sources: —police and insurance— may show a reduction in RTCs even if there has been an increase in RTC events.

We ask the speeders, then: where are the speedo-watching crashes?

1. How many crashes in 20 mph zone have you personally been involved in where you or another participant was looking at the speedo at the time?
2. Have you heard of any such crashes —and do you have the contact details for us to follow up on this?
3. Is there any other evidence for an speedo-watching crashes in the central bristol zone?

We've had the zone for 18 months now, with millions of journeys in it by now. If speedo-watching crashes are a risk in 20 mph zones, we should have seen some. 

If we don't have the any signs of speedo-watching crashes, then, it could be due to

1. They are happening, but the massive lower energies in the collisions cause them to be unreported
2. That whole claim about "watching speedos causes crashes" is bollocks.

#2 is the null hypothesis: 20 mph limits do not cause speedo-watching crashes, is the one which has to be disproved to a significant degree of statistical confidence before it can be believed.

We put it to the speeders then: show us the data.

Now, assuming, on the off-chance that there is the data, that speedo-watching does cause crashes, hence 20 mph zones are more hazardous than 30 mph zones, why do the petitioners still propose lower limits by schools?




Either 20 mph zones are more dangerous due to speedo-watching or 20 mph zones are safer round schools.

So if that claim "20 mph is more dangerous" isn't utter bollocks, then, if the speed campaigners really believed it, they should be pushing for 30 mph zones round schools "for the children".

Speeders: show us the data —you've had 18 months to collect it.

(photo: kid scootering to school outside Christchurch School, Clifton, pre-RPZ)

Unhappy speeders

In our ground breaking analysis of the geographic distribution of the speeders and the 20 milers in the city,  we were picked up on for our statement "They must live very unhappy lives."

Good catch. Judging by the reaction to the post, we should have concluded "they are very angry people"

It's as if they spent a lot of time in traffic jams or stuck at the lights -blaming George Ferguson for every minute of their wasted life

We were particularly called out on our assertion that the 38% of out of town petitioners on the "right to speed" campaign don't count.




Specifically, the accusation of misinformation came about because of the T&Cs of the council's petition policy, which states

If your petition has received 3500 signatories or more from people who live, work or study in Bristol it can then trigger a full council debate [see page 5] and if this is the case we will discuss with the lead petitioner the options for enabling this to take place.

We are not attempting to misinform anyone. Look at what we wrote

Of the speeders, 38% of them don't live in in Bristol. Which means they are, as far as Bristol elections are concerned, as relevant as residents of the Isle of Wight. They don't have a vote, all they have is a whine.

See that? If you live outside the city, you are electorally irrelevant. Which may or may not transfer into the decisions about the region and its transport policy.

If you lived out of the city, you wouldn't have got a bit of a paper asking if you wanted a referendum on having a mayor —you didn't get a say. You wouldn't have got a bit of paper saying "who do you want to be mayor" —again: you don't get a say.

The fact that the council has a policy for petitions is something to cherish. The fact that they even let people from outside the city add their names shows that we do value those people who live out of town. But when it comes down to whom the council has to prioritise, it's the residents who vote for the councillors and mayors.

Everyone outside gets to make a whining sound, either in their own home, the BEP web site or their car sitting on the M32.

Is that fair? Maybe. Is it functional? Not for a region wide transport policy. But here's the problem: the N Somerset and S Gloucs councillors like their little kingdoms too much to share them.

Here we see Elf-King App Rees switching from demanding that the Clifton RPZ be removed

...to screaming that George F is trying to dictate parking policy in Leigh Woods.

He loves being a small fish in a very small pond, and any attempt at having a broader region for  democratic governance as a threat.

Is S Gloucs any better? Well, they are very proud of the the fact that they are not quite Bristol, even to the extent of having a "Welcome to South Gloucestershire" partway along the Filton Road weekday traffic jam. Because Filton is, after all, distinct from its neighbours. But they do ask staff at the N Fringe of the city for their input on the latest bit of random roadworks.

