Glasgow

Only last week were were criticising Bristol's town planners for a lack of vision in the 1970s, for a failure to regenerate the neglected inner city by building enough motorways through its core. We only have the M32. One city in Britain has had the vision, and stuck to it, turning their neglected victorian era housing and under-utilised parkland into motorways, so that wherever you walk round the city, you can hear the background hum of high speed motorway traffic. With this motorway through the heart of the city, we believe it is possible to drive from the M32 to the scottish highlands without having to stop for a red light or pedestrians.

Yes, we are talking about Glasgow, and unlike the Copenhagen Cycle Chic team, who think it is a nice place to cycle, as is Aberdeen, we know that Glasgow is our kind of city, as documented by our allies, At War With The Motorist, on their trip to Glasgow, premier city in Scotland.

We like best that the integrated advertisting on the phone-viewer brings up an advert for Robbie's Driving School, who will teach you how to drive round either city, Bristol or Glasgow, in Style.

Congratulations Glasgow, and come on Bristol, get your act together! How else can you solve this city's traffic problems?

High-Viz Fetish? No, more a lifestyle choice

On our previous post on Bristol Cycling Chic, we got some wonderful feedback from the Copenhagen cycling chic team, who accused us of having a high-viz fetish; that our interests in bright green outer wear was somehow unhealthy:

And your fetish for hi-viz and other gear is odd and by promoting it you are merely stunting the growth of bicycle culture. Where are your photos of pedestrians in hi-viz or your calls for them to wear these things?

Good point. We haven't been covering the pedestrians properly. Consider this posting a correction.

Interestingly, since we were denounced, traffic to the site, indeed that post has been fairly high. The initial thought was that our philosophy had taken seed across Europe, and soon even in Amsterdam and Copenhagen people would be riding round in hi-viz tops and budget Lidl waterproof trousers.

But no, that turns out not to be the reason for the sudden surge visitors. A quick look at the search keywords that bring people to the site shows the real driver. If you type "High-Viz fetish" into your favourite search engine, Bristol Traffic comes out on that first page. Clearly enough people have been doing exactly that, that it's been bringing a whole new audience to the site.

We can but welcome these new viewers, with their special interests, and invite to Bristol, where they will blend in, on foor or bike.

Those who are about to put on High-Visibility clothing, we salute you!