Aberystwyth Road, Bishopston

Time to catch up with the Aberystwyth Faction's proposals for an improved Gloucester Road -one that makes the bus lane tidal and so adds short-stay parking in the opposite direction.

We have now heard from the councillor behind the petition:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Willingham <David.Willingham@bristol.gov.uk>
Date: 17 December 2013 13:48
Subject: RE: Gloucester Road Parking Changes

  The petition neither mentions nor proposes making any changes to bus or cycle lanes as that is not what it is asking the council to change. 

  If you visit Gloucester Road, then you will find that there are various parking bays that could be brought into use to allow the traders to benefit from more passing trade during the peaks, without having a detrimental effect on cyclist safety.

  As a local cyclist who uses the Gloucester Road, I have no intention of trying to make it more dangerous for cyclists, and if done carefully and in the right locations, I believe the proposed change would make it possible to share the limited road space a little more efficiently.

  If the council do decide to act on this petition, then they would be required to perform a highways safety audit of any locations they intend to change, as well as statutory consultation on any changes, so all road users, local residents or traders could have their say.

Regards,

David
--
Cllr Dr David Willingham
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Bishopston ward

So there you go: it's about sharing the limited road space a little more efficiently.

If you look at the petition, it does call out the recessed parking bays outside  288 Gloucester Road -the original Maplins site -these changes are non-controversial and likely to be unopposed, except perhaps matched by some demands for bike parking alongside.

What is a flash point is going to be the sentence "Furthermore we call upon Bristol City Council to implement "tidal" parking on Gloucester Road,". Because its goals, "Parking on the inbound carriageway during the evening peak" means "no bus or bike lane inbound in the evening rush hour", while "Parking on the outbound carriageway during the morning peak." means the same in opposite direction.

This is where the controversy lies. What is being proposed here implies no bus lane to-and-from the North Fringe commute, which means

1. No bike lane for anyone heading to the north fringe
2. No bus lane for anyone trying to get the Wessex red busses. These are the ones used to get to and from UWE -and if the students can't go by bus or bike, that leaves car. We don't want that. They don't pay enough taxes to deserve any tarmac.
3. Anyone commuting by car up the north fringe is now going to get held up by congestion on the A38. As that's something that wasn't covered in the C4 documentary: what it was like to drive down Gloucester Road before the showcase routes were launched. It was much, much, worse. The buses would have to stop in your lane to let passengers on and off, and if there was a bus heading north stuck behind a minicab with its hazards  on near the minicab office, your road would block as the two buses would never be able to pass each other. Gloucester Road was only viable as a driving commute option on those days that the council was actually enforcing parking. Which is something you wouldn't know on the commute until you were committed. 

See that? No matter how you get to the North Fringe, car, bus or even bicycle, the showcase bus route benefits. We don't expect the motoring advocate groups to realise that, as Bob Bull of portishead, official spokesman of the ABD in the evening post, is too busy complaining about his journey along the portway to appreciate how the bus lane helps commuting by car.

We do fear that the bus companies will pick up on this -as will UWE. And the cyclists, well they are the all-powerful-cycle-lobby.

Gloucester Road is going to be flash point there.

• Statistics imply that Gloucester Road has the highest number of reporting cycling incidents. -if you add Cheltenham Road to the figures, the A38 stands out as either the busiest cycling route in the city, or one of the more hazardous. Notable is that the Railway Path, which has the highest use, doesn't appear on the list at all.
• Bristol Cycling Campaign's followups on police involvement in any of these incidents imply the outcome is "not interested". This has the potential to be an issue in its own right.
• Even the mountain bikers are getting involved in this. Because while they are happy doing things like the red bits on the Super Nova trail, they at least know if they do get it wrong, they won't have somebody on the phone drive straight over them.
• A lot of the North Fringe employers have Bicycle User Groups with group mailing lists -easily organised, and capable of co-opting driving colleagues into the battle.
• The cyclists have more influence in the national press.

Putting it together, the shops may think that a review of the bus lane and a tidal system may get wide support -after their success in ensuring they retain their commuter parking in the RPZ-, but they are potentially getting into trouble. How are they going to react if cycling campaigners start handing out leaflets saying "email your councillor" to cyclists waiting at junctions on gloucester road? Can they take the trade of cyclists for granted -or are they going to have to deal with people coming into the shops, creating queues at peak hours, then when they get to the counter announcing they won't shop there as the shopkeepers are endangering their lives.