What is not clear, though, is Why is Filton out of Bristol? . Same for those bits in N.E. Bristol. Emerson's Green, Rodway Common, etc. Part of the featureless hinterland of the city. And yet: you don't get a say —only the right to get angry about things happening in a city nearby.

Those pro-speed petitioners: do their opinions count? Not for 38% of them, no.

We've stated repeatedly we are Bristol's premier data-driven transport new outlet, compared with the evening post, which is driven by "what gets the most paper sales to our dying customer base" and "what generates the most page hits". Controversies involving parking, cyclists and speed zones hit all three.

Sadly, we don't have access to the BEP customer dataset or the details on commenters they extract from their linked-up google accounts. What we do have, however, is the python code needed to convert the published signatory list into a CSV file, with some extra flags to indicate whether or not the petitioner is in a 20 mph zone or not.

            20 mph ward  rest of BRS  CUBA    other 
Pro            920         305         116     201
Speeders      1552        3365        2289     705

As a graph, showing the numbers by area, things become more obvious

Of the speeders, 38% of them don't live in in Bristol. Which means they are, as far as Bristol elections are concerned, as relevant as residents of the Isle of Wight. They don't have a vote, all they have is a whine.

Looking at Bristol itself, we see a marked split between those people in wards with 20 MPH zones vs those which aren't.

Even though the pro-20 MPH petition is a fraction of the size of the speeder's one, it is not far off having 40% of the total petitioner count from the 20 MPH zones themselves.

This implies some things

1. The people who get most worked about 20 MPH zones don't appear to live in them.
2. Many of the people who get worked up about Bristol's 20 MPH zones don't even live in the city.
3. They must live very unhappy lives.
4. A lot of the people in the 20 zones seem pretty happy with the zones and their lives.

We'll collect some more data next week, and make up some new conclusions. Until then,  get out there and get some signatures for whichever petition you care about.

PS: the code.

The 20 mph war on our council web site

There's now a battle of petitions up on the council web site


The scrappers: , "scrap the 20 mph limit and restore common sense",

We love the use of "common sense" in the title. "Common sense" means "obvious to the person making the statement". Yet, as we look throughout history, "common sense" meant the sun went round the earth. Galileo's Heliocentricity hypothesis was considered so heretical the common-sense regime at the time (Catholic Church) sentenced him to death. That's what common sense means: superstition over rational thought.

The retainers, "Keep and Extend 20mph limits"

These want the limits retained, extended, and maybe even enforced. We will call these "the people who believe Newton's equations about momentum and kinetic energy".

There we have it then, two factions: those who reject the physics of RTCs on the grounds of "common sense", and those who care about people walking and cycling round the city.

It will be interesting to watch the numbers. the flat-earthers have the support of the local paper, and a three month head start in the petition.

As of June August 23:

Flat earthers: 7421
Progressives: 1053

This is something we'll be keeping an eye on.

101 uses for a nearly dead Ginkgo tree

We've noticed 4X4 drivers often have to deal with the problem of street trees when they park off-road in Bristol. Even in RPZs. Even in 20 MPH zones. Even near schools.

Fortunately many of these trees are now stumps and some of the stumps have been there so long that they are rotting into the ground and the removal can be accelerated by a little nudge. In time they will be tarmaced over but in the meantime the tree pits provide a little offroading experience.

 

Unfortunately some of the street trees that are planted, such as London Plane trees, grow quite quickly and rapidly provide the amenity and canopy cover that "environmentalists" love to promote at the expense of proper off-road pavement parking.  

 

However... Not the humble Ginkgo tree. It's a relic of the age of the Dinosaurs (and a conifer to boot - don't let those weird leaves and the fact it sheds them in winter fool you). 

 

This particular specimen has hung between life and death and remained the size it was planted for about a decade. 

The question as to whether urban trees have any purpose is maybe too philosophical for this blog. But in a very practical sense this particular tree has finally found its purpose and meaning in life in modern day 20 MPH Bristol.  

