We like to keep up on what is bleeding edge in pedestrian maltreatment, to make them feel less worthy. It makes us car drivers feel better.
Here is one from Oxford, by the entrance to their bus station. A dropped kerb, to enable easy pedestrian access, right next to a sign telling pedestrians to take some detour to get across the road. That's pedestrians, as in "the people who may soon be or have just been bus passengers"
This not only absolves the bus station company and council of any pedestrian deaths, but makes the pedestrians feel as if Highway Code rule 170, right of way over turning vehicles, doesn't apply.
Some people might question the value in treating your own customers that badly, but there is no reason why users of the inter-city bus services could not use a local bus once they have arrived, so bringing in extra revenue to the bus companies. To walk, once you reach a destination, is to deprive the companies of money, and slow down the buses by being in their way.
We have some useless pedestrian crossings near our bus station too, but not with such excellent signage!
Whenever you monitor humans, you have to worry about The Hawthorn Effect; the fact that people behave differently when being watched. This is notorious for skewing the results of many experiments, and you should always ask experimenters how they compensated for it, to make sure they knew what they were doing.
We solve this problem by not telling the cyclists that it's a camera. They think its a light. Of course, having the bicycle with lights on would effect the experiment too, so to avoid that it doesn't actually work as a light.
By monitoring without them knowing, we get to see the world from their point of view, hear their complaints, then dismiss them.
Today's video: Dove Street Kingsdown to Broadmead, by way of the Marlborough Street Bus station.
Notice that in Dove Street, those vans parking 3/4 on the pavement ensure that passing bicycles do not get hit by open doors, and make it easier for passing vehicles to get by them.
The Honda LG57XPV that appears to pull out without indicating before veering across the road is not victimising the cyclist, it would behave the same regardless of whoever was behind it. While driving along, had its brake lights on, "tourist lights" as we call them, which warn the vehicles behind that it is planning something.
Pulling in to Dighton Street at 1:00 we see a line of bicycles using this road to avoid the St James Barton Roundabout/Bearpit options, or to head over to Clifton without cycling over the big hills. [Incidentally, we hear a rumour that the Bristol Cycling Campaign, as well as promising free drinks at their EGM on Thursday, are planning a Bastard-Hills-of-North-Bristol ride that will not avoid those climbs].
At 1:20 the instrumented cyclist and another cyclist both slide past a taxi to occupy the remaining half of the ASL. This does not leave room for the two other cyclists following. What will they do?
At 1:28, the cycling-chic woman passed earlier appears to be having braking problems, as her bike only stops after she has shot halfway over the junction. Notice how she stops by putting both feet on the ground. That means fixed-speed or broken brakes. Given that cars are still heading across this road from the right hand side, only three sets of lights/two junctions from the M32, everyone anticipating a bit of speed, this is a brave things to do, she has earned her ghostrider label.
At 1:35 we see that the vehicle waiting to turn right is in fact a police car. Presumably our little ghostrider was too busy looking for cars from the right to worry about what cars were waiting to turn.
At 1:41, the police car pulls forward, and by 1:45 is parallel with the rider. Is she going to get told off?
No, it turns right, as do the vehicles behind. Even the lorry at 1:57 doesn't clip her, despite her being positioned on the inside of the bend
At 2:02 the high speed sprint of a van through the lights tells us that they have just gone red for that lane, and that the bicycles will now get a green light, which kicks in a couple of seconds later.
At 2:06 our camera enhanced cyclist sets off and never sees the ghost rider again. She had not only tried to cycle across the red light and the lanes of traffic, she had positioned herself so she could not see the lights, and so missed them changing.
Our cyclist uses the bike lane until it ends, and is then forced to turn off the road, to go down Whitson Street to the bus station. There then follows 30 seconds of dullness.
Where things get entertaining again is 2:44, where the bicycle is in the bus and bike only lane heading towards Broadmead. They have a red light. Will they wait? Or has the previous junction given them ideas?
