Bristol: cycling discriminates against the obese and the unfit

There's a bit of an upset in Birmingham currently, where (conservative) councillor came out and accused cycling of being discriminatory on race and gender, and that the £23 M could be better spent on things like parking spaces. And that it is also biased against women who want to wear modest clothing.

Well, we agree, in Bristol it is a discriminatory form of transport too. But not on race or gender.

No, in Bristol, Cycling discriminates against obese people with no legs and a lifestyle focused on fry-ups rather than hill climbs. These are people who suffer in our city.

Take this scene here, a mature Bristolian rastafarian working his way up Bridge Valley road. He's very much not a young white man -but to get up the hill on a road bike he has to be fit. A large proportion of our population —especially the residents of the suburbs, are significantly overweight, smoke, and generally live an unhealthy lifestyle.

These are the people that our city cycling project discriminates against —and no amount of cash on cycling infrastructure will fix that, unless the infrastructure involves lifts and escalators.

These are also the people that the city's expanding RPZ project discriminates: people to unfit to walk more than 15 metres to their destination. Removing all the free parking penalises those people who are too unfit to walk or cycle anywhere, by forcing them to pay.

The only person who cares for those people's needs is Eric Pickles –because he is the only politician who understands what it is like to obese and unfit. This is why his "short stops on double yellow lines" proposal is targeted at them: now they will be able to stop outside the newsagent to buy a packet of fags, then drive on to the chip shop to buy the evening meal.

Segregated cycling facilities will make this worse by removing short-stay parking opportunities, discriminating against the obese and the unfit merely by their very presence.


Returning to Birmingham, gateway to the M6, the councillor's colleague, Councillor Hutchings came out with the other part of the story, when he said “he feared hoards” of cyclists would have “a severe impact on pedestrians and motorists”. That's the other way a cycling program penalises the obese and the unfit. If you aren't fit enough to cycle round the city, driving is all you can do. The more cyclists there are, the more you get held up.

This is why the very presence of cycling infrastructure and increased cycling is so discriminatory against overweight suburbanites who will be hit by the triple whammy of cycling infrastructure removing main-road short stay options, the RPZ removing back road long stay parking, and finally cyclists themselves being in the way. Oh, and of course there's the 20 mph zone slowing down the journeys from their houses to the chip shops.

This is why it is critical that the Birmingham councillors recognise that cycling doesn't discriminate against gender or ethnic groups —if that city doesn't get the funding then it could come Bristol's way, and things would only get worse!

Peter Abraham: show us the 20 mph road rage data

One goal of Bristol Traffic is to create datasets on how people get round bristol. It had been to create a  ubiquitous mass surveillance police state -but it turns out Google have done that and then pass on the details to the NSA. So a focus on local issues for us.

While covering the Down's refusal to adopt 20 mph speed limits,we picked up on a statement by Cllr Peter Abraham:
A 20 mph limit might be appropriate for some streets, but I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

This assertion, road rage causes frustration is news to us. We've been against 20mph for a long time, not because it increases the likelihood of us getting out a cricket bat and bashing in the windows of the Citron Dyane doing 19 mph in front of us, but because it means it will take longer for us to get round the city.

Now  presumably road-range incidents need >1 vehicle, so driving at 20 mph when it is quiet isn't going to cause you to jump out the car, get out the old cricket bat and bash in your own windscreen. The probability of a road rage incident must not only be a function of the driver, the road and the effective limit, but of the speed of the vehicle in front:

For any driver, Dn the probability equation becomes one of:

P(road-rage(Dn, road)) = fn(driver, road, limit, velocity(Dn), velocity(Dn-1))

For an entire road over a day, with K drivers, the probability of a road-rage event is

Sum(Dn=1..K) P(road-rage(Dn))

To predict that road-rage frequency, we need to know the value of the function fn(driver, road, limit, velocity(Dn); we can derive the rest from there.

It is critical we get the numbers to derive this, as well as understand where it is a discrete function such that it returns 0 for all speed limits >20, or if some drivers are capable of going over the edge at 30 mph, 40 mph, etc.

Nobody appears to have this data other thal Cllr Abraham, who is shaping city speed limits based on his private dataset.