This is going to one to watch.

As for now, at the time of writing (16:02, Wednesday December 18), the petitions stand at

• Cyclists for a better bike lane: 135
• Aberystwyth: 73.

That's gone in a week from about 62-63 each -the cycling petition doubling, the shopkeeper's going by ten. This should be a warning sign to the councillors: they run a risk of making more enemies than friends here.

The Aberystwyth Faction: short stay parking matters more than life

This is just a first post on what is going to brew up into the next story to keep the Evening Post readers suitably outraged. Remember: we covered it first.

Regular readers may recall our coverage of a recent channel4 documentary, one that showed how the council was enforcing the parking restrictions in the showcase bus route at peak hours -and worse than that, by doing it with CCTV, ensuring that people really really didn't stop there, rather than "stop for 10 minutes -no harm done" stopping.

Well, now it's got national coverage, it's going to blow up

The "more parking" campaigners did manage to hold off the rollout of resident parking zones nearby, so ensuring that the parking areas will be available for staff and other commuters -leaving a remaining problem: where do shoppers go?

The answer is obvious: the bus and bike lanes.

Hence a petition: Fairer parking on Gloucester Road.

This is The Aberystwyth Faction's petition

We call upon Bristol City Council to remove peak parking restrictions from all parking bays that do not cause obstruction to traffic lanes of Gloucester Road, 

...
Furthermore we call upon Bristol City Council to implement "tidal" parking on Gloucester Road, and to permit the following:
•Parking on the inbound carriageway during the evening peak.
•Parking on the outbound carriageway during the morning peak.

This is pretty significant as if they get their way, it means that the bike lanes will be dead, and the bus lanes will only work for people heading towards town in the morning, away in the evening.

Which means that anyone trying to cycle in the opposite direction, say to school, or even to work on the North Fringe -and get there alive, are stuffed.

The right to park outside a shop is more important than the rights of others to live

In the other corner, just warming up, are the people who mistakenly believe that their right to live is more important than allowing people to get a bag of chips without having to park round the corner and walk 100 paces.

Their petition: Petition: Uninterrupted Cycle Lane on both sides along entire Gloucester Road

This is going to go head to head -two pressure groups, seeing who can be the loudest. Those demanding that Gloucester Road becomes like Aberystwyth: free range parking, or those who don't want the cycling clock pushed backwards -but instead want the bike lane expanded and enforced.

It's going to get exciting!

Room for Manouevre

Very often people who park their vehicles in mandatory bike lanes are accused of being lazy, selfish and of endangering and inconveniencing cyclists. This may be the case sometimes, but it is not always true, as shown here in Grove Road, Redland

As you can see, it is possible to safely negotiate the junction

the cyclist may be left facing oncoming traffic where they appear to have just popped out from behind a van, but as this is part of the Sustrans NCN4 route, who doesn't want a frisson of excitement before the dullness of the Railway Path?

Stokes Croft goes national

The guardian has published article looking at stokes croft as a place to live.

This is the first time that Stokes Croft has anything vaguely resembling positive coverage, so it's worth a read.

Sadly, it's flawed. As we've stated before stokes croft is not Bohemian.

Yes, it does have a flower shop, so the "A revolution must have flowers" quote is correct -yet the author of the article completely omits the adjacent retail outlet, Slix -the food of the revolution, or how this so-called revolution will impact the paid-sex industry of the area.




For claims that the croft is gentrified, we are pleased to reassure people that the coloured paint is, literally, a thin layer of paint over the cracks.
  
Nor did the article mention the familiar sound of the A38 -the sirens- or the fact that for many of the residents, Alcoholism is in fact a career choice.
  
there was lots of praise for the Post Office, : "the lovely folk at the post office". Yet the article implied that walking and cycling were the way to get around.
 
Regular readers will know that the cycle lane is for short-stay visitors to the post office, while the recommended transport for the area is in fact a van.

On the topic of stokes croft vans, can we ask the driver of the red van turning right into Ashley Road at about 4:30pm today, monday Jul 2, what did that female pedestrian in the grey jacket do that merited you getting out and trying to start a fight with her? Pedestrians can damage your paintwork if they hit your van or wingmirrors, so we are sure that whatever she did it was deserved.

