Integrated Public Transport

Contributor "R" writes to us

Dear Bristol Traffic

These flats on Cotham Road South opposite the junction of Kingsdown Parade and Horfield Hill were built only a few years ago with the car in mind. The ground floor level includes garages with access across the pavement to the road. However, I wonder if the developers failed to realise just how useful garages are for keeping other things in apart from cars ?

Perhaps they did as their clever design hints at the existence of a driveway in front of the garages. This hint has not been overlooked by this tax-payer who is presumably pleased that the bus stop outside the garages gives pedestrians the satisfaction of making good use of what we all regard as an underused part of the road network.

Indeed we should applaud this as an example of "integrated public transport". I was unable to stay for long and determine the effect on pedestrians of an approaching bus.

Yours dearly,
"R"

This is a fine example of integrated transport. We also suspect that as this is in the Kingsdown RPZ, such imaginative parking will allow the resident to avoid needing to pay extra anti-motorist tax on their vehicle. 

Plot 6: bus station or parking?

For all those entrants to the Friday Quiz: behind the purple fence with the no skateboard or ball games signage is a temporary car park. Temporary. We need something more permanent.

This is why it's exciting to hear that the infamous plot six, the now defunct post-office-railway-integrated sorting/delivery office may well be turned into a multi-storey long-stay car park, and not, as some troublemakers demanded, a transport hub for buses, trains and bicycles.

Providing an integrated transport hub here would merely encourage people to use train+bus, or train+bike, and not offer the revenue opportunities of, say, a five storey car park.

Two issues

• We hope the car park is SUV friendly, as Cabot Circus is, and not 1980s-legacy-galleries style.
• This is going to increase demand for road access to the area, especially as the Portishead railway line is not going ahead. We propose recognising that the Coronation Road cycle path is a waste of space, and turning that entire pavement into another inbound lane. Yes, some trees will have to go, but they will grow back elsewhere. And as Elf-King Ap Rees says, the South Bristol Link road is critical to make commuting by car into Bristol quicker. Anyone who says otherwise is making "mischievous misleading comments"

We praise the Waltham Forest Faction of Bristol council for their plans, and the assistance of North Somerset and S Gloucs councils.

On this topic, we saw an article recently arguing that the suburban dream in Bristol is in trouble. The actions to improve driving options from North Somerset show that this is false. What has changed is this: the important people in the city, rather than live in the fringe suburbs, have moved out of the city altogether, into the picturesque towns and villages outside: Portishead, Clevedon, Wotton-under-edge, etc. While public transport to the fringe of the city is collapsing, those with money still need to come in, and the increasing use of road space by cyclists, resident parking schemes and expanded pavements is anti-capitalist. It is critical that Bristol Council -who would otherwise pander to their electorate- recognise that the true wealth of the city depends on these out-of-city commuters, and meet their needs: fast wide roads, low-cost in-city parking. The Plot Six and South Bristol Link Road are only part of what we need.

Corner work in Henleaze

Carrying on our search for the car doing the most ambitious rule breakings in one go, is this one sent in by "PMB", showing how someone solved the problem of getting to the newsagent:

Seen in Northumbria Drive Henleaze last Friday
This driver of WM07 GXJ seems to be attempting some kind of world record for multiple offences -

1. parking across and obstructing the pavement
2. obstructing a bus stop
3. parking on zig zags for a zebra crossing
4. trying his best to block someone's driveway

and probably all to buy a newspaper - pure genius

This parking makes sense. It's raining, and with the car right up against the bus stop, you could nip out the passenger side and get under the bus stop without getting wet, then into the newsagent. This would make the location ideal for a "multi modal transport interchange with shopping facilities". Furthermore, everyone buying a copy of the Evening Post helps support the campaign against bicycles.

Integrated Transport

Here are some shots from a train journey from Oxford to Bristol. Starting from Oxford, which has a rack of secure bike lockers for bikes that are valued.

Next to that, there is the covered parking. Enough room for a few hundred bikes. In Bristol, getting to Temple Meads is half the problem. The route from the railway path is down, the bypass had police "no cycling" signs up until the council told them to stop it, and the roads outside are some of the most dangerous in the city. And then there is the challenge of parking your bike or getting it onto a platform. Whereas in Oxford, the problem is remembering where you left your bike.

Really

And what's that in the distance? A bus? Yes -a red bus. With all those London Transport connotations, of a bus/tube service that is designed to benefit the city, rather than some distant shareholders.
Whereas we in Bristol, we get FirstBus. And to get to Bristol, FirstGWR. Which turned out to be very nice, they even let me on an earlier train without any fuss.

I got to arrive in Bristol early, at 9 pm.

This was the London train; the premium train between Bristol and The Big City. Its a mid-evening train, so anyone who stopped off for a bit of food or drink after a day's work may be on it. The taxis know this, they all pile in waiting for customers. But me, I'm waiting for a bus. I could walk, but I have luggage and a note from my physiotherapist that says "don't". I'm waiting for the bus. Given that FirstBus and FirstGWR are part of the same company, we'd hope they know the train timetables too, and arrange for buses to integrate with the trains. And look, after only 15 minutes wait, a bus pulls in. And turns its lights off.


Those few of us who dont either walk off, get taxis, or get friends to pick them up by car are left waiting for another half an hour before eventually the bus turns its lights on and decides to go.

The lesson for this is simple: don't rely on FirstBus/FirstGWR to do any co-ordination. What's interesting is to think, why not? Why don't FirstBus not only schedule buses to be in the station for when the trains come in, but even have announcements on the train advertising this. It's almost like they don't want to make money. And clearly, compared to the London experience, they don't want to provide a service for the citizens of Bristol.