 

It is providing security for a traffic counting and speed measuring device.

Speeds on 20 MPH Redland Road are, of course, consistently well above 20MPH, so this tree may finally contribute in some small way to the urban fabric by helping Bristol City Council to calm the traffic down this very steep hill where even cyclists regularly exceed 20MPH whilst car, van and lorry drivers overtake them with gay abandon, because they Must Get In Front.

 

We are struggling to come up with a single other use for this or any other Ginkgo so finding a further 100 uses may be a tall order.

Bristol's 20 mph zones: it's the hot cars that lose

The 20 mph zone has been up for a year now, so it's time to review it as drivers

1. It doesn't make things slower. Really. It's the delays at junctions & in queues that increase journey time.
2. It makes things calmer. There's less pressure to put your foot down when you do clear a junction.
3. Similarly, as you approach a junction, you can coast down more gently. 
4. As you are going a bit slower, you can take time to look around, which gives you a better view of pedestrians. This is tangibly better at night.
5. It actually helps you pulling out from side roads to main roads. Why? As everyone is moving slower, the time window for you to do things like pull a right turn with cars approaching from both directions is larger.
6. Fuel economy? No obvious difference. The engine may be less efficient in 3rd than 4th, but you don't have to accelerate so hard, and can coast down. Of course, anyone in a hybrid car is laughing as their petrol engine can work even less, and gain more regenerative braking from the gentle slow down.
7. Keeping track of your speed? Third gear low RPM seems to work. If you feel the need to go to 4th, you are going too fast. 
8. Does everyone follow 20 mph? 22-25 is more realistic daytime speed; at night the speed goes up to 30 until the minicabs come out, when it ramps up 40 mph just when the drunk people start walking home.
9. Increased road rage? No obvious difference. As the average commute speed is < 20 mph in Bristol (TomTom's unverified data, not ours), it's hard to see how it could be made worse.
10. Collapse of businesses due to increased white van journey time. Not obvious. Congestion is the limiting factor, not maximum speed.
11. Passing Bicycles? No harder or easier. It's still irritating to be behind someone going along at 12 mph. But the speed limit doesn't make passing harder. We just want fitter cyclists out there.
12. Then there's the "two shopping trolley" man wandering round the streets these days. We have no idea why he has two shopping trollies full of his entire belongings, but he does, he goes down the roads (not the pavements) at about 4 mph. Again, 20 mph doesn't make a difference.

So who loses? People who spent money on fast cars. You shell out all that cash for a nimble toy, for an extra digit or two at the end of your car brand logo —"i", "GT", etc—, tinted windows and some wheels that just scrape easily.  The key "performance" benefits are tighter suspension, and most of all the ability to accelerate better. 

Which is now utterly wasted, as most vehicle's 0-20 numbers are relatively similar. And pootling around at 20 mph means no need for suspension that lets you do 90 degree turns at 35 mph.

That's enough to drive you to road rage: not the fact that you are doing 20 mph, but the fact you spent a lot of money on your status toy and are doing 20 mph.  Even if you want to go faster, there'll be someone in front who doesn't, who appears to drive at exactly 20 mph on a fast ratrun road  like Ashley Down, Pembroke Road or Filton Ave. It's almost as if some people, on noticing an important person driving a high-end Audi or BMW SUV actually take their foot off the accelerator, dropping from 24 mph to 20. Which we consider unacceptable and strongly condemn anyone doing this.

For those people who have spent the money, they expect something in return.

Fortunately, every so often the opportunity arises. Here is one our instrumented tax-dodgers going down Nugent Hill, Cotham, using the bike contraflow to get to the Arley Hill evening traffic jam, and so on to Stokes Croft. As they join the Arley Hill queue, you can see a green light allowing some traffic to slowly get out to places more interesting.

And here you can see the BMW 3 series YF57KTE getting some return on investment. First they can come off the speed bump while accelerating (suspension), then put their foot down to catch up with the cars in front. Those cars in front who are going through on orange we note.  But as the BMW is now almost joined up with them, it can do the "part of the same group" gambit and carry on through on the red light.