It's more important than the downs too. If the road-rage probability gets higher whenever the speed of the vehicle in front is less than 20 mph,  velocity(Dn-1)<20), then anything in our city which forces people to drive below 20 mph is going to create incidents.

That means we have to ban bicycles from all city streets where a car could be held up behind them.

For example, Hampton Road, redland. There would be a nice fast 30 mph stretch between two traffic jams, yet WV06WML is trapped in traffic between two bicycles. He only just manages to clear one and so sprint up the hill to the St Michael's Hill roundabout traffic jam by aggressively overtaking it and swinging in before hitting the oncoming cyclist.





if there were no cyclists here this incident would not have arisen. Admittedly, the journey time of the car would be the same -it's a different function, one that depends on the congestion of junctions, so is a function of all road users in the city at a specific time, not just the velocity of the vehicle in front.  But we aren't worried about that: we are worried about road rage.


Peter Abraham appears to be the only person in a position of authority in Bristol with the confidence to assert that 20 mph limits increase road rage. He needs to publish this data, not just so that we can resist the rollout of the 20 mph zones, but to back our campaign to ban bicycles from the streets.

But will he provide it? We asked last week for that data:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bristol  Traffic <bristol.traffic at gmail.com>
Date: 13 September 2013 09:17
Subject: Press Query about speed limits in the downs
To: peter.abraham@bristol.gov.uk

Hello

The Bristol Traffic Project is -as you may know -one of Bristol's premier online reporting sites, focusing purely on transport.

http://bristolcars.blogspot.co.uk/

While we are often regarded as some form of shallow spoof, we consider ourselves an evidence-driven organisation: we use photographs and videos to defend our statements, while our coverages of game theory as applied to Bristol's streets include articles that have been cited by such luminaries as Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book, Traffic.

Accordingly, we'd like to follow up our coverage on the proposals for 20 mph limits in the downs, with a query for some data to back up the decision of the committee to retain a 30 mph limit.

One statement you have apparently made to the evening post was that a 20mph limit is inappropriate for the downs: I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

Here are our questions

1. Do you have any defensible data that demonstrates that 20 mph limits lead to road rage?

2.  London's Royal Parks all have 20 mph limits. What is unique to Bristol's parks, or its residents, that mean that having a 20 mph limit in an urban park is something which they are unable to cope with?

3. Did the downs committee consider how the retention of a 30 mph limit will continue to make cycling on these roads intimidating, especially for families -and that either this would be at odds with the management plan's stated goal of encouraging cycling -and likely to push the cyclists, especially family groups, onto cycling on the footpaths instead?

We await your responses

SteveL

Chief Data Scientist,

Bristol Traffic Project

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

To date we have heard nothing, even though a week has passed. Presumably Cllr Abraham is a busy man, but even so we are concerned that this data -which would be invaluable to the debate about cycling as well as 20 mph limits is being held back.

We shall have to follow this up with another request.

Reminder: We are a data driven organisation that understands how things work

Some people -mistakenly consider us to be some kind of spoof, whereas in fact we are a documentary that has built up a weakly-defensible dataset of the city's transport issues.We also include topics like queue theory, game theory and the like to analyse that data.

This is why we despair when the legacy mass media publish articles that lack both real data and the fundamental understanding behind it

Now, Queue theory, Erlang's core concept: A queue happens when the egress rate of a channel is lower than the ingress rate.

In less technical terms "you get a queue if less things are leaving something than entering". It doesn't matter how big a bucket is, if more watering is pouring into it than is leaving from a hole in the bottom -eventually it will overflow

In evening post commenter terms "there's no point making something two lanes wide if it has to go down to one lane wide a bit further on". The bottleneck is the one-lane bit wide, not the two lane stretch.

We know this is hard to grasp, which is why people are still complaining about the Portway bus lane. Evening Post Commenters: the bottlenecks are the narrow bits beyond the suspension bridge and Anchor Road -removing the bus lane will not increase your journey time by car at all.

Alternatively: it is futile to remove a bus lane in the name of congestion, if there's a single-lane road later on. You are wasting your life on something that will not deliver the benefits you expect. You may argue against this using the term "common sense" -but that is why building things from bridges to computer networks rely on people called "engineers" trained in something called "mathematics". Common sense doesn't cut it when you actually want something to work.

