Metrobus Enhanced Centre: west to east

Apparently the Metrobus project will bring wonderful cycling facilities to the city.

We await this with curiosity.

We do know that

• right now there is nothing
• there is nothing on the travelwest web site about how to get across alive on a bicycle
• the travelwest web site can't even get their "out of baldwin street for cars" map right.

Overall not a good sign.

Historically, the crossing which is blocked was a walk/cycle crossing where you could cycle randomly around until you made it over. This never actually glued up very well with baldwin street, on account of the railings and the oncoming traffic; you'd have to head over to the bit of the centre which was bus lane only, cycle over the ped crossings there, or go down the bus & bike bit of road the bus drivers felt were theirs. Or you stay on the ped/cycle inner bit, zig zag through people and children, creating the impression that cyclists were tax dodging criminals who cycled where they shouldn't. Yes, the evening post did an article on that topic a very long time ago.


So, we sent our expendable tax dodger to go west-east across the centre to see how things are today


Pretty awful at the start, mediocre in the middle, and just as bad as before at the end.

Awful at the start: well, what do you do? No signs, just a closed off crossing. Our tax dodger eventually went for the coned off lane in the middle and made their way to the new bit of the centre.


Mediocre at the middle. The one thing the Baldwin Street path gets right is: clearly delineated as a bike path. Tax dodgers stay on it, people don't walk down the middle (Except on friday nights, obviously), and people on the pavement don't have to worry about cyclists weaving through them because there's a f-obvious bike lane to use instead.

The new design has some faint tiles on the ground which may mean its a bike lane. Hard to tell. They don't currently join up with anything.

There's some new lights, possibly split into bike & ped, but with no cues, everyone just spread out. Watch out for the person nearly being hit by the turning bus: bit of a design flaw there, even if that's where the cyclists are meant to be.

Finally, at the end, just as bad as before. It does look like there might be some link off to the left, but again, it's been made out of artisanal tiles rather than useful roadbuilding materials, so who knows. You can avoid worrying about this by getting onto the bus zone, coming off it to get towards the Arnolfini.


Once you've actually crossed the centre, you can get down to the prince st bridge (walking), then on to bedminster. Why? Motaman is having a closing down sale! Bedminster's main shopping destination is being shut down as the building is being turned into flats! Gentrification is coming to Bemmy and it's not good.

This is why the Battle for Flax Bourton must be won now

Some people must have seen our post and and an estimate of 30-40 bicycles an hour and peak times and thought "so what?

This is what. This is the bike path that the petitioners harassed the Elf King himself, about, the one in jeopardy, the one he said should only be built if the sheep used their existing cycle paths. As far as Flax Bourton is concerned, using those cycle paths is bad enough. When this route is finished, their quiet life will be destroyed.

Look at it. 3-4 metres, wide, already built out, with the trees cut back. Raised enough to make it hard to swing onto. And already being scoped out.

The narrowing of the road means that the paint between the the lanes will be removed, forcing us to drive slower. If the 50 mph speed limit is dropped to 30, that will add another minute to the Flax Bourton to Long Ashton school run, again, threatening a lifestyle people paid into.

   
Look at it. Our tax money. It's on the opposite side of the road from the footpath, so there won't be "badly behaved cyclists" "riding on pavements amidst pedestrians". No, they will be cycling as fast as they do now -sprinting to and from Backwell, on this new £1.2M route running parallel to the A370.

Every one of those cyclists could endanger a motorist.

The Elf King said he wouldn't pay attention to petitions from people outside Long Ashton, pressuring him to build this blatant war-on-motoring facility. Well, he caved in. Hopefully he'll listen to the next petition, from local folk.

"Local Roads for Local People! And better commuter routes into the Bristol City Centre"

This is what we want!

"we're not anti-cycling, but" -flax bourton joins the bikelash

This site has been quiet recently -but then our business model isn't based on having a high visitor count and then selling adverts to advertisers who want to sell things to those people who visit the site regularly (i.e. losers). We haven't been visiting the evening post much either, not since they started demanding access to the contact details of all gmail accounts.

Today though, something draws us in again: the bikelash is back.

The last decent bikelash we had in the area was in Long Ashton, where the Elf-King himself proclaimed that cyclists were arrogant and that trying to petition him to complete a bike path was sheep-like.

