Hire-it Bristol: what you what, where you want it, when you need it

It's tough being a builder. You get some random schedule made up by management, you are expected to keep to it. When you are on a project with unrealistic timescales, you need all the help you can get. This is where hire-it come in. Not only can you hire whatever equipment you need for your project, they deliver it before you are even on site.

Take this Monday morning, Cotham Hill, 08:20. It's the height of the school run. All those kids and parents who enjoyed the previous days "Bristol's Biggest Bike Ride" and have unrealistic expectations about the city streets will now be cycling to school, on Bike Week. As someone delivering equipment to a building site, you have an opportunity to kill -maybe even literally- two birds with one stone

By parking on the double-yellow-lined bike-only-contraflow of Cotham Hill, the lorry S876CHT manages to completely block the contraflow and obscure visibility for any of those families, without slowing uphill motor traffic, who can easily swerve into the advisory bike lane on that side of the road.

This will give the cycling families a harsh but honest reminder of how unforgivingly brutal the city streets are, and how anyone thinking they could get their kids to school safely on bicycles is living in some fantasy land which they need to grow up from and out of.

As for the builders, they get their equipment delivered, before they even turn up. Here we are, twenty minutes later, and the building staff haven't even turned up, so they can be eating their morning bacon butties safe in the knowledge that whatever deadlines are going to be missed, Hire-It of Bristol won't be to blame.

The best bit: they can be sure that their access to the building site won't be blocked by lorries -because it's already been and gone!

Hire-It (Plant and Tools Ltd) are based in Weston Supermare; for anyone wishing to take advantage of this service their phone number is 01934 418591.

Build-outs are for Builders

Readers might be surprised to discover that this site is in favour of build outs. Don't they reduce the amount of parking? they may ask. No, they don't. They just stop the little people from using it.

Build-outs tend to be for the exclusive use of residents, delivery vehicles and people working in the houses. This means that they provide a small amount of resident parking spaces without any of the overhead of creating resident parking areas. No need to sticker up cars, paint over roads, enforce pavement or road parking rules. Just leave the build-outs for vans such as Refresh Painting and Decorating and their van KM53RVY. Problem solved!

(This is on the junction of Hanbury and Pembroke Road, outside the (proposed) Cliftonwood CPZ. With build-outs like these, there is no need to expand the proposed zones.)

Building Works

Here are some building works underway on Grove Road, Redland. It used to be two-way, but this was causing problems at the bottom, so it was made no entry except to bikes, who get their own little entrance.

The builders are not blocking the entrance with their skip. The builders are also not blocking the bike lane with their van. This is inconsiderate and dangerous.

Why? Because it creates a blind spot for bikes when they merge with the cars running the no-entry signs, such as WM56ESN, at 3:07 pm on a weekday afternoon.

If the bike contraflow was blocked by the skip and van, bicycles would be forced to go through the no-entry signs, and so integrate better with the main flow of illegal traffic.

(Saw this on the way up to the police RFID giveaway on the downs, and was taking the picture of the van and skip about to criticise them for not following the builder's code "always block the bike lane first", when I hear the sound of this car accelerating hard behind me, so, keeping to the side I left the camera ready to grab the shot. This car went through at speed, and after I'd put the camera away, two more followed it. Presumably these people used to use this road to bypass the roundabouts at the downs, and even though it's been made one way, they have retained "Grandfathered rights" to ignore the signs.)

Skanska: Improving the Image of construction

The ongoing school development at the back of Cotham Grammar is causing much entertainment, and despair at the Bristol street trees group, who have seen some of the older trees cut down without the right paperwork being signed off.

The road-side of the work is also interesting, as it is one of the causes of our forthcoming "Mum-rage" video; 20 seconds in the life of a traffic warden at school dropoff time.

Then there is also the matter of the timing of exactly when deliveries come in. No doubt all the cars below feel somewhat aggrieved about the fact that a large crane is being dropped off at exactly 08:15 of a weekday, but then it is walk-to-school week, so everyone on a school run has no right to complain.

Furthermore, this traffic jam, combined with the closure of the downhill lane, eliminates all issues with any Turner Bus coaches overtaking for those parents doing the school-run on a bike, so all is well.

Councillor Neil Harrison has been pursuing the work -in particular the fact that they have stuck up a large steel fence over the only mildly-safe crossing at the top of the hill -this a road with two schools on it, one round the corner, and a university nearby, most of whose staff and students walk in.

Neil says

Met with roadworks expert this morning on-site and he agreed problem - helpfully illustrated by the arrival of two buses to take the kids to games.

Saw that -but are you sure that none of those vehicles were in fact building site vehicles? they were gone by lunchtime, so maybe it was the roadworks expert himself?

On the buses, he will be seeking to reduce the barriered off area and to extend the bays further down the road to accommodate at least two at a time.

On the crossing, the intention is that the 'pavement' will be moved out between the blue fences and the red-and-white barriers. He will be getting the bollards removed and ramps put in so that the crossing can continue to be used (inc. by buggies and wheelchairs). He will get the barriers moved out further into the road, both to slow traffic and to give pedestrians more space. He will also get "Slow - Pedestrians Crossing" signs at either end.

He is happy with the blue fences regardless of the presence of huts. He wants to make sure that pedestrians are kept well away from the crane that will be active in the area, especially after a recent accident elsewhere.

He also feels that there is scope to put in a zebra crossing on an experimental basis to upgrade the safety there, especially if the rear entrance is to be used more by the school. I have started the process of formally asking for this. It won't happen overnight, but experimental schemes can happen quicker than permanent ones.

That's interesting, and good to see that the interests of pedestrians are being looked after, especially in comparison to the past Tyndall's Park work by Bristol Water. It is nice to see a company caring for their needs.

As you can see, the barriers are ensuring that children can walk to school without them coming into contact with the building workers cars and motorbikes parked on the pavement, such as the car GF55VHC. This ensures a safe journey for students at the nearby schools, without depriving the builders of the opportunity to drive into the city, park on the pavement and cut down trees for their portakabins. It also ensures their wing mirrors don't get bashed by small children on scooters.

Why we need Traffic Engineers

This sign perfectly illustrates the reason why we need Traffic Engineers.

Clear, concise, and to the point. Instantly obvious at 30 mph and properly spelt.

On construction sites, though, the Building Contractor does the Traffic Engineering, and the signs.

Here a sign clearly states 10mph. And it is obeyed. But the other sign is not quite correct.

They ordered "Be Aware of Public", I'm told.

Frankly, I agree with the sign as it stands, especially on Park Street at night at the week-end.

South of the river, though, it's possible for Building Contractors to put up signs outside their sites. Which is fine. And courteous.

But it does illustrate why we need Traffic Engineers.

Effective Advertising

Anyone who works in advertising must dream of an advert so compelling that passers by stop and look at it, to give the advert undivided attention for long enough to read the text and take in the message. Here, Ed P. posts in a dockside advert by Linden Homes that did just that. Stopped him walking up the pavement to look at the ad.

Admittedly, the main reason he stopped going along Gasferry Road was that he was trying to push a small child along in a pushchair, and the Linden Homes house marketing signage prevented him from proceeding safely on the pavement. Stopping was the only option, followed only by pushing the pushchair out through parked cars and continuing along the road, the road that provides the sole pedestrian route through this part of the Bristol City Docks. But from an advertising perspective it worked! He read the sign. He took a photo. He emailed it to us and now we've stuck it online. That is success!