We were just suprised, watching it from our own van, that the first road-rage incident of the evening rush hour was starting that early on in the evening. Usually the fights don't kick off until after 5pm.

Silver on the Croft

Having heard rumours that one of our vehicles is silver, someone inquired as to whether the ford focus in the bike lake outside Pizza King in Stokes Croft is ours.

No. ours is the open topped toy on the other side of the road and slightly closer to town

It makes a much more positive statement there.
 
And there is nowhere better to spend a sunny afternoon than keeping an eye on your car from a street cafe in the croft.

Not us: we don't speak hungarian

Lovely video, people coming to the streets and saying what up to now is only printed in the Daily Mail, written in the comments, and muttered by taxi drivers between themselves.


Of course, we don't need to have a special protest to take over a bike lane -we have Stokes Croft for that.




On that topic: remember, Saturday is the official opening of the bearpit wifi zone and it's transformation into one of Bristol's premier destinations. Now all someone needs to do is paint over that bit between the bearpit and Nelson street and bring it back to its 1972 glory: Broadmead.

Keeping Tesco Safe

Here one weekday morning, the police are ensuring that Tesco is safe.

Especially from people on bicycles, who will have to past further out on the road.

This will make the customers feel less threatened -even during the hours that the bike/bus lane is active.

Britannia Movers International: Try the lanes of Cornwall instead

There's a lovely piece of advice for anyone naive enough to believe that they'd be welcome cycling up the dedicated contraflow cycle lane or Arley Hill. It says "try the lanes of corwall"

What WA58BVD really means is "dont' try these bike lanes". We thought it was funny.

If there is one criticism -a minor one- the lorry is making it hard to get down the road and hence to the M32 for those of us who have paid for the privilege. A bit of forward planning, like, say, coning/dustbinnining off the front of the house would have let the removals van load up without taking any road space away from us.

More coverage of WA58BVD elsewhere.

Tesco Stokes Croft: A consultation

We're reproducing a message sent out today, in order to prevent any misunderstandings if our email became public through other channels, just like that recent incident involving "Quercus", twitter and a naked man on a unicycle. First, we need to make clear that we do not in any way support the use of bicycles or public transport in the city. We are, however, concerned that the delivery and shopping processes of the Cheltenham Road Tesco Mini-mart are making it impossible for us to drive down the bus lane then swing left into Ashley Road, so avoiding the bearpit roundabout while heading out of town on the M32. Furthermore, the congestion caused by buses trying to swing back into the single-lane traffic is creating tailbacks as far as the Gloucester Road/Zetland Road junction, which makes nipping into Booze express harder. We couldn't come out and say this as it would make us appear shallow and self centred, so instead we pretended to have unified interests with the people that Jeremy Clarkson only this week denounced as anti-capitalist subversives.

Here is the letter

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bristol Traffic
Date: 21 June 2011 15:17
Subject: Express Cheltenham Road, Bristol
To: expressqueries@uk.tesco.com


It appears that you are looking for feedback w.r.t the Tesco Express, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, the one that recently became nationally famous due its unfortunate history of catching fire late at night.

The Bristol Traffic Project wishes to provide some feedback about the newly re-opened mini-mart.

In case you are unaware, we are a web-based community project to build a defensible dataset on who drives, parks, cycles and walks badly round Bristol. Our stokes croft coverage dates back to 2008, and so forms one of the largest dataset on road usage in the area. As a result, the search terms "Tesco Stokes Croft" invariably lists one of our articles in the first page of responses, despite the recent national and international media coverage.

One conclusion of our three year dataset is that the number of people cycling along Cheltenham Road is increasing. This is something which the council believes is a good thing, which is why the Cycling City program deliberately set out to encourage people in Bishopston, further up the A38, to cycle to work -down Cheltenham Road. For this reason, the Greater Bristol Bus Network offers a mandatory bus lane during some parts of the day; this ends outside Tesco Cheltenham Road, where a non-mandatory cycle path begins. While historically the bus lane only ever existed on those rare days that Bristol Parking Services enforced the rule, the roll-out of in-bus camera and CCTV enforcement of lane-blocking legislation means that compliance is now higher, except amongst those entities that are prepared to view the penalty as an operational expense.