Today, just east of Long Ashton, the village of Flax Bourton joins in the Evening Post Official Bikelash!

Yes, in a picturesque modern rural housing estate, residents are warning that cyclists are a risk to pedestrians and car drivers!

Here is the area.

Rosemount Road is a classic example of a late twentieth century, early 21st interpretation of that rural dream, a country village.

In the background, the birdsong-like hum of the A370, offering the elf-folk access to the city, or Bristol airport, if that is their place of employ. (some day we should cover the airport. If it weren't so anti-all-other-modes-of-transport, including flight, we'd accuse it of being at war with motorists).



Like a traditional village, there are no pavements, just verges to drive over and so justify the 4x4.

 
Like a tradional village there is always somebody petty with a keep of the grass sign and stones to mark their territory.

Unlike the city, there is room for more than one car per household. And, when washing your car on a Sunday afternoon, you can leave the door open without fear that your car will be stolen and the insurance company laugh at you for doing so.
 

According to Zoopla, these houses sell for just under £500K, money well spent to get away from the city and its stress.
In these quiet cul-de-sacs, there is enough space for children to happily bounce and scoot around without fear of being killed by a passing bicycle.

But not anymore. Not now that Somerset council is partway through bulding a quality off-road bike path all the way from the city centre to this rural dream.


They are trying to bring the city to the countryside, to destroy the rural commuter lifestyle these people have worked so hard to attain.

This is the front line in the Bikelash!

West End of the Long Ashton Route

At the west end of the Long Ashton road, there's a double mini roundabout.

Classic cycle paths marked in fading paint provide a safe off-road route between the junctions where the plebs of the 47% are rightfully denied rights of way.
\

Due south, a nice segue into the A370 as the Dual Carriageway begins. That 40mph sign is one of those "pretend" signs; the curves on that approach road are designed to help you accelerate up to speed.

This is why we don't want to encourage cycling, cyclists will only get in the way on the left turn here, expose themselves to risk, get run over, and then blame innocent motorists. They say there is safety in numbers, but there is only one number that is safe: zero.

 

Some people may say "this is classic unplanned mediocrity", They are mistaken.

as you can see from the signs at the mini roundabout, the Elf-Kingdom's Highway Laboratory is adjacent to these junctions, these roads, these cycle paths.
  
These roads, these bike paths, these junctions are not accidents. They are by design, and the designers drive along here every day, looking at their work and being proud.

We in the Bristol Traffic Team salute the Highway's Laboratory Staff! The roads outside their offices are a great experiment in how all of Somerset's roads could be! The sooner the better!

The Long Ashon Path

In the elf kingdom, we visited the road where the campaigners campaigned, sheep like, for an off-road alternative to the 50 mph road -probably involving some pavement widening.

They are being greedy. Look, there is already some space for them under the hedgerows!

Yet despite these facilities, they cycle in the road! No wonder the elf-folk complain!




At the end of the route, we see exactly the pedestrian/cyclist conflict points people discuss, as a piece of white paint demarks the route where cyclists can get onto the pavement by a roundabout, with 5 metres of traffic free cycling.

Yet again, some of the tax dogers use the roundabout! Despite the money spent on paint!


While we agree that there is no justification for a bike path, here, we will point out is that the claim that this is for pedestrian safety is bogus. Nobody walks here.

Where they do walk is on Yanley lane, Long Ashton, There is a school behind this blind corner where the speed drops from 60 mph to 30 mph, yet the entirety of the pedestrian safety here is a sign saying "school" and "look out for pedestrians" -signs too small to read when you are doing 60mph.
 
There is no way that the residents of Long Ashton to say that they care about pedestrians being hit by cyclists when they don't care about their own children being hit by cars except to spend 50 quid on a road sign.

No, that's a totally bogus argument and they should feel embarrassed to be so blatantly hypocritical, "We would rather have a risk of schoolkid/car collisions than accept any traffic calming or pavement on yanley lane", destroys the argument "we can't have a cycle path on a widened pavement that nobody ever uses".

No, they should stop lying and come out fighting, the way the elf-king himself has done. This cycle lane should be stopped because the tax-dodgers are undeserving plebs who are never grateful for anything.

