MoD Abbeywood cycle path access issues

Remember how only a few weeks ago we wanted to turn the back bike path to abbeywood into a proper road. There may be some good news there.

First, note how the bike barriers are down.

The fence to stop cyclists dodging the barriers now looks lonely, the path put in by people dodging the fence may even recover.

The cyclists may be happy, but not all. Not Clive, whose email we picked up.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Clive
Date: Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 10:39 PM

Car access on MOD Abbey Wood Cycle path


I was amazed to see a car coming down the MOD Abbey Wood Cycle path (between the gated end of the lockleaze rugby grounds and the MOD gatehouse.


The Driver, Mr Blair, was quite upset that cyclists were impeding his 'Right of Way'.
Mr. Blair apparently lives in the house at the top of the path and claims that the route past the MOD has been 'his' right-of-way for 300 years .


When I arrived at the scene, he was arguing with a student who he claimed was blocking his way. During his 'discourse', he caught a girl with his car door as she tried to get past.
Not a happy chappie.


Now, he may indeed have some access right to his property via the cycle path ( I don't know, only S. Gloucester Cncl. can answer that) but does this mean he has vehicular access via this route?


If he does, than S. Gloucester should signpost the track to warn cyclists and pedestrians that it is a shared thoroughfare, as most people will not expect to find cars on the path.
(travelling at the national speed limit)


How do I go about progressing this (from a safety perspective) to find out if Mr Blair is allowed to drive his car through this section of the cycle path, and if so, ensuring cyclists and pedestrians are aware of the danger.

This is interesting. It's why we put the maps up last week. First, let's assume that the Mr Blair is the person by the rugby grounds who has an interested in old vehicles, many of which without tax or insurance. Driving them on private roads is the only thing he can do.

The MoD roads on Abbey Wood are private, so if he has a historic right of way to get there then yes, he can drive down the bike path. That way he can drive his old cars without all the pesky government regulation, health and safety nonsense about seat belts and brakes working. Road tax, that stuff.

One funny thing though, which the maps raise. Does the right of way extend to access to the MoD roads, or does it go to the woods and hence to the HP site, which has been fenced off since the mid 1980s? Is his claim for 300 years access is right, by our estimate this would put them within 50 years of end of the English civil war, some time before the Jacobite rising in Scotland, and therefore possibly predate Britain coming into existence.  As ancient as nine-tree hill.

If there really is car access on this path and to the MoD roads, then it shouldn't just be a luxury for one person. No, it should be something we can all enjoy: a new road between the A4174 Ring Road and Lockleaze, an alternative to the always congested, speed-camera enabled Filton Avenue.

More investigations -and maybe some experiments- are needed.

Before the war on motorists began: Splatts Abbey Wood

This is a before and after map series, full details of why to crop up later in the week.

First, the North Fringe, 1987. Congestion on the A4174, running through the middle of the photo: minimal. The roundabout centres on gridref ST6135787, apparently with trees on it. To south, a large blank space -the remains of some quarry or something. Crossing it, three power lines, one phone line, and a footpath from the sports grounds in the left side to some fields just E. of Splatts Abbey Wood, then roughly north. All of the area was under the control of Avon County Council; there are still some signs up in the area if you know where to look. In the S.E corner, just S. of Bonnington Walk, Sta (dis) remembers the existence of some station? Lockleaze Station? (no: Horfield Railway Station)

What is clear is this: No congestion on the ring road. No cycle lanes from the sports grounds to the ring road. Less traffic lights in the city. Not a coincidence.

Now, map two, printed in 1997, in the time the socialists were in power, and things were bleak.

The A4174 roundabout has moved to ST61607880, though not with the trees. South of it, the wasteland for motorbikers is now MoD abbey wood, with a moat on the NE side to eliminate the risk of anyone driving a truck full of explosives in, parking to the east and south-west and positioned to reduce the damage caused by anyone getting a car/truck full of explosives in there and blowing it up. Although the NI peace process was making progress, the tendency of the Provisional IRA to mark some kind of stalemate by blowing up prestigious targets on the mainland meant that these things were considered important. The disused station has been supplemented by the Abbey Wood railway station, which apparently has direct connections with Wales. The former Filton Junction station, north of the A4174, is now marked as Sta (dis) to indicate its new state.

South of the MoD facility, just north of where the Tailspin housing estate is still being built, a bike path. And what else has changed? Congestion. Is it any coincidence that there are traffic jams on the A4174 now that a bike path connects Lockleaze with the ring road, and that the new roundabout and the one by the M32 have traffic lights? We think not.

The final item of this note is the rights of way, the footpaths. These two maps imply that there was never any right to cycle through the rugby grounds, even the footpath doesn't go direct from Bonnington walk, but instead via Landseer Avenue. And here's the best bit: the right of way finishes by going through the MoD moat, through some of the building, and out the other side. We think pedestrians wanting to walk from Lockleaze to Sainsbury's should be made to walk this route, as it will reduce the number of them pressing the cross button on the pelican lights at the ring road.

Ring Road problems

Anyone who says that a southern ring road will solve traffic problems never goes to the Northern half of the A4174 on a weekday.