Within the last ten weekdays of the supermarket being "live", community contributions show that

• There is invariably a large HGV blocking the end of the bus lane and the beginning of the bus lane between 10:00 and 10:30
• While unloading is not permitted before 10:00, if the HGV arrives early, it merely parks in the bike/bus lanes and awaits 10:00
• Security vehicles visiting the shop have been parked there at 09:15, and contributed to an apparent collapse of the entire inbound bike lane
• Evening shoppers parking outside the mini-mart block the bus lane and create congestion on the inbound route to the city before 18:00. In comparison, our historical dataset shows that at this time of day the congestion only existed on the outbound route [1, 2].
  

Accordingly we can conclude that:

1. The official Tesco deliveries, while scheduled for 10:00-10:30, render the bike lane inoperable for a minimum of 30 minutes out of every working day. This bike lane being, as mentioned, the primary cycle route into the city from north Bristol.
2. This official blocking of the bus lane impacts bus schedules, inconveniences passengers across the city, and may even lead to financial penalties to FirstBus.
3. Other organisations with an apparent relationship with Tesco (e.g. G4S) are prepared to block the bus lane during its operational hours, and therefore presumably view parking tickets as an OPEX. This reduces the availability of the bus and bike lane even further.
4. Customers engaged in a park-and-shop process are prepared to short-stay park in the bus/bike lane through out the day, so rendering it unusable to buses, cyclists, and anyone coming down of Arley Hill who wants to nip down the bus lane before turning left on Ashley Road towards the M32.
5. Customers engaged in a park-and-shop process are prepared to short-stay park outside the shop during the evening bus-lane hour, so creating congestion that runs as far back as Zetland Road and so has a negative impact on all road journeys.

Overall, then, the combination of scheduled Tesco deliveries, possibly scheduled visits by partner organisations, and short-stay parking by customers has effectively rendered this bus and bike lane unusable to anyone in a bus, bicycle, motorcycle or taxi, or anyone simply prepared to nip up the left lane to get to St Pauls, an action to which a blind eye has historically been turned.

Given the role of the road and the fact that the loss of this lane is leading to congestion morning and evening, we consider this outcome unacceptable.

We would recommend some actions to mitigate this. Sadly very few actions spring to mind other than the closure of the mini-mart.

• Your cost model is built around an optimised supply chain that uses the same vehicles for delivering to Tesco Express outlets as other Tesco sites, so the HGVs could only be eliminated by the adoption of a new city-friendly supply chain.
• Your cost model does not include the external costs of the impact on the journey times of non-customers, or other externalies such as the increases in their fuel use and pollution.
• Passing motorists popping in to shop may have been explicitly or implicitly included in the business model of the shop. It may be possible to enforce a "do not sell to people who park in the bus/bike lane" policy by refusing them entry, however this will not help customer loyalty.
• It is hard for you to enforce policy on how your strategic partners such as G4S arrive and park outside your premises.

What is possible is for the local council to act in such a way as to mitigate such issues, independent of any of your actions:

1. Use the CCTV camera at the junction of Cheltenham Road and Arley Hill to enforce the existing bus lane parking rules. This does not require any legal process and could be rolled out almost immediately.
2. Use existing the CCTV camera to enforce the 15 minute loading/unload time limit. Again, no legislation necessary.
3. Uprate the cycle lane from "optional" to mandatory, so earning all vehicles which park there a £120 fine.
4. Enforce the then-extended cycle lane driving/parking rules using the same CCTV camera
5. Increase the physical presence of Bristol Parking Services staff, so offering more of a visual deterrent before 10:00 and after 16:30.

Being a data-gathering exercise we shall be using the FoI process to track the number of parking tickets issued in this area, so see if it correlates with the increase of delivery and customer parking which our data implies is happening. We shall also encouraging our existing community base to collect more photographs of the situation, which we shall then place online along with the vehicle registration numbers, and so help build up a better dataset of who chooses to block this invaluable facility, and when.

Please thank your staff, partners and customers for their participation in our experiment.

The Bristol Traffic Team.

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

As stated, do not interpret this as some form of subversive activity. It is just that the tailbacks prevent us getting down and parking on the pavement outside Ritas or sprinting over to the M32. We are, as people should recall, a data gathering and analysis project, so we welcome documentary evidence from everyone on this issue, even people engaged in un-British activities like walking, cycling, and getting on a bus as opposed to standing there hoping that one will turn up. The threat of using FoI information to collect ticketing statistics is real, and we enjoy the irony of having the CCTV camera put in "for the mini-mart's own protection" being used to ticket people parking in the bus lane during its hours of liveness. Expect updates in future

Tesco's plans to Walthamize the cycling city in the back.