The Evening Post reporters need to pick this up too.

As today there is an article, Traffic lights on Blackboy Hill 'are cause of the congestion'.

A BRISTOL campaigner claims a set of traffic lights at a busy junction cause more congestion than they solve – and should be ripped out.
Simon Brookes, who led a campaign for the removal of a controversial bus lane in Westbury Road, is now calling for the removal of the lights at the top of Blackboy Hill.

We aren't sure what "campaigner" means here. Presumably it means "someone who doesn't understand queue theory but likes to get their face in the regional press"

He conducted a survey and claims that the lights held up lots of buses.

Mr Brookes carried out another survey yesterday between 9am and 10am. He said he witnessed 89 changes of the lights and during that time, only two buses went through on green. But the number of buses going uphill and held up on a red was 26.

We are surprised that Mr Brooks has now started caring about buses. Because if you are trying to get bus lanes removed on the approach to Whiteladies Road, suddenly caring about their performance in Whiteladies Road itself seems somewhat hypocritical -unless you are simply pretending to care.

Furthermore, if you are going to do a survey on congestion -why do it outside the rush hour. Do it at 08:30 at peak commute and school runs. Doing it after 9am is like saying the M32 doesn't get congested because you drove up it on a sunday morning.

Bad data, failure to root cause analysis and then pretending to care about public transport. We don't do any of these.

Mind you, Mr Brooks' pretence to care about buses doesn't make it through the article:

He will also be calling for a cycle lane to be removed from Westbury Park, where it meets with North Road.
He said the lane was not used by cyclists and simply added to traffic congestion.
Mr Brookes also wants to see the removal of the remaining stretch of bus lane from Westbury Park.

Sorry, but the congestion has other causes. It may seem frustrating to be stuck in a car watching bike lanes and bus lanes that are empty most of the time, but that is because they are working. The buses are not being held up until they merge with the cars on Whiteladies road; the bicycles not held up at all, mostly.



Here then is our dataset: a video from  "wheels on the bike" counting the entire set of vehicles on Whiteladies Road, from the top to the triangle, in 1:45.




Most of Whiteladies road is one lane wide. That is the bottleneck -the carrying capacity of the road. Arguing about bus lanes  up the hill or even switching times of traffic lights is irrelevant when there is a lane traffic jam from Park Row and Park Street stretching all the way up to the Downs.

This is why appearing on papers demanding for things to be removed because they "cause congestion" is dangerous. Someone may one day see this video and say "maybe there are other issues". We know that -it's the surburbanites driving into town. Simon Brookes should recognise this, and keep his mouth shut.

The Downs Committee joins the Bikelash!

Attached to Clifton are "the downs". You can recognise it by the way that all paths on the park have a big "No Cycling" sign -usually near some parked cars






The nominal reason they have the no cycling sign is to stop pedestrians and parked cars being damaged by cyclists.

In high summer, the Downs committee allows the Zoo (in exchange for money, obviously), to let visitors park on the downs, and bill the visitors for doing so.

In 2010 proposals to provide a park and ride alternative, were, rightfully, rejected.



It's quite clear what the Downs Committee wants. Nobody cycling on the pavement, people driving to the downs and parking on the grass.

Even so, council plans threaten it -and this week it is with a shocking proposal to make the speed limit in the park 20 mph!

Fortunately, the committee has come out and rejected it.

PLANS to bring in a 20mph speed limit on roads around The Downs have been opposed by the committee responsible for the open space.

The Downs Committee – made up of councillors and representatives from the Merchant Venturers – considered the proposals at their meeting yesterdayand voted against them by four votes to two, with one abstention.

Councillor Peter Abraham said: "I feel very strongly about this and I think we should oppose the 20mph limit being brought in on roads around the Downs."

Merchant Venturer Andrew Densham said he had attempted driving along the stretch at 20mph before the meeting and was greeted by flashing lights from fellow motorists.

"It is almost impossible to do," he said. "Going 20mph is absurd on most of those roads.

"I think the consequences of it would be more dangerous."

Fellow Merchant Venturer Anthony Brown said: "The traffic sub-committee asked what the experience had been on Ladies Mile and was told the average speed was 26mph and there are no major problems.

