Shocking one-way contraflow cycling

As everyone knows -tax dodging cyclists love to cycle the wrong way up one way streets -streets put in by an anti-motorist council to make cycling more "convenient" than driving.

Once these tax-dodgers get used to contraflowing, they end up using those routes even when they drive a car -or in this case, a coach -as seen here in Fishponds.



Before anyone says "how do we know this coach driver is a cyclist?" -the answer is obvious. Only cyclists go the wrong way down one-way streets, so this driver is a cyclist.

Zen & the art of using bus & cycle lanes

Bus lanes were in the news this past week with the MD of Addison Lee openly encouraging his drivers to break the law in London and use bus lanes. Addison Lee is also a motorbike courier firm and they donate large amounts of money to the Conservative Party who don't like bus lanes. The M4 bus lane was scrapped, thus creating a lovely new traffic jam into our capital, just in time for the Olympics.

More recently, Mayor Boris opened up the bus lanes in London for motorbikes to use bus lanes and Transport for London has issued powered two wheel users with lots of lovely 'guidelines' and 'rules' for them to follow. Funny how Boris Johnson had his 2008 election campaign partly financed by...guess who?. It looks like his 2012 campaign is being propped up by AL too, and red Ken has taken a pot shot at him.

So why is this relevant to Bristol?. Well, motorbikes have been allowed to use bus lanes here since the mid 90's, often cited by Boris as a shining example of how it can work. In fact, here's a little video of how it does work. And here's how to use the Bristol bus lanes (that is, the ones for very, very thin buses):
Riding motorbikes starts at an early age and it's vital to get some training in before hitting the Bristol streets. Where better to start than an old railway line?. You can get some speed up and improve your skills by weaving in and out of tax dodging cyclists and pedestrians.

Railway Path Signage

As the extended route through Wickham Glen goes on, signs are already up on Alcove Road pointing to Eastville Park

Similarly, there are signs off Fishponds road letting pedestrians and cyclists know that their reserved route is nearby

To help cyclists get to this oasis, Avon Home Carers of fishponds have graciously parked both cars WU10LLV and WU60MHN up on the pavement, so creating a wider road for the cyclists.

We hope the tax dodgers are grateful, for, as the logo says "we care"

Death on Fishponds Road

Bristol lost a teenager on Monday: Junaid Nazir age 16, killed on Fishponds Road -in front of his own house. A taxi driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, then released on bail. We don't know any other details.

One of our contributors went past the site on Tuesday evening -here are their comments:

This was an awful thing to happen, an awful thing to see. Junaid's friends and family were there -all of them utterly devastated. He left to go to school at Filton College, and instead of coming home after another day at school, he never came back. All his dreams are gone, all that is left are memories.

Every time his family leave the house, they are going to pass the place where this child -their son, their brother, their cousin - died.

It was really heartbreaking to be here, I tried really hard to get a photo of the flower and not all the friends and family, -as that wasn't right. They were very welcoming, but it's hard to cover this. No schoolkids should be placing flowers to mourn the needless death of one of their friends.

Afterwards, I went down Fishponds Road -never fun- then turned into Roygate Lane, then onto the railway path. Suddenly I'd gone from the friends and family mourning the death of a sixteen year old to the late summer peace and pleasantness of an almost Dutch walking and cycling route into the city. Yet what point is it in having such a lovely facility if you can't even get across a road 300 metres away alive?

The whole Bristol Traffic team extends our condolences to the family and friends -it will take a long time for everyone to come to terms with this, and -based on personal experience- nobody will ever really get over it. You can never forget.

We'd also like to hint to Evening Post that when they put up articles on tragic events such as Junaid's death, that either they disable comments or they monitor them so all four regular mad commenters don't just repeat their own prejudices -again, and again, and again. This is not the place for them.

Our normal service will be resumed in a few days. In the meantime, there is a growing monument in Fishponds to a failure of the entire "road safety" industry. Consider visiting it.