Temple Gate bike crossings

we are not entirely sure what the rights of ways of this cyclist-only junction in the middle of the temple gate roundabout ,-close to templemeads railway station-  actually are.

In the photo above, the camera may be taken from a path to the right which has priority over bicycles coming from the left or far left. But look at that far left approach it's on the wrong side of the pavement. And the oncoming route is meant to give way -but give way to what?
 
passing cyclists seemed to go by with no  respect for the rule of the highway code at all.

EU funding of the war on motorists

The EU is taking our money to keep other countries afloat, when we can barely afford to keep our own country above water. Do you think Berlusconi needed to accept "party funding" from other countries? Do you think Putin does? No. These people have enough local sources of revenue.

Yet the EU takes the money away from us, the tax payer, forcing us to pay more for our pasties -and pieminster pies, while our politicians are reduced to begging for handouts.

Sometimes that money comes back. Usually it is in useful forms, such as EU agricultural subsidy, which helps protect the Bristol Traffic country estate without having to let people visit it. Yet today we are shocked to discover that the EU has been funding tourist development.

Tourist Development? So what, people say? More caravan stops would not be amiss, more echelon-style seafront parking at Weston super Mare? No, none of these.

The EU have taken our money, and used it to fund the building of cycle tracks in ashton court, and are calling it a "tourist destination", a mountain bike hub for north somerset.

This is so wrong. Not only is it a waste of money, it will encourage cyclists to visit the area and take all the parking spaces. What is worse, it will encourage the residents of bristol to cycle there direct from their homes, so increasing the cost of congestion by many billions.

We sent an expendable mountain biker to inspect the route.



As you can see, the route is smoothly graded and weaves around the trees. This adds another complaint -it will give the cyclists unrealistic expectations of what a cycle lane can be. The in-town routes have bigger potholes, trees, road-signs, parked vans and bus stations in the middle of them. Yet here: no vehicles, not even a mini-cab right behind the cyclist. Nor are there any pedestrians diving out the way and complaining about unlicensed tax dodgers lacking registration numbers. The worst bit -look how long that route is without a single give way, "cyclists dismount" or other anti-cycle feature. Not even a single bollard or unlit set of chicanes.

Yes, this will raise expectations of what bike routes could be like across the entire city -it must be stopped at once.

Bristol Saracens: the official home of Bristol Paveparking (oh and rugby)

Bristol has some rugby teams. Not well known, because they don't do much to draw attention.

Yet here, from redvee2002, we see how supportive the Bristol Saracens Rugby Team are of their community, by celebrating the art of paveparking!
Nobody can pavepark like a Bristolian. Aberdeen Cars: copy that if you can!

For outsiders, the dual carriageway on the right leads to the M5 and the Shopping Paradise that is Cribbs Causeway. It was untainted by riots in the summer as it is not within walking distance of anywhere. The bike path alongside the dual carriageway is intended to permit even poor people to come and shop. But as these cyclists, even the fit-healthy and affluent ones, cannot buy 42" 3D plasma Freeview HD televisions on the basis they can't get them home, these people just don't bring enough money to the region. Rugby spectators are far more welcome, as after the match they can head up the road and keep the economy afloat by using their credit card to pick up something expensive they didn't really need.

YA55VDY does the 'croft

This is lovely, a coming together of our favourite subjects

The Medina Dairies delivery van, YA55VDY, parked over the stokes croft "cycle lane", just up from the post office van and another white van. Keeping the croft free of tax-dodgers, and bringing Yoghurt-related produce to paying customers

Adien visit Abbeywood

After last week's shocking photographs of militant cyclists trying to reclaim their cycle paths, it was reassuring to see some of the city's van drivers striking back

Who is up on the bike paths of Abbeywood Today, making it clear what the North Fringe cycle paths are for? The white van FY04UYB

On the back, Adien, whose web site states their sustainability goals:

• We will ensure that procedures and attitudes are in place to deliver an incident free working environment for our employees and those who come into contact with our operations.
• We will endeavour to minimise the impact we have on the environment by use of sustainable material and processes.

Well, parking this far in ensures no driver-side wing mirrors will get clipped, so they pull that off, though the risk that a cyclist or push chair may try to get past on the other side -5 or 10 cm further in would have sorted that out. 

As mentioned before, we are conducting an experiment to make sure that this area remains van friendly. "Trust, but verify", as they say.