We are impressed. Every day that one of the team members has been down to Cheltenham Road this week, there's been a vehicle or two outside Tesco. What was once one of the showcase "cycle city" and "Greater Bristol Bus Network" routes has been returned to the tax paying driver -and as vans and lorries pay more road tax, they deserve to use it first.

"Slug" sends a couple of Pics from 09:15 on Friday 17 June showing a security van outside tesco,

And right outside the credit union, another lorry, MX07GJV

As slug says " It can be very dangerous for a cyclist to cycle in the cycle lane because it is to the left of traffic turning left. So the lorry driver out of concern for the potential danger that inexperienced cyclists are putting themselves in, decided to park on the double yellow lines ... ignoring the no unloading sign.

Behind the vehicle you can see all the way to the security van that is also parked on the cycle lane -and in between the lane is completely empty! Mission accomplished! no cyclists Left Hooked at Ashley junction this morning.

Interestingly, we have a different video of the same stretch of road from someone else taken about ten minutes later. This video is interesting because it is from the perspective of one of the tax-dodgers, someone who is trying to get across the city "after 9am because the roads are quieter." See that? These people have deliberately chosen to commute outside "the rush hour" because they prefer it. But that reduction in road traffic creates an illusion of safety -and encourages more of such behaviour.

At 0:03 there's another cyclist on Freemantle Road -heading towards the university or Clifton, then our underemployed camera-enabled tax-avoider descends Nugent Hill, an option forbidden to cars, especially since they put that island in at the bottom to stop right turns, a feature few motorists have managed to deal with. Our troublemaker negotiates that island by abusing the contraflow bike lane on Arley Hill, then flips into the left lane to undertake the stationary traffic to wait for a green light.

While waiting we see important people in cars and taxis, some public transport users, and unimportant pedestrians, and another cyclist at 1:58 crossing over to the contraflow. Because The A38 here, it could unify or divide the city. The council wanted to make it a showcase for the cycle city program, encouraging people from Bishopston (out of town; to the left) to head into the city centre, down this very road!

That is something we need to stop, which is why we are grateful for Tesco and its support. Because as well as unifying the cyclists, it could divide them. It and Muller road are the two roads that anyone cycling around north Bristol has to encounter, and if we can only roll back any pro-cycling "enhancements" there, then we can discourage anyone not just from cycling on these main roads, but even get across them.

That is why it is so essential to fight them on the streets, and why the Tesco delivery process is helping transform this road, and hence the whole of north Bristol.

At 2:14 you can see the bicycle head in to town. Although they think they have a lane to themselves, at 2:22 you can see their mistake -the security van has moved on since 09:15, but another delivery van has taken its place. Then at 2:34, a car half on the pavement, half on the bike lane. That bike lane is considered unsafe anyway, which is why they and the next lorry are blocking it. What's changed since the photos earlier is that the lorry seems to be deciding to pull out now; it's flipped its indicators on. The tax dodger goes past, and at 2:47 you can see another paveparked van; a 2:49 a similar car. All it takes is one or two vehicles doing this, all the time, every day, and people will be discouraged not just from commuting along this road by bicycle, but across it.

At 3:04 our troublemaker does a U-turn and heads out of town, showing that the bike lane there is in its usual state: short stay parking for shop customers and staff. This bike lane has been reclaimed!

At 3:36, they are now waiting to turn right towards montpelier, where you can see that the row of vehicles blocking the left lane do actually turn it into a bikes-only lane, albeit because nobody actually wants to turn left. Anyone turning left will have to swing over from the right hand lane, which might be a surprise to anyone cycling down it, of which we can see a couple at 3:50.

Then, finally, at 3:54, our errant tax dodger turns right, and then left into Montpelier, where they can feel slightly safer.

You see that? How the quiet bits of the city, Cotham and Montpelier, can be made cycling unfriendly not by adding any anti-cycling infrastructure, but by making it unpleasant to cross the roads between them. We don't need to ask the council for special anti-bicycle features, the way they do in Waltham Forest, all we need to do is park our delivery vans where we want on the roads the cyclist have to cross. It only takes a couple of HGVs to set an example, and once it's begun, every else will copy. What was a bike lane has become a parking area, not just to achieve the tactical goal: park outside our destination, but to achieve a strategic one: to knife the cycling city dream in the back.

