The joy that is shared spaces

There are proposals up to add some shared spaces in High Kingsdown, near the famous Highbury Vaults. This is the area that pops up in our Cornerish Parking article -one that already shows the area is half-way to being shared -it's OK to park in the middle of the road.

The traffic survey is surprised about how low the traffic is. Well, it's a narrow road with narrow pavements to park on. Once the pavements are dropped to make it a shared space, we can park anywhere. This will increase the value of the road and so encourage more (motorised) visitors.

Here for example, Oxford by the Primark. A shared space from which bicycles are banned.

What shares it? Pedestrians and -in the distance- a delivery van. This is heartwarming; somewhere we can bring our van for a bit of shopping without fear of any cyclist damaging our door when we open it. As for pedestrian/van conflict, well -they get out of the way of the bus pretty sharpish, don't they?

Ideas from Oxford: treating pedestrians badly

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!

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.

Oxford 5: enforcing give way junctions on bike paths

One recurrent problem with on-pavement bike lanes is that they lose the right of way at access points to the road. If you were cycling along the road, cars would be required to wait for you while they were pulling on or off the road. But on the pavement, you are expected to stop. Which makes them less efficient for cycling, unless you ignore the give way signs.
Clearly in Oxford, the students have been doing this, so the fact that bikes were meant to give way had to be backed up by something more substantial. In this case, a large iron bar across the bike lane appears to do the trick

Now fast moving bicycles are forced to swerve into the oncoming bicycle lane before crossing the junction at exactly the same speed as they would have done before.

This shows precisely why bike lane design is a highly skilled task left to professionals. An amateur would have looked at this and described it as useless. A professional traffic planner would have collected data on throughput and velocity, run simulations on risk of injury before and after the bar was put in, and demonstrated that having a metal bar across an unlit bicycle lane was in fact safer for cyclists.

Oxford 4: The intermittent value of helmets

Just along from the Oxford cycle path of dubious value was an ambulance and bicycle. What were they doing

Looking after the cyclist who had come off -no car involved, seemingly- and hit the kerb

After which a large amount of blood was deposited over the scene

Head injuries always bleed a lot, so that may not be a sign of a bad injury, just a messy one. But it does show that sometimes helmets do have a role to play.

Perhaps once the risks of going under a lorry or bus have been eliminated, its time to worry about what happens when you fall off .

Oxford 3: bike/bus lane

Here in another street in Oxford, we see evidence that it is possible for bikes and buses to co-exist, a wonderful example showing how buses on the Bristol-Bath railway path would improve the lives of all path users.

Here a bus is just managing to squeeze down a bike lane.

If all bike lanes in Bristol were opened up to buses, and if they were allowed to use the Advanced Stop Lanes, then bus timetables would be more reliable and the experience of bus passengers greatly enhanced. FirstBus are already in meetings with Bristol Council on this topic, and will be rolling such a program out during the summer months.

Oxford 2: bike lane

Here's an interesting bike lane in Oxford, a city famed for its cycling. It directs cyclists off the pavement to somewhere where they can be run over by cars.

The path begins by curving you off the pavement. Note the ambulance in the distance -that will be visited later.

After it skirts round some parked cars, the path runs you alongside traffic, with a double yellow line to discourage parking. There's also a "no bikes" sign on the pavement, to discourage any cyclists who were a bit scared of what is to come from trying to avoid it by going on the pavement.


And what is to come?Well, the bike lane is simply too narrow and covered in three strips of paint to make it extra slippery in the wet. Here we see someone with a trailer just skirting past this transit van, a van which doesn't have any option but to drive down the lane.

To survive, the cyclist has to get past the van and then pull out into traffic, which they manage to do safely.

This is a classic example of a bike lane that provides no benefit to anyone, except to add to the statable quota of number of bike lanes in a town or city.

Oxford 1: the signage

Here are some photos of a trip organised to Oxford, to see if there are any lessons in cycle friendliness that Bristol could learn from this city, which is famous for its bicycles.

First, the signs. Here is a 'no bicycles' sign at the entrance to a shopping area.

And a 'Do not park bicycles'. No please, just a Do Not.

And bets of all, Christ Church having a big "No bicycles either wheeled or ridden" sign.

It would be good to experiment with unicyles and tricycles to see how broad the ban was, or whether carrying was ok. But notice how the signs say nothing about Mini-Motos. Which is surprising, as the city seems ideal for them.