Troublemakers and Zebra Crossings on Cotham Road

Spotted while parking the car up in the coaches-no-parking bit of Cotham Road during the school run, a group of people loitering around. By the entrance to two schools? Should we call the police?

No need, the headmaster of Cotham School has popped over, presumably to tell them the police are on their way.

But what's this? Smiling and happiness?

Turns out, these people are plotting together to get a zebra crossing put up here on Cotham Road, so that kids and parents can walk to school safely. One at the top, by the school entrances. This is so wrong. After you struggle on the commute up Cotham Brow, with its congestion and crossings, this road is somewhere to put your foot down and make up lost time. And now they want a crossing here?

What's worse, the councillors support it, and the councillor for the Cotham School side of the road, Neil Harrison, says he may have some money for the crossing. That our road-tax money, I bet.

The troublemakers -the Bristol Living Streets people, we believe - have a petition up for a zebra crossing and a build-out for bicycles! One that people are signing!

We are taking note of everyone who puts their name up there, we can assure you. A zebra crossing here, on top of St Michael's Hill, will not only make it possible for pedestrians to walk to any of the three schools nearby safely, they will encourage the students to walk, the residents to walk out to the shops and cafes, instead of driving. This will set back motoring in the area, just when the RPZ plans implied that the residents would get somewhere to park when they came back from the shops and cafes, while the school-run parents would have commuter-free parking areas.

Bristol Living Streets stealing our photos

We are shocked that one of those pro-pedestrian, pro-bicycle, anti-driving-kids-to-school web site has stolen our photographs to push their agenda.

Look, their coverage of Cotham Road RTCs, includes three of our documented "incidents".
We don't really resent their use of our photos, as they do link back to us -except they are pushing their agenda of road safety by demanding a zebra crossing between Rowan House Nursery and Cotham School.

They say this is needed because the Bristol Traffic dataset shows how dangerous the road is. Yes, we agree it's dangerous! But that's why schoolkids should not walk across it! The only safe way to cross the road is by car, and our data backs that up!

A zebra crossing between these schools would not only endanger schoolkids, it would be another anti-car activity that would show everyone how little the council cares about the needs of us, the commuters. First, they block up our rat-runs. Now they want to slow us down on the main roads.

Shared use parking area

It's nice to see that the Shared Use area is being used effectively on Cotham Road, now that term time is started.

It can be used by parents dropping their kids off at the Steiner School. We have seen them argue with Parking Services whenever an attempt is made to discourage this, and clearly this term BPS are avoiding the area, so helping harmony develop.

First, the parents use the "buses only" parking area -respected by residents and commuters- for their short stay work

What happens when buses come, cynical viewers may ask? That's simple, they just double park in front of the commuters, just above the build-out indented to help pedestrians to cross.

Doesn't that make it harder for walking schoolkids to cross? not really. There is now parking for those parents who wish to drive to school. More subtly, they make what is otherwise a fast and dangerous road to cross one-way-alternating-traffic. Parents who wish to endanger their children and slow down tax-paying road traffic by walking them to school can now actually cross this wide and fast road more easily

This shows how a mixed use: school-run-parent and bus parking area can actually enhance all school transportation options.

Mum Rage

No video this time of the driver of WU57KJF, but you can be assured she gave a good rant about how her overtaking and pulling in while half-way past one on Cotham Road was fine because her husband is a cyclist.

Maybe he is, but we suspect that he waits until his wife has gone off on the school run before venturing out the door.

The fundamental problem here is that Cotham Road is narrower because of the building works, yet the drivers still think it is safe to pass bicycles while there is oncoming traffic. This is not the case. We understand that drivers may have been upset at having to wait 30 seconds for a large lorry delivering building materials, but a moment of patience and even the slow-moving tax-dodger can be passed safely, without them getting annoyed and sticking your photo and registration number up online. She was not happy.