Whose streets? Ours! For parking in whenever we want!

Tesco Walthamises Cheltenham Road

As we stated many months ago, a new Tesco mini-mart would finally give us a reason to park along Cheltenham Road.

What we hadn't expected was how rapidly it would transit from a boring, functional bus lane and bike lane into a short stay shopping street. Tesco have brought the high street back again!

Notice here, on Thursday June 17, 10:18 am how the delivery staff have placed some warning signs out. At first we thought they were to warn cyclists not to go straight into the back of the lorry, and were a bit worried that Tesco may be starting to care.

A closer look reveals the real isse. Because the lorry has a loader that drops to ground level, they don't want any shopper to park their car on the double yellow lines too close to the back of the lorry. They are concerned about the customers, not the passing underpeople.

Here's a video of the same scene

Notice how you can just make out the bike lane underneath the lorry as it raises the floor.

Many of the troublemakers have complained that Tesco moved in to the area to profit from a road going upmarket. Untrue. Tesco moved in there because it wasn't upmarket enough, because people walked and cycled round, even though it was a main road with plenty of room for lorries and parking.

Tesco moved in to the area to save Stokes Croft from itself!

Breaking news! The Polis at the tesco parking area!

A quick trip in our van at 09:59 shows the delivery van YR59YUD happily ensconced in the bus lane, waiting to deliver to tesco.

We say waiting, because apparently as long as they don't start unloading until 10:00, it's OK. This actually makes sense. Anyone who is trying to use public transport or cycle at that time of day are clearly low-income people whose time is effectively worthless, according to the D of Motoring spreadsheets.

What is more interesting is later the same day, now at 18:37, we spot the "Mighty Banana" van of Stokes Croft, now parked outside Tesco. Has someone driven up from the Croft to get their weekly shop in?

Possibly, but they would have found their way blocked by a large group of strangely dressed people. That said, anyone driving up from the croft wouldn't find this unusual, or interfere with their daily shop.

What could, however, would be the police enforcement of parking rules. And here is where we saw something so shocking we almost dropped the mobile phone from our steering wheel hand (the other hand is for gear changes and the horn). Yes, a policeman actually went up to the van to note its registration number. We were in shock. This could destroy Bristol as we know it. Watch the video.

You see that? Panic over. It turns out that the "Mighty Banana" Van, W878MDC, is actually Chris Chalkey's van, and the police are only doing it for a laugh. In the voiceover you can hear Cllr Jon Rogers -whom we suspect of not being in the Waltham Forest Faction of the LibDem council- explaining this and why it's all a setup. Chris see's what's happening, starts waving his masonic hand-waves at the police and all is well. Masonic Handwaves, incidentally, are the van drivers' version of the Masonic Handshake -make the secret wave to any traffic police and they'll let you past.

False alarm: panic over. There's no problem with parking in the mornings, no problem in the evenings either. We were worried there, but at least everyone has come to their senses and realised that if there's one group of people in the city not to mess with, it's us van drivers. Those videos of people shouting "whose streets? Our streets?" wouldn't stand a chance against a roadblock of us going "whose short-stay parking areas? your bike lanes!"

Stokes Croft Riot: Cheltenham Road is back to normal

We got a blip in web traffic last week with people searching online for "Stokes Croft" and "Stokes Croft Tesco".

We are Bristol's premier road-related news outlet --and given this road's role in both transportation and fast food, this extra traffic was not surprising.

To keep our out-of-town visitors informed, we drove the official Bristol Traffic White Van down to Cheltenham Road and 'the Croft to see what was happening.

The Tescos is boarded up, Fred Baker Cycles has a few hundred pounds worth of damage. All eight cyclists who read this site might want to consider visiting the shop and buying something there, to show your support for a local shop in the area that never chose to be alongside a new supermarket.

The outbound bike lane has a car in it, this time a police car.

The inbound bike lane also has a car in it.

Up on the now infamous Telepathic Heights, someone sits on the roof shouting at passers by.

All is back to normal.