"If the speed limit is reduced people would do 20,16,18 and people would want to overtake. It was our view that it could be more dangerous."

there we have it then. Total opposition to the proposals based on a single experiment of driving round at 20 mph, once, and noticing cars got upset.

We can expect the cycling campaigners to be a bit put out by this

1. Flat out refusal to provide safe alternatives to Ladies Mile or Sea Wall/ice cream van routes for bicycles
2. Flat out refusal to consider lower speed limits that would benefit cyclists or even pedestrians trying to cross the road.

The tax-dodgers should not be surprised by this.

Cllr Peter Abraham is the councillor for Stoke Bishop, whose residents have to drive over the downs to get anywhere. It's bad enough that the RPZ is going to remove a lot of parking opportunities, now they will be forced to drive a little bit slower.

As he said earlier.  :

I would much rather see the 30mph limit, which was only recently introduced, rigidly enforced. A 20 mph limit might be appropriate for some streets, but I think it will cause road rage incidents and a lot of frustration for motorists on The Downs."

See: the council has already forced the speed limit down from 60 mph to 30 only ten years ago, and it is hard enough for his electorate to handle

Lowering the speed limit in one of Bristol's main parks from 30 mph to 20 mph would only increase road rage, and, by encouraging people to walk and cycle round the park, increase problems!

This is why we support the actions of the Downs Committee. We also appreciate that many of the committee members are from the Society of Merchant Venturers. It is precisely because these people are chosen without democratic oversight that they are able to resist petty popularist policies like making parks safer for pedestrians and cyclists! Only they can represent the true voice of the evening post commenters!

Smart Car: Park all your preconceptions with a test drive on Clifton Downs

While the Harbour Fest is going on in the city, what should we see up in Clifton but SmartCar employees offering test drives on Clifton Down in their little car KP11OYZ. As the text on the back says "take a test drive with a difference".

Obviously, the two threats to any car are cyclists and pedestrians, but the fence across the footpath keeps pedestrians away

And the no cycling sign keeps the area safe from bicycles

During discussions with the staff, apparently they were allowed to drive on the downs as the council had approved it.

Well, we said only a few days ago that the best use of the area would be for parking; right now it's a premium price Zoo-visitor service for peak weekends, when really it should be open to all residents.

The fact that the council are giving Clifton residents the opportunity to try driving and parking on the downs -as the Smart Car advert says "Park all your preconceptions", could be a step in the right direction.

We are interested in what the legal status of this is: can you really block off a footpath this way, and when it becomes a designated road, are people on bicycles still banned? And what the process and cost for doing this is. If it's affordable, we will create our own pay-to-use car park here.

Waste of space

Whilst we are always happy to park anywhere we want, there is a downside, as WU58ZFR demonstrates.  This is the Downs, where thankfully no cycling is allowed.

The problem is that if you can park a car on the grass you can also put a bin on the grass, which is a real waste of parking opportunity.

Police on the downs again

We aren't quite sure why the police car up on the downs near the suspension bridge is in NYPD colours, but as CF05DFD is ensuring that no subversives dare to ignore the no cycling signs and ride on the paths here, so we support it.

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Irony

Apparently Americans don't 'get' irony.

Here in Bristol we thrive on it.

Especially at the Zoo.

Car Park.

On the Downs.

The downs: our kind of park

Most of the cities parks have had their through roads closed; bollards put in to stop us parking on the grass. One bit of greenery stands out: the Downs.

As well as the zoo-specific car park area which comes out in high summer, this is one place where you can still park your motor on the grass, whip out the BBQ and start burning things. It also has the no cycling signs up to reduce the danger to you and your vehicle from wheeled lycra louts.

Despite the signs, some small children do occasionally cycle through here, so it's good to see the police keeping an eye on things

This ensures that no laws have been broken in the area.

Bridge Valley Road: stolen

Parking on the Downs for a picnic last week was pretty hard. It wasn't just all the roadside parking spaces were taken up, everywhere off the road where you could get a car was full with a family or two, parked up, cooking up a barbecue. No room for more cars

Except what's this round the corner: Bridge Valley Road. Closed to through motor traffic on account of emergency wall repairs.