That tactic has given them a bit more speed than the vehicles in front, forcing them to negotiate what is effectively a chicaned right turn fairly aggressively: that suspension at work again.

They then need to put their brakes on, not because of the speed limit but because they've caught up with the car in front.

There: 15 seconds of real driving, out of probably 30 minutes of suffering. Not much —but that's all a 20 mph zone offers, at least during the early evening commute.

Peter Abraham: show us the 20 mph road rage data

One goal of Bristol Traffic is to create datasets on how people get round bristol. It had been to create a  ubiquitous mass surveillance police state -but it turns out Google have done that and then pass on the details to the NSA. So a focus on local issues for us.

While covering the Down's refusal to adopt 20 mph speed limits,we picked up on a statement by Cllr Peter Abraham:
A 20 mph limit might be appropriate for some streets, but I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

This assertion, road rage causes frustration is news to us. We've been against 20mph for a long time, not because it increases the likelihood of us getting out a cricket bat and bashing in the windows of the Citron Dyane doing 19 mph in front of us, but because it means it will take longer for us to get round the city.

Now  presumably road-range incidents need >1 vehicle, so driving at 20 mph when it is quiet isn't going to cause you to jump out the car, get out the old cricket bat and bash in your own windscreen. The probability of a road rage incident must not only be a function of the driver, the road and the effective limit, but of the speed of the vehicle in front:

For any driver, Dn the probability equation becomes one of:

P(road-rage(Dn, road)) = fn(driver, road, limit, velocity(Dn), velocity(Dn-1))

For an entire road over a day, with K drivers, the probability of a road-rage event is

Sum(Dn=1..K) P(road-rage(Dn))

To predict that road-rage frequency, we need to know the value of the function fn(driver, road, limit, velocity(Dn); we can derive the rest from there.

It is critical we get the numbers to derive this, as well as understand where it is a discrete function such that it returns 0 for all speed limits >20, or if some drivers are capable of going over the edge at 30 mph, 40 mph, etc.

Nobody appears to have this data other thal Cllr Abraham, who is shaping city speed limits based on his private dataset.

It's more important than the downs too. If the road-rage probability gets higher whenever the speed of the vehicle in front is less than 20 mph,  velocity(Dn-1)<20), then anything in our city which forces people to drive below 20 mph is going to create incidents.

That means we have to ban bicycles from all city streets where a car could be held up behind them.

For example, Hampton Road, redland. There would be a nice fast 30 mph stretch between two traffic jams, yet WV06WML is trapped in traffic between two bicycles. He only just manages to clear one and so sprint up the hill to the St Michael's Hill roundabout traffic jam by aggressively overtaking it and swinging in before hitting the oncoming cyclist.





if there were no cyclists here this incident would not have arisen. Admittedly, the journey time of the car would be the same -it's a different function, one that depends on the congestion of junctions, so is a function of all road users in the city at a specific time, not just the velocity of the vehicle in front.  But we aren't worried about that: we are worried about road rage.


Peter Abraham appears to be the only person in a position of authority in Bristol with the confidence to assert that 20 mph limits increase road rage. He needs to publish this data, not just so that we can resist the rollout of the 20 mph zones, but to back our campaign to ban bicycles from the streets.

But will he provide it? We asked last week for that data:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bristol  Traffic <bristol.traffic at gmail.com>
Date: 13 September 2013 09:17
Subject: Press Query about speed limits in the downs
To: peter.abraham@bristol.gov.uk

Hello

The Bristol Traffic Project is -as you may know -one of Bristol's premier online reporting sites, focusing purely on transport.

http://bristolcars.blogspot.co.uk/

While we are often regarded as some form of shallow spoof, we consider ourselves an evidence-driven organisation: we use photographs and videos to defend our statements, while our coverages of game theory as applied to Bristol's streets include articles that have been cited by such luminaries as Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book, Traffic.