South Gloucester Council have denied responsibility for enforcing the double yellow lines on this, so we checked to make sure that Filton police are on message, that they know the war on motorists has been lost. I think we can conclude from the fact that the Filton police hotline has an answering machine at the end of it that yes, some government changes have made their way to that part of the system.

We have won the war! Nobody will stand in our way!

Criminal Attacks on the Abbeywood Bollards!

We've been watching the Egypt uprising in fear. Pedestrians, taking over the flyovers, pushing vans and arguing with tanks. They do not know their place.

We've also been reading Cities and Insurrections, which covers the problem of how to design cities to prevent popular uprisings in them from working. You want distribution and better routes for police/army control than for the troublemakers. That's why we recognise that the goal for Northern Ireland's ongoing work to force cyclists to wear helmets isn't for safety, it's to stop the subversives being so mobile. NI has always been the cutting edge of UK policing, so progress here cheers up.

It's also why we understand the strategic goal of the North Fringe: a place so anti-walking and anti-cycling that no ukcuts projectors will be out hassling the shops here, or protesting anything. But to make sure, we have to discourage those people who do walk and cycle round here -for the safety of the state.

Which is why we were horrified when some anonymous person emailed us these shocking photographs of militant cyclists adding their own reflective and hi-viz markings to the new bollards at the MOD abbeywood site, the ones that achieved national fame after someone cycled into them in the snow.

Now on a flash photo, you can see that it (and the newly added blue bicycle marking) is visible. One query: why doesn't that sign properly say bicycles keep left?

Looking the other way, you can see at least a bicycle going up and down has been painted on one side of the pavement, and it is segregated.

And turning 180 degrees we can see how much less visible the old bollards were.

What to say? Just because you don't think the bollards are safe, doesn't mean people should take actions in to your own hands like this.

Since the crash and the negative publicity, S Gloucs council have put the blue signs on. Now if anyone crashes in to it it's their own fault for being in the wrong part of the path, going to fast, or not paying attention. 

Yet as these photographs show, some people, even up in the North Fringe -our part of the city, as you get a hint of from the vast MoD car park to the side of the photos- there are troublemakers out there trying to make cycle city facilities somewhere where cyclists actually welcome.

We suspect the Cycle Embassy of Great Britain, or one of their minions.

Who else would threaten the safety of South Gloucester and Filton Town councils, and hence the whole country?

Abbeywood week, a discussion

Yesterday we mentioned that one problem with parking on the abbeywood cycle paths was not just the new bollards, it was harassment from cyclists. Here, sadly, we have an example.

This is V134DYC, a lorry minding its own business, parked on one of the Abbeywood cycle/pedestrian paths. By getting almost entirely on the path it is not interfering with any passing traffic.

Yet our cyclist reporter felt that there was some need to criticise the driver, to take a photograph of them, "for the database".

Fortunately, our lorry driver sees their gambit and raises it by pointing out that they too have a camera in their lorry, and the cyclist looked pretty silly -which, coming from a professional hi-viz person, are pretty harsh words.

We aren't convinced that the driver saying that Hitler used to disappear troublemakers like our cyclist report actually wins the argument.

1. Godwin's Law implies that whoever reverts to analogies with Germany's National Socialist government of 1934-1945 automatically loses the argument.
2. It's not clear that that government did persecute cyclists except when their religious or political beliefs were not aligned with that of the government.
3. It's not clear how this possibly incorrect bit of history deals with the problem that now there is nothing to stop cyclists taking videos and photographs of vehicles in their way and sticking it up online.

We look forward to better arguments in future.

Abbeywood Bollards: they don't help motorists

Having looked at the bollards, we are not sure whether we support them. Not because they can injure cyclists, but because they prevent motor vehicle access to the bike paths. We paid for them, we should get to use them!

Here, for example, is a South Gloucester Council lorry S764THY making use of one of the Abbeywood bike paths to park their lorry somewhere while they do some work on a roundabout.


If you look at this area, the double yellow lines mean that the shared pedestrian/bike path is the only place anyone can park. Yet bollards and harassment by cyclists -more on this another day- mean that the council and tax-dodgers are, together, removing our parking options.

