Pembroke Road: where should Barbara Janke remove the yellow lines?

Barbara Janke, leader of the council (at least for the next few days)- has taken on the challenge of ensuring that traffic safety "can be improved" by adding extra car parking in Clifton. Of course, we, the tax-payers, know that this is technically "bollocks", but we also know that anything which discourages walking and cycling does reduce the numbers of Killed and Seriously Injured, so provided you don't actually measure foot and bicycle traffic, you can claim improvements. This is the tactic used by central government to claim that the UK's roads are safer than ever, so there's no reason why the Clifton Councillors can't use it.

First, the bottom end of Pembroke Road as it approaches Queen's Road. Look at that -two wide bits of parking area, almost completely wasted. Only one vehicle has dared to pre-empt the proposed removal by doing a bit of paveparking -and they were only loading up.

In the other direction, a happy family walks over the zebra crossing.

Look how much parking space is being wasted here! Not only is there a zebra crossing -encouraging people to endanger themselves by walking- the zig-zags are taking up space for at least eight cars.

Some readers are thinking "more than eight cars", but this is Clifton, remember. Big cars, for important people, like Ranger Rovers, BMW X-series toys. Some of the students do have smaller cars, but Mini Coopers are acceptable -provided they are the new BMW version, not the old British Leyland editions.

If Barbara wanted to live up to the expectations of her local electorate, especially the Keep Parking Free team, she should remove not just all the yellow lines in these photographs, but the zebra crossing too. This would allow much more parking, and hence more traffic calming

Banksy vs Bristol Traffic

Has anybody seen the Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition?

Graffiti is wrong. We all know that.

But the exhibition is, in fact, not a series of witty or political statements of a 'Bristol lad made good'. Nor a comment on society as it stands in our green and pleasant land. Or even a celebration of Bristol City Council's ability to not know that a major crowd-puller was being installed under their noses. On their premises.

No. In true Banksy fashion, it was just a ploy by the 'artist' himself to inconvenience Bristol's drivers.

Queens Road bike parking

This is the bike park outside the student union, in Queen's Road, Clifton.

Of the 6 bikes locked up here, only two can be considered functional.


One has been stripped to the frame, another, whose owner took the front wheel off and locked it is without a front fork.



At the other end of the rack, one has a stamped on rear wheel and missing front wheel. The bike behind it has the handlebar clamp on the stem missing, which is odd. Perhaps whoever was trying to steal the forks got interrupted, but why remove that part of the stem? Maybe the goal was to steal the stem, or cripple the bike so it ends up there overnight, when the real frame strip can take place.

Bristol: don't commute on a bike you value.