Accordingly, we'd like to follow up our coverage on the proposals for 20 mph limits in the downs, with a query for some data to back up the decision of the committee to retain a 30 mph limit.

One statement you have apparently made to the evening post was that a 20mph limit is inappropriate for the downs: I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

Here are our questions

1. Do you have any defensible data that demonstrates that 20 mph limits lead to road rage?

2.  London's Royal Parks all have 20 mph limits. What is unique to Bristol's parks, or its residents, that mean that having a 20 mph limit in an urban park is something which they are unable to cope with?

3. Did the downs committee consider how the retention of a 30 mph limit will continue to make cycling on these roads intimidating, especially for families -and that either this would be at odds with the management plan's stated goal of encouraging cycling -and likely to push the cyclists, especially family groups, onto cycling on the footpaths instead?

We await your responses

SteveL

Chief Data Scientist,

Bristol Traffic Project

---------- Forwarded message ----------

To date we have heard nothing, even though a week has passed. Presumably Cllr Abraham is a busy man, but even so we are concerned that this data -which would be invaluable to the debate about cycling as well as 20 mph limits is being held back.

We shall have to follow this up with another request.

The Downs Committee joins the Bikelash!

Attached to Clifton are "the downs". You can recognise it by the way that all paths on the park have a big "No Cycling" sign -usually near some parked cars






The nominal reason they have the no cycling sign is to stop pedestrians and parked cars being damaged by cyclists.

In high summer, the Downs committee allows the Zoo (in exchange for money, obviously), to let visitors park on the downs, and bill the visitors for doing so.

In 2010 proposals to provide a park and ride alternative, were, rightfully, rejected.



It's quite clear what the Downs Committee wants. Nobody cycling on the pavement, people driving to the downs and parking on the grass.

Even so, council plans threaten it -and this week it is with a shocking proposal to make the speed limit in the park 20 mph!

Fortunately, the committee has come out and rejected it.

PLANS to bring in a 20mph speed limit on roads around The Downs have been opposed by the committee responsible for the open space.

The Downs Committee – made up of councillors and representatives from the Merchant Venturers – considered the proposals at their meeting yesterdayand voted against them by four votes to two, with one abstention.

Councillor Peter Abraham said: "I feel very strongly about this and I think we should oppose the 20mph limit being brought in on roads around the Downs."

Merchant Venturer Andrew Densham said he had attempted driving along the stretch at 20mph before the meeting and was greeted by flashing lights from fellow motorists.

"It is almost impossible to do," he said. "Going 20mph is absurd on most of those roads.

"I think the consequences of it would be more dangerous."

Fellow Merchant Venturer Anthony Brown said: "The traffic sub-committee asked what the experience had been on Ladies Mile and was told the average speed was 26mph and there are no major problems.

"If the speed limit is reduced people would do 20,16,18 and people would want to overtake. It was our view that it could be more dangerous."

there we have it then. Total opposition to the proposals based on a single experiment of driving round at 20 mph, once, and noticing cars got upset.

We can expect the cycling campaigners to be a bit put out by this

1. Flat out refusal to provide safe alternatives to Ladies Mile or Sea Wall/ice cream van routes for bicycles
2. Flat out refusal to consider lower speed limits that would benefit cyclists or even pedestrians trying to cross the road.

The tax-dodgers should not be surprised by this.

Cllr Peter Abraham is the councillor for Stoke Bishop, whose residents have to drive over the downs to get anywhere. It's bad enough that the RPZ is going to remove a lot of parking opportunities, now they will be forced to drive a little bit slower.

As he said earlier.  :

I would much rather see the 30mph limit, which was only recently introduced, rigidly enforced. A 20 mph limit might be appropriate for some streets, but I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

See: the council has already forced the speed limit down from 60 mph to 30 only ten years ago, and it is hard enough for his electorate to handle

Lowering the speed limit in one of Bristol's main parks from 30 mph to 20 mph would only increase road rage, and, by encouraging people to walk and cycle round the park, increase problems!