AA in stokes croft

Lovely to see the AA van EU08CMD out rescuing someone whose car had broken down in the stokes croft "bike lane"

We use quotes around "bike lane" as we have never once seen a cyclist using it.

We do not understand why not, or why they are so ungrateful for all that our road tax does for them.

The Stokes Croft Bike Lane! Sponsored by the AA!

Dighton Street: An update

We are busy watching the Walthamization of Dighton Street -all is going well, at least according to this video.



this time not only is another car parked outside Pizza Go-Go in the bike lane, showing how bike lanes benefit takeaways by providing somewhere to park, we see the minicab AE04NDG, taxi #2525, taking full advantage of those cycling facilities.

First, it's stopped part on the pavement, part on the road -but note how no wheel is actually in the bike lane. Then it pulls out -no need to indicate, it's a quiet day, and drives forward, where an ASL provides somewhere for the vehicle to wait for the light to change.

Such use of the cycling facilities of this part of the city ensures that the residents of Bristol do get some use of them. Note how our tax dodging cycle camera person (sorry!) opted to use none of them on this part of the journey. If they aren't going to use such features, well, we motorists may as well!

A local driving school discusses the highway code

Our coverage of the anti-car streets of Horfield generated some comments from 2nd2none driving school, who seemed to misinterpret our photos of one of their instructors cars parked on the pavement as some form of criticism. Nothing could be further from the truth! We are merely jealous that the instructor who lives in the area has some empty pavement outside their house that they can call their own. In the inner city we can spend twenty minutes driving round looking for some space on a buildout or zebra crossing, yet in the suburbs, there is a bit of pavement every household can call their own. The only time we've ever said anything mildly critical of this driving school was when we caught them parking legally in Montpelier, because that's failing to teach people the local skills. Robbies driving school never gets caught doing that.

First, they say:

by this comment you dont actually drive and are simply a busy body with nothing better to do than ride around complaining about trivial things like this.

Bristol Traffic is a community project that exists to document, not take sides. You appear to have taken our coverage as some form of criticism, for which we must apologise.

Anyway, the driving school made some valid points, the first one being:

we teach our pupils to park correctly but anyone can clearly see that these roads are far to small to do that.
...
at times parking on the pavement is unavoidable as to keep the road clear for other users.

Exactly. There is the theory "don't park on places you aren't allowed to", and practice "park where you need to" -and its the difference between the two which we find fascinating, and why driving school and L-plated cars get extra coverage that normal cars don't usually merit. We aren't criticising, merely observing and documenting.

Now, -and this is where it gets interesting- some people replies to the driving school's comments, not agreeing with them, but instead pointing out the bit of the highway code that discusses parking on pavements! This is shocking! Even more so when at more than one of the people replying claimed to be a contributor to the site! We shall have to pay more attention to who we let submit photographs and videos, as some of them clearly hold different opinions from our own -and the rest of the tax paying motorists in the city who subsidise their pedestrian lifestyle. See that? Pedestrian. It's come to mean "slow". There's a hint there.

Fortunately, the driving school replied and made a key point that wins the argument:

as for the highway code, this is a rule book that was written in 1931 with approximately 2 million cars on the road and the motor car being a non essential commodity, not the 27 million cars that now exist on this small island. There simply isnt enough road space for driving or parking and Bristol has one of the worst managed road systems of any city's.

This is precisely what we think, which is why we exist to document how utterly out of touch the highway code is, such as its complete lack of exemptions for anyone like us doing deliveries in town.

Look at this white van, WP57WGW, parked over a zebra crossing at the bottom of Cotham Hill December 8 2010! Zebra crossings and belisha beacons are a 1930s idea -time to move on!

Look at N&C deliveries truck N6MOV, who know that unloading pallets takes priority over solid white "do not cross lines" and double yellow lines alongside them on the Cotham Hill on December 8. Yellow lines? Obsolete! Time to move on!

Again -what a coincidence- here on Cotham Brow, December 8, Falafel King's delivery van WR58GWG is parked up on the pavement on double yellow lines. Yes, the old highway code says you must not do this, but if you need to get falafels into van, what else can you do? Double yellow lines? Pavements wide enough for pedestrians? Obsolete! Time to move on!

We close, however, with this video of the streets in Horfield round where the 2nd2none car was spotted, giving viewers from outside the city a harsh introduction to this area's problems. The roads aren't wide enough for cars to park two abreast, and the alternative -park on one side walking a bit- would involve walking a bit. As for double parking -forget it! These aren't the wide streets of Clifton.