Experiment #2011-1: we are using this path as an experiment to see if the war on the motorist really is over in S Gloucs, by reporting vehicles here to the authorities ( parklegally@southglos.gov.uk ) and making sure that nothing happens. If anyone gets told off or ticketed: the war on motorists is not over.

So far, we are pleased to see that S Gloucs parking services are happy not to care about this path, with this reply twelve days after we reported the issue:

Thank you for highlighting this problem to our department, however our Civil Enforcement Officers are not able to deal with (UNNECESSARY OBSTRUCTIONS) under the current Legislation Traffic Management Act 2004 (TMA04), this offence still comes under Police Officers or Police Community Support Officers who only have the powers of Enforcement for this Offence. 

I have also passed your complaint onto our street care department who are in charge of highways maintenance and asked them to investigate this issue and to please remove this vehicle from its obstructive position. 

Hope you find this information helpful and should you notice any other vehicles parked illegally with in South Gloucestershire please don’t hesitate to contact our department.

We are now continuing our experiment on new vehicles to see if S Gloucs police are on our side or not. The fact that Filton police station appears to be manned only by an answering machine bodes well.

Abbey Wood Bike/pedestrian path changes

We've sent the team to the North Fringe for a few days, to see what the fuss is about regarding Abbeywood and Bollards. In order to cover this accurately, we have had to recruit someone on a bicycle, for which we apologise. If it makes the audience feel better, they think they are being paid to be a courier for paperwork. Normally we just pay them to carry old phone books around, as it slows them down, and about once a week they have to deliver high-strength home-grown Montpelier herbs, an action which would get them put away for 20-25 years if they were caught with them, a thought which always cheers us up when we send them out.


Returning to Abbeywood, some people may recall the fuss made last year when someone cycled into a bollard that S Gloucester council stuck in. These are white bollards with a white stripe, no hi-viz markings, and on a path that is only intermittently illuminated. Well, yes, a crash was inevitable. Yet we agree with some the comments made in the Evening Post and Daily Mail -while we sympathetic to the lecturer's injuries, they have only themselves to blame for being on a bicycle.

We actually saw some of the bollards going in, but didn't think it was interesting enough to cover. Now that we see it is, we can go through the back records and find the video.



Now that the bollards are here on the eastern side of the MoD land, we are disappointed to see that it does so little to discourage cycling. Instead our courier can travel down the bike path at speed, slow down for the road, where apparently off camera someone driving a car actually gives way to the bicycle, hinting this green paint is giving some mistaken impression about rights of way to MoD staff.



Last year, this path had a proper anti-bicycle gate, which the subversives used to ignore by going through the vegetation, forcing the MoD deployment of an anti-vegetation-cycling feature, before they went and removed it, eventually adding this new bollard.

The bollard does not stop people cycling to the North Fringe. The only way to prevent that would be to improve A4174 traffic by widening it and banning bicycles from the ring road, while downgrading any adjacent bike paths. We may have some good news there, in a week or two.

For now, this side of Abbey Wood does little to discourage cycling. We shall visit the other side, which was where the crash took place to see if it is any better.

Jamaica Street: more hints of Waltham Forest

Our next video of the tour of the RPZ shows the Stokes Croft end of Dighton Street - Jamaica Street. Again, it's Walthamization is ongoing. This road marks the border between Kingsdown and the part of the city where work takes place -and that means vans and vehicles: important people.

First they nip past The Bell pub, then head down Jamaica Street towards Dighton Street. One of the park cars tries to do the pull-out-no-signal trick but the cyclist is pootling along so slowly they avoid getting hit, no need for the driver to try the sorry-didn't-see-you gambit. The cyclist, so stressed by this decides to head back for the Bell Pub on the off-road bike path. This feature has been here for about 20 years, the widening of the pavement to allow this is probably treasured in Bristol cycling history.

After a short distance it drops down to the road where the cyclist would encounter the van parked at the end. However, today they can't get there because there is a roadwork sign in the middle of the bike path.

What does our cyclist do? Instead of getting off the bicycle and walking, the way they should, they do something worse. They pick up the sign and throw it to one side! Then the brick that was there to hold the sign in place!

Someone driving a car could be in a collision with the roadworks. Whoever put this sign up was clearly thinking about the safety of motorists, yet by moving the sign to one side they could create a collision. This is selfish and dangerous!