This is why we support the actions of the Downs Committee. We also appreciate that many of the committee members are from the Society of Merchant Venturers. It is precisely because these people are chosen without democratic oversight that they are able to resist petty popularist policies like making parks safer for pedestrians and cyclists! Only they can represent the true voice of the evening post commenters!

Kate Alison Wrigley - Killed Sept 21, Ashley Road

When these photos were taken in October, flags and flowers marked where another Bristolian was killed walking across a road  - Ashley Hill -on the border between St Werburgh's and Montpelier. She was killed by someone driving a silver BMW -no further details are public at this point.


There is not even a traffic island on this stretch of road. There's one further up, but not a zebra crossing, even though a lot of schoolkids use it.

Here, although it says "20 mph", is a busy and often fast road. Cars heading up the hill are acellerating up something which, by virtue of the walls on either side "feels fast". Certain if you are on a bike, it feels safer to go on the old ashley road, parallel to this.

Kate lived on Milverton Gardens -you can see how pedestrian friendly that is.
If you live here, there is nowhere you can get to without crossing this road or walking all the way down the hill. 


On our last visit, the same cars were parked in the same places. They must be "their" bits of pavement.

Because this is just within the 20mph zone, the anti-20mph people will cite this as an example of how 20 mph zones don't work. Sadly, in this instance -it wasn't enough.

20 mph! for the whole city! Disaster!

Terrible news reaches us: the council has voted in 20mph speed limits on all residential roads in the inner city.

This is heartbreaking. It doesn't actually mean much as the only time you can put your foot down is in the 11pm+ "minicab hours", where 40mph is the defacto speed limit -but it's the thought that counts.

This proposal is clearly pandering to the people who live in the city, at the expense of the commuters from the edges of the town, from North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Those people, the wealth bringers, need to drive in to the city in their status-vehicles, and now have to face a council even more war-on-motorist than before.

Why do the councillors choose such a short-sighted policy? It's because of the forthcoming mayoral elections. The wealth bringers outside the city don't have any vote in the election, so their needs can be ignored. Such a plan can only bring financial disaster to the region.

One councillor, Peter Abraham, has been bold enough to stand up against this, "it will cause frustration to motorists" he says, before slipping the code-phrase "driving at the right speed for the right conditions". This is the secret handshake of ABD, just as the phrase "indigenous people" is to the BNP.

Sadly for Peter Abrams, the ABD are as completely out of touch with a modern city as the BNP are. Look at our previously documented video of the 20 mph zone of Montpelier:

The frustation that YY03YGM, experiences is not the 20 mph speed limit, which they manage to get past while overtaking the cyclist. No, what is frustrating is

1. The cyclist with the camera doing 18-19 mph in the 20 mph zone.
2. The oncoming bicycle at the junction which forces the car to come to a complete halt.
3. The person walking their dog in the road at 0:56
4. The oncoming bicycle at (1:03)
5. The oncoming bicycle at (1:06)
6. The two children playing in the road on a pogo stick at 1:15
7. The bicycle at 1:25
8. The people walking the road carrying a box at 1:28
9. The car parked in the road with its hazard lights on at 1:30.

These are the problems. Not the speed limit, but the way it encourages people to walk, cycle, -even play in the streets. This is the real problem. It downgrades the residential streets from "rat runs where the right conditions are 30mph even through corners" to "quiet roads where people are walking, cycling and playing there as if it was 1908 and cars hadn't arrived; a country where people driving are viewed as unwelcome invaders instead of an essential part of the life of the city".

This is exactly what threatens us. When the council says "encourage walking and cycling", it means "encourage anti-motorist activities in the city".

As Peter Abraham says, "Are we going to harass the motorists every mile they drive?" 

If you look at Montpelier -that's exactly what they are doing. And it's exactly what the council is planning on rolling out across the entire city.   

