Hold the Road 2

Last Friday, we reported on the 50 plus new parking spaces available on Whiteladies Road. We featured Audi YL06DYP taking advantage of the new spaces.

It appears that, whilst owners of lesser quality German vehicles have yet to take advantage of these new parking spaces, word has spread within the Audi driving community.

Here we see another Audi - WV60EZL - taking advantage of the same space.

As a civic service, we're thinking of writing to all car manufacturers to let them know of the scheme provided by Bristol City Council as part of the Greater Bristol Bus Network.

H/T Dru Marland for the photo

Hold the Road

As regular readers will know, we have covered the GBBN (Greater Bristol Bus Network) before.

We were sceptical at first, thinking that it might reduce parking opportunities in favour of the most profound losers in society: those that don't own a car.

Well, there are still cyclists, pedestrians and buses using Whiteladies Road, but it turns out that the revised road layout carefully concealed at least fifty new parking spots.

Here we see YL06DYP taking advantage of one of these new parking spaces. 

This is genius: we look forward to more use of Bristol's roads for static vehicles.

Cheltenham Road goes upmarket

The Tesco Express has re-opened on Cheltenham Road.

It shuts at 18:00, so anyone wanting value beverages after that time is recommend to walk past the Arches, turn left to Zetland Road and go into Booze Express, who are happy to serve discounted vodka and red-bull throughout most of the evening.

Being closed at 6, the bike path in front of Tesco is unused.

What is interesting -and worth knowing- is now that the troublemakers have been evicted from the Telepathic Heights squat, there's room for two cars or vans in front.

Before there was always the risk someone on the roof would drop a brick or a bottle full of petrol onto your paintwork, but now it is safe.

With Cheltenham Road becoming safer and more popular, knowing the secret parking places is becoming important. This is a new one.

Gloucester Road Secret Parking

Continuing our guide to secret parking, today is the turn of Gloucester Road. There are lots of convenient places just off it, like the bike lane, the corners and pavements of North Road. But that involves walking.

What we have today is a secret parking place that is closer than any other, because it is not near Gloucester Road, it is Gloucester Road. The wide pavement on the other side of the road from the Bread Store, near the fancy new patisserie "Tarte", is a secret parking area.

The trick is to know that Taurus Recruitment. whose shop you park in front of, has apparently closed down, with a a Shop Lease available sign above it. While it is seemingly unoccupied, there's nothing to stop you just parking in front of it, popping out, then going into the shops that are open.

Access: just drive along the pavement the way this van WN07ERX did.

Cabot Circus Secret Parking

Another phrase that brings visitors to this site is "secret parking"; people searching the web in the desperate hope that whoever has discovered a secret parking space somewhere in the city is going to write about it, rather than treasure their secret for use in emergencies.

Well, that's going to change. Bristol Traffic is going to document those secret parking spaces. We may charge for sharing our knowledge of special-secret-parking-spaces, in fact our contributors can feel free to charge to delete the photographs, so if you want your secret parking space kept secret, it may cost you.

Here, secret parking for Cabot Circus, just off the St James Barton Roundabout, a roundabout which, if you look at the city's open spaces plan, actually constitutes open space. By parking here, you get a pleasant walk through an open space, then "Discover Broadmead" before arriving at Cabot Circus.

There's plenty of room here, no risk of passing pushchairs scratching your paintwork, whether your car is big or small.

Access looks fairly straight forward: approach the roundabout from the BRI, pop up on the pavement and nip through this gap in the railings.

Exit is, presumably, the same way. This is probably the only tricky part of the operation, especially if you want to head for the furthest lane, then you need to be fairly aggressive in your pull out or roundabout lane changing tactics.