The 2nd2none driving school must feel so proud as they drive round these streets, seeing what may be many former happy customers, not only having got past the test, but parking in the streets the way people in our city really need to do -even in the parts of town where there are still spaces on the other side of the road.

And of course, if you want to get new customers for your motor vehicles, there is the tilleys tactic, namely co-opting the bike path, footpath or pavement to sell your wares. Every pedestrian whose route is obstructed by a driving school vehicle will realise that driving not only gets them round town better, it lets them park conveniently afterwards, and so will be more tempted to spend the money to learn to drive.

Cotham Hill Summit Problems

The final question about the showcase bus route proposals is will the removal of a zebra crossing at the bottom of Cotham Hill and a dedicated turning lane help school run parents turning off at Cotham Hill?

Not if this video of a weekday morning is consistent. There's a jam all the way up the hill from Oakfield Road.

Sometimes there is less of a jam, and then parents can safely pull over onto the bike lane without their fear of their children being hit by a cyclist as they drop them off at one of the local schools (St Peter and Paul's RC is the closest), then carry on to the parent's final destination without any detour.

This is safe, provided the cyclists don't interfere. Today you can see that our secretly-instrumented tax-dodger swerved out of the bike lane, into the tax-payer's lane, forcing the car W153KDA to pull out aggressively to avoid being stuck behind them.

Muller Road update

One of our cities unicyclists was complaining last month about some barriers up on the approach to the Muller road bicycle buildout

What about the blockage at the lower end? The side of the lane is marked out with concrete blocks, and there's a bloody great "bear right" sign across the entrance. It's hard to tell whether this is just to prevent cars from parking/driving in the cycle lane, or if the whole thing is supposed to be closed. However, the effect is to make it quite dangerous to enter the lane at that end, even at the relatively low speed and high manoeuvrability of a unicycle. I can't imagine trying to use the lane on two wheels.

Well, we are pleased to note that the works are removed, there is a keep right arrow for cars and an arrow on the ground for bicycles

This provides them with a safe approach once they get past the car transporter parked in the bus stop

Something that appears to be a semi-permanent fixture of the road.

We hope the unicyclists are now happy!

Cotham Hill update: Fredwood Forestry takes our side

We went back to Cotham Hill to see if the bike racks had been taken away, or whether we, the citizens of the city, were forced to discourage walking or cycling ourselves.

A van with the Del Monte man hat was out this morning, but the camera was playing up, so no photo.

What we do have is Monday's van, AG07DVK. Together with VF55GYX and another van with the Del-Monte hat in it, it ensures the uphill bike lane is unusable every weekday morning, and even pedestrians have a hard time getting down here.

What you can't appreciate from these photos is the van is parked just up on the rise of the east-facing hill, so all cars coming up the hill will be forced to swerve into the oncoming bicycle lane precisely when the sun is directly in their eyes. This ensures that when they run over a cyclist they can say "The sun was in my eyes", so downgrading the event to an accident. We like it.

Subtle.

Congratulations, then, to Fredwood Forestry, for their contribution to our city.

Cotham Hill: the front line

Cotham Hill is one of the front line roads in the war on motorists. An important route on the weekday school run for parents, it also tries to make bicyclists and pedestrians feel welcome. Hence the conflict.

Some people are trying to stop this, and here we must praise VF55GYX, who has parked on the uphill bike lane/dotted yellow lines three days in the past week between 08:00 and 08:30.

That shows dedication to discouraging cyclists not just cycling up the hill -where it is much harder to get round them, but also heading downhill, as now they need to worry about important motor vehicles swerving into their lane.

Together, this may make these people realise they are are not welcome here.

But will it be enough?

This why were are pleased to see these signs warning that the bike parking at the bottom of Cotham Hill is being removed. Here you can see the signs on the bike stands which are forcing the white van WP55NNM to park on double yellow lines, rather than this lovely buildout.

Looking the other way, you can see how this popular shopping street with 1h parking suffers from a lack of parking opportunities, but note that we will have to have the bollards removed to in order for shoppers cars to use the buildout, rather than the double yellow lines, which WN07WWE is forced to do.

Question is, if the bollards and the bike stands get removed, where do the signs trying to attract passing motorist traffic go?