Note in the background the small child on a scooter without any hi-viz clothing, and the teenager walking in on the left on their phone -again, no hi-viz. Without the proper clothing, these schoolchildren will never be safe from parents on the school-run

Steiner School Mum Rage video

Cotham Road. With the school building going on, the trees are missing, its more hazardous to cycle along, but at least the builders are trying to retain safe access for schoolkids from Cotham Grammar to their coaches, by providing somewhere for the coaches to park.

They have sign telling you not to park there.

Today, Bristol Parking Services are out to make sure that the sign is obeyed. That's their car behind the Renault, WP51XXU. Two parking officers, talking to a mum.

Not a Cotham Grammar School mum: one from Steiner School across the road. According to the web site, their slogan is "Where education is a journey, not a race". True, but there is always the parking at the far end. Today, the topic of Steiner School discussion is this: is it acceptable for a parent dropping off their child to stop coaches parking, hence endanger other schoolkids?

Alternatively: is it acceptable for the BPS staff to endanger children being dropped off, by stopping them parking? As you can see from the video, the officers are being given a fairly hard time, and yet taking it quite well.

In the background, one of the officers is saying that this is nothing, if you want to see a road where they get a hard time, go to Guthrie Road. Oh yes -been there.

(update: saw one of the mums in this video on a different day, trying to find somewhere to park her Mercedes R320 family-friendly-not-for-real-offroad SUV. Parking Services should recognise that only important people drive such important cars, and leave them alone)

(update2: patched in the video. Thanks Chris!)

Think of the children

Its a common sight in the mornings: bored kids in the back of the 4x4, playing on the Nintendo DS while they sit in traffic jams. Some people say that things would be better if the kids got to walk or cycle to school. The people who say that are not small children.

Look at the expression on this girl's face. She's just had to come up Cotham Brow or Nugent Hill, both of which hurt enough as a grown up. As a child, pushing an overweight and underfit parent up, with nothing to look at but their shiny clothes, well, you'd be unhappy too.

The tickets are out!

Possible proof that Parking Services do exist: a line of cars with yellow tickets on them.

What have such cars as P959APM and YD03ZJL done?


The same as the next car, V158ETH: parked in a buses-only parking area on Cotham Road

This is clearly unwarranted discrimination against commuters. Everyone knows that anyone can park here, it's a parking area close to the BRI and regularly used by medium-stay visitors to the area. Yes, buses do come sometimes, but it is a wide enough road that the bus can park without blocking through traffic.

Look, plenty of room. There was no need to ticket these people. They should complain. They could say the bus was parked over the buses-only sign on the ground when they parked

Bus Parking at Cotham Grammar

Here is a bus unloading at Cotham Grammar; the school kids are getting in what is currently the back entrance. though that may change soon if new proposals succeed. The bus is parked in the "school no parking" area, blocking visibility of and on the narrowed crossing area to the right of the photograph.

This is clearly dangerous, which is why in 2004 an area further down Cotham Road was dedicated to bus parking. Here it is, with a number of vehicles.

Which, given they are in the bus only parking area, must be buses. The black Astra bus YA57RCZ, a blue polo four-seater bus BD53PNV, and a red peugeout bus WN07KKH.


Alongside this bus-van, and three others further down the hill.

It is a shame that there are so many buses parked in this area that other buses have to unload in a dangerous area. Perhaps the 1 hour limit on how long a bus can park in this stretch should be enforced.

Cycling to work makes for unhappy children

Here is someone who has just pulled his two kids up the hill from Montpelier to Cotham, doing the school run by bike. He's happy, he's had his morning's exercise.

But look at the children. They arent laughing. That little one in the back is wailing his eyes out.

And of course he is -there is no DVD player in a bicycle! Kids that go to school in a well-equipped car get a DVD player in the back -maybe one each to avoid sibling fights, and lower-end vehicles still let the kid play with their Nintendo DS. But here, on the bike, they just have to sit there.
This is so heartless and uncaring. Does the father not recognise the educational value of approved Disney DVDs? Does he not know that some of the games in a Nintendo DS can improve the education and skills of the child, so extracting a value from a long traffic jam? No, he's going to drop the kids off and zip off to work, thinking only of himself.