Bristol's First Residents Parking Scheme

There's two ways people use to preserve the parking in their street for the exclusive use of residents: (a) persuade the council to undertake expensive consultation and planning over months and years, or (b) get`together with fellow locals and 'just do it' 'JFDI'. Neither way is acceptable as it prevents those of us who prefer to drive in from south gloucs every day from finding a parking space.
St Werburghs residents chose the JFDI option a few years ago - banning climbers from taking up parking spaces outside the homes of tax paying residents in the roads around the Climbing Centre off Mina Rd. We raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Now Oldbury Court Road in Fishponds has declared itself effectively a 'residents parking only' area by putting up signs suggesting that UWE, the council and, apparently, the police have banned students from parking there. If it works, they have created the perfect RPS - no fees or permits, and no problems for visiting tradesmen, delivery vehicles and elderly aunts. How on earth did they manage it?
The sign reads: 'UWE Students - please do not park in this road. Vehicles parked illegally may be clamped or towed by the police'. The sign is apparently written by the UWE transport office, presumably under pressure from resident groups. These are residents who have cars themselves and therefore should be on our side! Traitors!
We are very worried about the precedent this sets: Car owners are turning on each other under the onslaught from anticar campaigners. Maybe they though it acceptable as students are only marginally more popular than cyclists in Bristol... however we are very worried that a precedent has been established - which can be rolled out to include football fans attending the Memorial ground, dog walkers in Victoria Park, you, and me.
How is it enforced, we wondered. There are no cameras. Do wardens check cars for drug paraphanalia and empty vodka bottles in the footwells? Or is there a posse of curtain twitchers? We suspect the latter, having been passed this photo of an alleged student entering UWE who allegedly arrived in one of the cars on the left.


The person sending it in must have hoped we would support them and call for the student to be named and shamed.. No way - he is a hero, standing up for the right to park anywhere!

Hang on though. The sign is alarming, if you are a student, and cleverly suggests that it is illegal for students to park in this road. But in fact it simply states that illegally parked vehicles may be clamped or towed.

We patrolled this road regularly for a fortnight to log all the illegally parked vehicles, and see what happened to them..but the best we could find was this one, a long way from the college and without any drug or vodka-related items left in view.

Student car? Unlikely. We suspect this car belongs to a visitor more used to parking in narrow streets where use of the pavement is tolerated. Sensibly, they have chosen to take no risks with their wing mirrors as scores of land cruisers thunder past this spot, on their way to disgorge cyclist-eating dogs into Vassals Park.

Progress!

As regular readers know, we regard any facility which permits slow pedestrians to cross the road safely as not just an inconvenience, but a needless burden on the NHS, because it keeps the frail alive

We are pleased to see that this one, on Fishponds road by Alcove Road, has been disabled. By not providing any promise that it will ever come back, or reason for the disabling, we hope pedestrians will be demoralised enough to consider driving instead.

Watch for children

Here we are again in Alcove Road, , Fishponds, near where one of the recent hit-and-run incidents took place.

Today, we see that the ice cream van G984VFP has a sign on the back, "slow, watch for children"

This is to warn other vehicles about to park on the pavement that children may be running out of their houses to get to the ice cream van, so endangering your wing mirrors and paintwork.

Mercedes Hit and Run - Fishponds

While Bristol mourns the tragic loss of Troy Atkinson in the city centre, it is worth noting that the day before there was another hit and run involving a Mercedes, this time at the junction of Alcove Road and Fishponds Road.

According to the Evening Post

"A 40-year-old man was riding a black racing bike towards Bristol on Fridaywhen the incident happened.

At around 7.45pm, a blue Mercedes turned into Alcove Road and knocked him to the ground, causing him to suffer minor cuts and bruises."

We checked out Alcove Road to see if there were any blue mercs on the pavement. Not today. Two vans on the corner, providing a lovely bit of traffic calming by hiding all chances at seeing oncoming traffic.

And a car, WN56ULM, proudly sporting its "baby on board" sticker to let people know that this car has to park on the pavement to get its small child in and out the house.

Overall, not a nice place to walk or cycle, which is a shame, as it is one of the access points to the Railway Path.

It is probably a quirk of statistics that two hit and runs collisions involving Mercedes cars happen in the same week, but it is also worrying. It is nice to get onto the R.P. and enjoy the safe chaos of the evening traffic up and down the path.