They wait for three seconds, then veer over to what appears to be a pedestrian crossing -but actually has a bicycle on it. Therefore we must sadly conclude that this bit of crossing on bike is legal, and we can not report it to the police.
We are not so sure, however, about the pavement riding they do afterwards. They do not go straight on, where they would encounter the car, but instead veer left past some phone boxes, over the bus lane and then on some more pavement. We were beginning to get hopeful again, but then saw that they were actually riding up to some bicycle specific traffic lights -which were going green- and then they set off again, into Horsefair and hence Cabot Circus.
As you can imagine, we are unimpressed by the cyclist who ran the first red light. Not only was it dangerous, it didn't gain anything. At least when we speed in a car we get something in exchange -the feeling of speed, reduced journey time. She got nothing, and forgot to keep an eye out for police cars. The second junction though, leaves us confused. The bicycle clearly went up on the pavement, over a pedestrian crossing, on some more pavement and then up to some lights. We do not whether to be
Upset about the behaviour of the cyclist
Upset that an anti-car council added these features
Confused by the fact that these features seem to not be at all rational. Surely to make it easier to get from the bus station to broadmead, the crossing lights would be on the left of the junction, so the bicycle would not have to zig-zag everywhere? We suspect the lights were put in on a budget to help tax-dodgers head the other way.
We have decided to go for all three options. Bristol Traffic: confused and upset.
On our way back from Primark, we note mild chaos at Marlborough St. Bus station. A taxi wants to pull up to the taxi-only dropoff zone but can't; a car waiting for arriving passengers is there. Other vehicles are going up to the "short stay" pavement and not blocking through traffic. The taxi has no option but stop in the road to unload, causing some tension in the vehicles behind. But all of them are just trying to do the same thing: park here to pick up or drop off passengers. There is an option for parking round the corner, by the new magistrates court, but for some reason (security?) a perfectly wide pavement is bollarded off.
There's still some space opposite; only one vehicle is using this. It is worth remembering about though, if every you need to pick people up from the bus station in a car.
A regular search term that brings visitors is "secret Cabot Circus Parking", we like to oblige, even though the placement of any parking options on a web site tends to remove the "secret" nature.
This is by St James Barton Roundabout, and the Bear-Pit "park"; last time we saw this stretch of pavement, there was a car on it.
Today though, some militant cyclists appear to have snuck in ten sheffield racks. This is a major enhancement for the area, and the presence of one bike on a Saturday morning, and two locks, shows that at least three bikes are using it, assuming those two locks are for commuters.
The big question one has to ask when looking at this area, is what use they are? There isn't that much here, except the Bear-Pit itself, and you can take bikes in there if you wish to loiter in it. Of course, that park joins up with the Bus Station -indeed, for many of us late-arrivals to the city, the Bear Pit was our first encounter with it. As the bus station's six sheffield racks are always full, this stretch could be used as overflow parking for the city.
The other area it offers access to is the new Magistrates court. You only have run across the four lanes of traffic to get in there. The dropped kerb shows you where you should be running for your life.
This vehicle, half on the pavement, half on a double yellow line, is waiting The vehicle in front is parking in front of a taxi-only space for a single taxi; where it is waiting it would block any turning vehicles, such as, say, a bus. Why would one expect a bus to be turning here? For the same reason the taxis and the cars are here: this is the bus station.
If you are doing dropoff or pickup by car, these two spots are the only places you can do it. Of course they are going to wait here. It's inconvenient, but the only alternative would be a short stay dropoff zone, like round the corner at the BRI, and as everyone who goes past that knows, it's a medium-stay-sit-in-the-car zone which wouldn't be any good for trying to drop someone off at the bus station.
This leaves three access options to the long-haul bus network
FirstBus buses which may or may not work
Taxis
Parking for six bicycles
Space for two cars to park on the pavement, so stopping all buses
Some subversives has proposed an integrated transport hub at templemeads, where it would be possible to get from a bus to a train without relying on any FirstBus services. This is wrong, as FirstBus are an invaluable aspect of our city and can be relied on, just as TfL can be trusted in London.
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