We understand the need for this, but resent two things. First, pedestrians and cyclists are allowed up the pavement. Second, the road is fenced off, so preventing the area being used for parking.

If some turnaround zone had been provided at the end, you could have parked cars on both sides of this road, so added room for a few hundred more families on the downs.

They could even have used the footpaths that aren't normally accessible on account of the high speed passing traffic to get up to the park.

Zoo transport

A late-breaking entry for the antibicycle awards, Bristol Zoo.

At first glance, you would think "what does the zoo do wrong, they have provided lots of bike racks". In fact we have a quote from Chris Hutt who thinks its excellent:

"There are two sets of 6 racks, so parking for 24 bicycles.
Can't complain about that." 

Given that Mr Hutt is the official complainer for the Bristol Cycling Campaign, the fact he isn't complaining about it is so unusual that it makes us suspicious. Was it a bribe? If so, how much?

There are two things odd with this picture. The light controlled pelican crossing of an important commuter route, and the strange cobbles on the pavement, just at the back wheel of the tagalong. Their cobbles' role can be a bit clearer from the other side, especially if we move the sign.

The two marked out rectangles on the pavement are in fact two of the very few disabled parking spaces in the zoo, and as they are the ones closest to the main entrance, very popular and in constant use weekends, bank holidays and throughout the summer. With two motor vehicles parked in these spaces, it is therefore impossible to park a bike with a trailer or a tagalong at any of the bike stands during peak zoo visit hours. If one were actually trying to encourage cycling to the zoo, this would be unfortunate, because nobody in their right minds goes to the zoo except with small children.

Anyone cycling would have to have some means of getting the children there, and by preventing trailers or tagalongs from using the facilities, the zoo can discourage anyone from cycling. All without troublemakers like Chris Hutt even suspecting, which makes it particularly amusing. How can the evening post run a controversy article on the zoo without any good quotes?

Well, this is where it gets fun, and where the real award nomination kicks in. The zoo doesn't want cyclists. In fact, it doesn't want any visitors to the city who don't come and park in the zoo's revenue-earning parking spaces. We know this, as they have written it down in their sustainability report. You see, there are some small problems with the zoo's plan to earn parking revenue from visitors

1. There isn't enough space in the zoo's parking space to make much money
2. The area nearby isn't resident parking, so visitors can and do park for free once the paid parking area is full

These are problems, but not insurmountable. The secret is the large unused wasteland nearby, often known as Durdham Downs. Part managed by the council, part owned by the Merchant Venturers, and somewhere we like because of its strong anti bicycle policy. Every path where a child may cycle has a big sign warning them off.

This leads to large amounts of empty space. Space that can be used. And what better use of open city parkland in the height of summer than providing parking for the zoo? It is a long standing arrangement that  at weekends and summers, currently gets turned into paid parking for the zoo.

There's a small problem with that -it's not clear that this is what was meant when the downs were to be kept for the people of the city "in perpetuity". This is why a year ago the Zoo was told that instead of this right to park here being a permanent feature, they had one year to come up with a plan.

They have had a year, and they have a plan. It is: park on the downs, add some signs.

This has taken some effort to pull off, and we will have to see what happens this week when the planning committee reviews it. What we are impressed by, however, is how the Zoo managed to hire some traffic consultants to produce a transport report which makes the case that allowing people to park on the downs is the most sustainable form of transit, all other options (walking, cycling, public transport) can be dismissed, and that Park and Ride isn't economic.

That's a good report. Read it.

First, they look at visitor traffic on a bank holiday

24%	Drove
67%	Passenger
2.6%	Walked or Cycled
3.8%	Bus
2.8%	Train or Train and bus

When you consider how many visitors they have on a bank holiday (hint, the Downs parking area has room for 600 cars), the fact that 2.6% managed to walk or cycle is pretty impressive. Presumably after the 12 bicycles parked with the child carrier poking into the main road, everyone else walked.

What is more surprising for us that nearly 7% used public transport, despite the surveyors choosing a bank holiday, the day in which all forms of public transport are at their least functional. Yet even by choosing a day when you are most likely to get visitors from outside the city, 7% used "legacy" public transport,  nearly three times the number who walked or cycled. Wow.