This is the MOD car park approach to the A4174, not even the RR proper, yet the road is blocked by cars

Here they are stuck, waiting to get onto the ring road. What is wrong? Don't know. When will it be fixed? Don't know. The BMW to the far right of the pic knows a sneaky solution, an "exit strategy" that works. Too bad the MOD don't have viable exit strategies for other problems, like wars in Afghanistan.

Looking north to the roundabout you can see the BMW way ahead in the left lane. Instead of trying to turn right at the car park exit roundabout, it went left as far as the abbey wood nursery, did a U-turn there where the lane separation goes away, and snuck up the left hand lane for vehicles heading west. The congestion is mostly for vehicles heading east towards the M32.

Whatever happened, it spreads. Here is Muller Road, fifteen minutes later. Same thing: no movement of motors towards the M32.

South Gloucs. council needs to recognise the problem and widen the A4174, while Bristol Council needs to listen to us, and widen Muller Road. Cut down the trees, take away the unused pavement. Job done.

A dream that was the bearpit

Following on our coverage of the stolen inner-city ring road, we are pleased to bring the city a photo of what it used to be like, when the ICRR was coming together, when the M32-Parkway was not yet built, without its trees and lovely views of the countryside, but the James Barton Roundabout had been built, with the Bearpit in its heyday -when people would pop out to it for a quick picnic after shopping in Broadmead. It was our answer to the M6 Lancaster Forton services and Portsmouth's Tricorn Shopping centre.



Look at this picture. Lots of -presumably free- parking, no cyclists, no congestion. Now compare it with now: traffic jams, expensive parking, and -apart from this road- cyclists. Even on this stretch, they've added more pedestrian crossings. What happens? The cars get held up. Coincidence? We think not.

Signage

This pedestrian/bike sign not far from Emerson's Green shows not only some distant destinations, but "public house", directing you to a nearby public house

This is of course "the bridge inn"

Prior to the transformation of this quiet greenery into a ring road, this pub was a dull, rural pub. Now, overlooking the ring-road, it is remiscent of one of the 1960s service stations overlooking the M6 (i.e. like Chernobyl B services just N. of Lancaster). Cyclists can have a rest cycling alongside the ring road, sip a beer, and admire the passing cars, while shouting to each other over the traffic noise.

Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems

This is the A4174 Ring Road heading from Emerson's Green to the M32. It is a weekday evening, so even the high-occupancy traffic lane is full of single occupant vehicles not moving.

Campaigners for the removal of the 2+ lane during the morning rush hour dream of this exact same situation on their morning drive in.

This jam is pretty predicable; morning and evening: traffic jam here. There is no cause other than traffic volumes on the ring road, caused by M32 congestion, caused by an inability of vehicles to get off the M32 at Muller Road, St Pauls and the city centre, which is caused by buses and bicycles taking up space, and the excessive number of pedestrian crossings, according to our strategic partners the Association of British Drivers.

The ABD have recently flagged up a new concern, that the EU is building a new in-car spy network -CVIS . For those of us building city-wide vehicle spy networks, this is news, as EU funding would be very handy. This led us to the CVIS home page, and a recent workshop on intelligent roads. At this point we feel we must disappoint our ABD fellow-travellers with the bad news that this is not an attempt by central government to track everyone's movement. That can already be done by monitoring mobile phone movements across cell quadrants; no need to force upgrade-every car, as it covers old vehicles and pedestrians. No, this is actually an attempt by the car manufacturers to render the entire current fleet of vehicles technically obsolete.

A key problem with today's vehicles is that they last too long -hence the German and UK old car scrappage scheme -people just aren't buying new cars at a rate that sustains the EU car industry any more, and there is a limit to what can be done on the mechanical engineering side of car design and the appearance of cars to make them obsolete faster. By adopting a high-tech interior, from MP3 and SatNav to DVD players to children, you can introduce an obsolescence rate driven by the lifetime of technologies, not engine longevity. The CVSI scheme takes that idea and raises it, by having the in-car computing communicate with peers (warn vehicles nearby of ABS-hard braking, ice conditions, crashes), and with roadside infrastructure.

The best summary of the work is New Transport Paradigms of the 21st century. Ignoring the fact that new Transport Paradigms of the late 21st century are likely to be a horse and cart and a sailing ship, it's an interesting read. On P28, for example, a key feature of the system will be that it will tell you that you can drive down a bus lane. In Bristol, we do not need to wait the rollout of an EU-wide car-to-car communication infrastructure to do that.

From a datacentre-state, the CVIS infrastructure isn't that interesting. We can already track vehicle movements, so the only issue here is that the city is trying to provide data back to the cars, such as where there is a parking space, then reverse parking for you. But how do you prevent non-CVIS vehicle owners from ignoring your rights and stealing that space first?

The other amusing entry is from the French Autoroute Operators, which on page 17discusses their objectives: profit

Factors of success of cooperative traffic management

1. New actors in traffic management (automotive industry, telecom industry, equipment and content providers,…) work with road operators.
2. The business model recognizes the economic value all along the chain of the information production.
3. To give evidence that each driver need on board reliable traffic information and pay for that as he does for tyres, energy or airbag.

This is pretty profound. It implies that the road operators view the road safety data -traffic information- that they collect as their property, and only something that should be shared with the cars if the drivers are prepared to pay for it.

This is not a police state, no, its just another source of revenue for the road operators and the car manufacturers.