NC53BOV: "try your best"

Previously: Clifton. Today. Montpelier. We are going to show how the drivers in this part of the city not only know the width of their vehicles, but have far better situational awareness than other parts of the city. Look at this video here.



Some points.

1. The delivery van -whose way forward is blocked by roadworks- manages to reverse all the way back up the road to the next turning point. That is not something a normal driving test does, but it is hard. This person is skilled.
2. After getting past it, the non-road-tax-paying cameraman continues on their way.
3. Just as they are going past an expensive car, that car starts to pull forwards. We'd say pull out but in this road the pavement is about 1/3 of the actual roadway. That's why the driver of "NC53 BOV" didn't indicate; he wasn't pulling out.
4. The cyclist, who appears to be somewhat committed to the pass and exclaims "wait" and pulls past them. This is insensitive cycling and shows inadequate situational awareness.
5. The car driver isn't that happy with it, and after waiting a couple of seconds to get over the affront, sprints up fairly aggressively and puts some pressure on the bicycle to speed up. But he keeps his distance, there's nothing too threatening. Of course, driving half-on the pavement does limit your ability to put your foot down.
6. At the junction, the driver pulls up alongside and there is a polite discussion.

That's the difference between London and Bristol. In London: a fight. In Bristol a quiet exchange of views. The tax dodger explains that they are just trying to get to their destination alive. The driver of NC53BOV replies "try your best". The cyclist then congratulates them on their awareness of their surroundings and notes that they are more aware of them than the driver of CU54UWV. Then the troublemaker heads off towards St Werburghs.

After giving the tax dodger a chance to get ahead, the driver of the Audi RS6 Quattro shows that a key benefit of the automatic transmission and four wheel drive is the ability to put your foot down and have the car react, bringing you up to 40 mph in a 20mph zone in seconds. They manage to get safely past the cyclist before the oncoming traffic has a chance to get close, and, after making up for lost time, continue on the rat-run to the St Pauls Roundabout. Notice that despite his earlier unhappiness, he gives the bicycle plenty of room. This is someone who knows how to overtake safely, is aware of their surroundings, and able to adapt to them.

Exploring Clifton's secret 20 mph zone

Round the back of the school, there's a walking only dropoff area, where the kids can learn to walk round paveparked vans by going on the road.

Then at the end of Wellington Park it meets Whiteladies Road and comes to a timely end
 

Where things return to normal: 30mph, pinch points, pretend bike lanes with tax-earning vans temporarily parked on the associated yellow lines

On the other side, in Redland, they have painted some bicycles on the road of the sustrans "route 4"

These may encourage cycling, but at least they encourage the cyclist to stay far enough out to avoid damaging vehicles, such as the mini WR57XBX corner parked on the double yellow lines. Incidentally, this road may be one that voted against becoming an RPZ. And well they should, as the enforcement of parking rules would remove such parking opportunities.

Downfield Road: Clifton's secret 20mph zone

While doing our Clifton research we discovered something the area had been keeping secret -there is in fact a 20mph zone up by the Downs, between Pembroke and Whiteladies Road.

The entrance is on Downfield Road

With the 20 mph signage, parents will be as safe with their pushchairs in the middle of the road as they would be in Montpelier. Except of course, there aren't any pedestrians, this being Clifton. It's a neighbourhood watch area, and anyone walking is worth calling the police about. Presumably the 20 mph zone is to protect wing mirrors when paveparking isn't sufficient.

Looking at the school warning signs people may think that its for the kids, and the double yellow lines for the parental 4x4 dropoff

Except since our last visit, the school keep clear markings have been removed, leaving it for residents.

Overall then: odd. The area is too windy to be a decent rat-run, there's nobody on foot or bicycle to push for it. Residents wanting quiet or wing-mirror protection have to be the only reasons. Even so, it's selfish. Imagine if everyone wanted 20 mph zones! And this one is in Clifton, making it the thin end of the wedge. As far as we know, this is the only 20 mph zone in the quarter of the inner city from Cheltenham Road to the A4.