The surveyors, Pinnacle Transportation, to give them their credit, used this as evidence that driving was the only viable option, but because most people drove with family, it was sustainable. That's good. That legitimises us driving to school to do the sprog dropoff. Yes, it may only be 500 metres, yes we park on the school keep lines and half the pavement -but it's sustainable! We shall use that to dispute the next tickets we receive.

So, what to do? Pinnacle Transportation, whom we presume were well paid for their troubles, looked at the option for Park and Ride, and decided that it would cost too much as £1750/day. Why? First, P&R doesn't run at weekends, external visitors to the city on weekends are expected to drive in, so the zoo pays all P&R costs. That's £1450 a day. Secondly, the consultants estimate that adding P&R would reduce zoo parking revenue -on the Downs- by £300/day. That is: people choosing not to park on the downs are an expense.

That is beautiful, and it reinforces our beliefs that tax-dodging pedestrians and cyclists should be banned from the city. We've long argued they don't benefit central government's coffers, but this zoo transport report is the first time someone has spelled out that people who don't drive and park their cars on one of the city's parks cost money. If there is one fault, the report doesn't come out and denounce the 2.6% who walked or cycled, those who came by bus or train, or those who -worst of all- parked somewhere where it is free to park.

By marking down all lost parking revenue as an expense on the P+R, the transport plans can then say "too expensive". What they do propose instead is

1. Have a park and ride, but if it proves too expensive, stop it.
2. Provide better (permanent) signage to the Downs parking area for visitors

Option #1 may look good, but because of that offset-expense trick, the zoo knows that it won't be hard to make it look uneconomic, so it will die a death "we tried that, it didn't work". Instead the Downs parking area will remain, and with the better signage get even more visitors, because they won't get lost and accidentally park somewhere like Pembroke Road or College Road where it won't cost them anything. Which will make residents of those roads happy too.

Now, how does the Downs committee react? Let us look at the Nov 2009 meeting minutes. There's a fairly brutal submission from the Ramblers who argue that turning the downs over to parking is a fundamental abuse of the city's parkland, but what do they know? They may think that somewhere they like to walk is denied them -but nobody is stopping them from parking in the zoo parking area either. That leaves the "Friends of the Downs", who come out in favour not just of giving the Zoo the parking area they deserve, but making a rolling five year lease, which effectively means "forever". We are curious as to what the membership of the Friends group is, as one would, if one actually cared about the green stuff, be a bit concerned that they were more "Enemies of the Downs".

This then, is why the zoo is up for an antibicycle award. Not for the bike racks that don't actually work once there are some disabled visitors. But for the way they've managed to get the Downs friends and committee -the same people who spend so much of their paint budget on ensuring there is no safe way to cycle across most of the Downs.- to support the zoo's plans for 600-650 parking spaces there in high summer weekends and bank holidays, the dates when park visitors would be highest. That is, they have got these people to sell out the entire notion of park and replace it with parking. When you then look at the transport report, where the consultants argue, with a completely straight face, that having 600 cars drive to the city and park on the Downs is sustainable, that these people cannot walk or cycle, and that all lost parking revenue must constitute an expense for a park and ride scheme, well, it just rounds it off!

Rebel with a cause

Being a celebrity gives you power. Your statements get press, your picture gets recognised worldwide. This is why so many celebrities take up the global pressing campaigns once they become known. Bono: poverty. Sharon Stone: middle east peace. Richard Gere: war.

What about Bristol. Well, we have one problem (ignoring the collapse of the financial system, the running out of north sea oil and other national issues). That problem is traffic: the congestion, the impact of the life of the locals, the impact it has on life in and near the city. Which is why we are so greatful that Carol Vorderman, Bristol's local celebrity, has come out against resident parking.

It must have been a tough choice. There are so many issues in the world. A skilled mathematical celebrity could have gone on air to explain how quantitive easing helped Japan recover from the lost decade, how that the conventional armaments of central government to trigger economic activity -lowering interest rates and cutting taxes- had failed, and that desperate measures were needed. Or she could have explained how uncontrolled population growth was the root cause behind so many problems, from peak oil to deforestation, and that unless we did something there there was bad news ahead. But no, Carol stayed true to the city, looked at what matters here, and came out against resident parking.