Family Cycling vs S Gloucs

Shocking footage of an entire family's collection of bicycles, up in the North Fringe, at a secret (as in "official secret protected by the official secrets act") location.

What's surprising is that they managed to get there, despite the efforts of S Gloucs council, who strategically positioned a lorry over the bike path to stop anyone who wasn't bold enough to cycle along a dual carriageway from getting to the bike racks.

Come on S. gloucs, please try harder!

Tiley of Bristol embrace Cycle City Hartcliffe Way

Hartcliffe Way, the southern bit of the A4174 ring road. Now, with the cycle city program, with a bike path along it.

How will the people use it? Well, we don't care about pedestrians or cyclists, because, well, they aren't real people.

What we are pleased to see is Tiley Motors of Hartcliffe Way recognising that anyone walking or cycling is deficient, but there is an obvious solution: get a car.

Tiley's have parked their budget vehicles on the bike/foot path, so attracting the attention of the underpeople, while clearly making the point that for just £795 the poor unfortunates could get themselves a motor and join the grown-ups.

Now, when the cycle city money turned out to only be 4X that spent on a single slip road to the Cribbs Causeway shopping mall, yet these new paths offer shopping opportunities, then even we cannot denounce this cycling city initiative any more. Tiley of Bristol! We salute you!

The Bloomsbury Problem

Another issue we had with the Russel Square area is that this marked a clear attempt to bring cycle-friendly infrastructure into the inner city, rather than, as in Bristol, leave it places where we hope it doesn't get in the way of anyone important.

First, signs, encouraging cyclists to find their way round

Full green bike paths, with raised kerbs to make it slightly harder to accidentally park in them.

Junctions for the bicycles themselves, with no cyclists dismount signs

And here, worst of all, an "except cycles" get-out clause on a one way street. Not "except cycles, taxis and van drivers", but cycles only.

What is really depressing here is that the Camden council staff behind such schemese visited the proposed GBBN Whiteladies Road development, the one that will help motorists driving in to town by removing the zebra crossings in our way and making cycling more dangerous. We know this as we infiltrated the event, keeping track of what people were saying, and whether complaints were being dismissed -as expected- or actually listened to, and tried to slip our own ideas in to distract them.

On the topic of that camden council cycle team visit, can we extend our apologies to the woman driving the green nissan micra down WL road who was held up for fifteen seconds by the funny bicycle people. Yes, you were right to beep your horn at us for not being in the bike lane, even though cyclists don't have to cycle in them, they can cycle two abreast legally, and the traffic jam ahead meant you weren't losing any time. Yes, you were right to complain that eight people on bicycles at 08:50 on a weekday were causing utter chaos, which is why the local council had arranged the cyclist visit to during the quiet period mid-morning.  Sadly, some of the cycle troublemakers had spotted the flaw there and pressured for a rush hour visit, which is why you were held up by three people cycling two-abreast down whiteladies road.

Because we were trying to blend in with these subversives we did have to come up and argue with you while you were stopped at the traffic lights, as anything else would have aroused the suspicions of the rest of the group.

Sorry!

We didn't really mean to call you a selfish idiot who would clearly benefit from getting out of their car and trying to do some exercise! It's your right to get fat and stay unfit by driving to work and back, stopping only in the supermarket to buy ready-to-fry fast foods.

We didn't really want to dispute the niceties of the highway code and the fact that nowhere in it does it say "bicycles should be banned from our roads"  -because like you, we think it ought to! It was just something we had to do to blend in!

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!

Western Power Distribution: showing who has the power in Abbey Wood

We loves Abbey Wood, S. Gloucs. Our part of the city. The council provides those off-street bike lanes which the cycle campaigners demand, missing the point that their purpose is to provide parking

Here it provides it for the car RV10LZF apparently associated with Western Power Distribution -whose vans are parked off-camera to the right of the photo below. Everyone is apparently working on some electricity substation issues behind the MoD site.

Parking over a bike/pedestrian path like this is not just about getting your car off the road, or away from the double yellows, it's about making a statement. It says I am important, you are not. Which is why we are very worried about some worrying emails we are are being forwarded from the MOD-land. Very worried indeed. More another day. Today though, we, the motorist, are in charge. First we give them their bike lanes, their pavements, to get them out the way, then we use them too. Lovely.