Because the right to park your car badly wherever you can get it close to a clifton coffee shop is one of the great freedoms of the city. More than, that -it is what makes Britain so British. The government may be tracking all car movements, wanting to tap into every entry you make in facebook, or detain people it doesn't like without any need for a trial. As long as the core freedoms of the island are retained -and parking wherever you like is one of them- Britain will stay free.

That doesn't mean that people can ignore rules willy-nilly. Below, is a picture of a small child cycling along a path in the downs that bans cycling. That is not British. There are no cycling signs that have been there for many decades, and they should be respected. We are talking about parking, which is a right.

Ever since the Romans built the country's first real roads, important people in big vehicles have been parking where they like -and the little people on the roadside have complaining about the experience. They didn't respect their Roman masters then -they don't respect their tier-2 celebrities today, and how much such people benefits the city. Without people like Carol Vorderman to speak up for us on ITV2 daytime TV talk shows, nobody would know anything of our city other than it is near where the M5 clogs up on your drive to the South West.

We in Bristol Traffic welcome Carol's involvement in this issue and are glad that she has correctly recognised what the true issues are. In order to recognise her contribution, we would welcome any photographs of Carol parking n Bristol. We are also considering the possibility of campaigning for a directly elected mayor for this city, with Carol Vorderman being the official Bristol Traffic candidate for the post. She has the vision this city needs!

Signage

In this city, it is important that bicycles know their place and follow the signs

Here, on the downs by the Suspension Bridge, bicycles are not to cycle under the minivan PJ56WNS

But down in Stokes Croft, it is OK to go under this car

Keep an eye on those signs, as they help make your journey safer. And you may get fined for non-compliance.

This is how it ends. Mark Pointer, died 2009

Up on the downs, where the road across the park, Stoke Road, meets Ladies Mile, there's a sign post covered in flowers.

The one at the top says "to my dear brother, taken too soon, love your partner in crime -your ever loving sister Nicky/Richard"

What happened? According to the Evening Post, Mark Pointer, age 36, was on a motorbike which collided with a Vauxhall Vectra. The car driver was treated for shock; the motorcyclist didn't survive. The police have a sign up asking for witnesses. That's all we know.


Somebody died here. Mark Pointer's brother and sister are mourning him; so are his friends and the rest of his family. For the rest of their natural lives, they are going to remember him, and often think "if only..." -if only he'd not gone out at that exact date and time, if only he'd taken a different route, if only the car had done something different, if only Mark had done something different. Those regrets are pretty hard to cope with; there's no easy way to avoid them, and often its mixed with guilt -"if only I'd ..." Sadly, it's too late for any of them -someone died motorbiking over a park in Bristol, and regardless of the underlying causes, they are gone.

Bristol doesn't (yet) have a Ghost Cycle program in operation. We need one for motorbikes as well as bicycles.

the price of parking

One of the pressures for driveways in Bristol is that it gives you somewhere to park. The other is that you can more sure your car will be there the next day. Here, on Upper Belgrave Road, by the edge of the downs is evidence of what can go wrong.

Next to to the cyclist illegally cycling on the downs is a parked Corsa, first in the line of cars of residents on the houses on the other side of the road. This is an odd road: cars coming up from the Oortway will have had a chance to zip up Bridge Valley road, and with the park on one side, it doesn't feel urban. Some drivers come up here pretty fast.

And clearly someone one was coming up too fast, not paying attention, and -presumably at night- ploughed straight into the back of this parked car. Hopefully nobody was hurt, and the residents heard the sounds, came out to investigate, and got to exchange insurance details -with an insured driver.

It would be useful to have some data on average and peak vehicle speeds up Bridge Valley Road and along the edge of the downs. And perhaps instead of "improving" the blackboy hill junction with lights, add lights and red light/speed camera to the junction at with Ladies' Mile road, so that cars get to slow down, whether they want to or not

Emergency Parking

This was caught on the way to school this morning: a vehicle doing some emergency parking on the downs.

Vehicle access to the downs is always a bit controversial; they ban bikes, let the zoo is allowed to take over a large area on summer weekends and charge a fee for parking on it.

Here we see something that should be allowed to use the downs as a parking area, as the alternative -Redland- could be fairly destructive all round.

I wonder how scary it was for the passengers...