Known saboteur Redvee has a video up showing the taxi WR54KZX forced to drive on the pavement to turn left into Bridewell Street.
We say forced, as this is clearly due to the Metrobus roadworks going on further ahead on the road. Before Metrobus there were never any queues on the roads leading to the Centre, and so no need for taxis to drive on pavements in order to stop this city grinding to a halt. And, as this is a 2004 EURO3 Diesel taxi, the pollution from its engine is awful, even by the standards of the VW test rigging team. By driving up on the pavement, the Taxi reduced the amount of pollution the city experiences. This is why pavements cause pollution. No pavements: more lanes. No pavements: fewer people walking, no need for zebra crossings or pedestrian phases in lights. We must do more in our city to discourage walking —even more than the Metrobus works team are already doing for us.
One thing to consider though: the taxi did go up the blind spot of that bus. If the bus had turned left the taxi and its passengers could have been crushed.
We propose that every bus and lorry in the city should have a sign warning taxis not to drive up the inside of them to prevent such a calamity happening in future
Not in Bristol, where the council still pretends to be cycle friendly, but by Surrey County Council, who take driving very seriously... especially the school run...
"Following a parent-governor meeting at North Downs Primary School last Thursday, headteacher Angela Ewing said its Betchworth and Leigh bases would be "driving only" from September."
We admire this school. Pro car, anti-cycling or walking. THIS IS THE FUTURE! And all because they took notice of Bristol Traffic. Also we salute the fact that, across the country, Councils pay £700 million each year to pay for Taxis to take children to and from School. This is a fantastic introduction to Public Transport, and whilst taxis are only for poor people, at least they look like cars, not those hideous buses that get in our way.
We're going to credit this cyclist coming up Bath buildings and crossing Cheltenham Road for actually looking and only going out when it is clear to do so, and waiting at the traffic island for a gap in the other lane.
Again, being a bit fitter and climbing up the mild incline on Bath Buildings would have saved time, and if you can't climb that when what faces you straight ahead, Arley Hill, is going to hurt. Looks more like this RLJ-er is going to right turn onto the Gloucester Road bus lane though.
Not so suicidal to be called a ghost-rider, just, well, pointless. The taxi in the ASL isn't going to run him over when the lights change as the cars blocking the hatched junction remove the option to pull out fast. Why then?
In amongst the various ePetitions for making parking outside someone's house illegal, and for the many cyclist ones, making cyclist pay for the road, we are the only organisation to campaign for pedestrians to be better equipped for our cities. Cutting and pasting from someone else's proposal, we have one of our own.
Other road users have to pass tests to prove they are competent to operate a vehicle on the public highway. Pedestrians however are at the most risk and from any age they can walk around without any training, they are often wearing ipods and flout the rules of the roads e.g not stopping at traffic lights and crossing the road. I propose that all pedestrians must undertake training and be insured before riding on the road to protect themselves and others. They should wear hi-viz clothing and have helmets for their own safety
Some people will think we are taking the piss or something but not so: it's for their own safety.
Look at this scene from the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road junction.
A pedestrian crossing the road nearly gets hit by a taxi waiting for the lights to change in the middle of their road -past the ASL and not blocking it, we note. This taxi that manages to turn in front of the oncoming traffic by putting their foot down as soon as the lights go red & orange -and were it not for the pedestrian, would be on their way safely sprinting down the 20mph road to east Bristol.
Look at that pedestrian
Dark clothing, hard to spot: no hi-viz anywhere
No helmet.
No insurance/tax disk.
Probably no third party liability for damage caused to the front of cars.
Moving really slowly.
The taxi driver narrowly manages to avoid running them over as he accelerates down Ashley Road, and has to sound his horn to make them move faster. The tax-dodger seems a bit upset by this.
We've covered before how the ban on taxis caused needless problems on the approach to Union Street
Well, it's been fixed once and for all by painting the word TAXI on the ground.
Initially we suspected a militant spin-off from the Bristol taxi drivers association, but once it was clear that the signs had been updated too, it's clear this is official.
There's also a contraflow for people on bicycles to get run over by turning buses.
this time not only is another car parked outside Pizza Go-Go in the bike lane, showing how bike lanes benefit takeaways by providing somewhere to park, we see the minicab AE04NDG, taxi #2525, taking full advantage of those cycling facilities.
First, it's stopped part on the pavement, part on the road -but note how no wheel is actually in the bike lane. Then it pulls out -no need to indicate, it's a quiet day, and drives forward, where an ASL provides somewhere for the vehicle to wait for the light to change.
Such use of the cycling facilities of this part of the city ensures that the residents of Bristol do get some use of them. Note how our tax dodging cycle camera person (sorry!) opted to use none of them on this part of the journey. If they aren't going to use such features, well, we motorists may as well!
Our last trip down Whiteladies road shows that on a weekend, yes, pedestrian shoppers did hold up through traffic. This implied that yes, the FirstBus/Showcase bus route plans to reduce pedestrian crossing options may benefit their schedules, but we were worried about the impact on us cars getting out from side roads.
This video is different as it's a visit by our expendable cyclist on a weekday morning, down the bus lane from Oakfield Road, and through the Triangle as far as University Road, where they head off. Commentary first, analysis later.
At 0:24 FH56CVV switches lanes early, but as everyone else in the RH lane who isn't turning right also goes left, they are forced to give way to the vehicles in front of them anyway.
From 0:29 to 0:40, a bike lane that even waltham forest would be proud of. Its worn-out nature hints that it's popular with larger vehicles, while the trees keep it bumpy.
At 04:40 A9VNG is in the ASL, but we suspect that it was in there when the lights change. Why the suspicion? One car in the pedestrian area and one in front in the yellow hatched "only enter when clear to exit" area stopping cross traffic from St Pauls Road and Tyndall's Park Road getting across. Incidentally, Tyndall's Park road (on the left) here is no left turn, St Paul's (on the right, into Clifton) is no right turn, so all congestion coming up from the Triangle is Whiteladies Road traffic. Note also this junction provides no time for pedestrians to cross when the traffic isn't actually allowed to drive -if only all major junctions in the city were like this, congestion would be much improved. The BBC offices are on the left, incidentally.
Following the cyclist who is commuting without helmet, body-armour or hi-viz clothing, we eventually discover what is holding up WL-road traffic, it's the "triangle" gyratory system, which our tax-dodger hits at 1:43. The underlying problem is that Whiteladies Road traffic is forced to give way to traffic coming from the right, which initially means traffic from Clifton. Further on, at 2:17 we get held up by traffic all coming into the city from the A4 or the Hotwells's Bridges and then up Jacob's Wells road.
There are four lanes here, one for parking, one turning right at the next junction, and two straight on, but that leftmost one is lost even to vans ignoring bus-lane signs, not just by the police car at 2:41 but by the taxi-rank at 2:53.
WN59UDP is held up by these taxis forcing them to wait with all the in-town traffic, so as soon as they can they cut left in front of the bicycle, through the pedestrians and up University Road -only to find that the Biffa refuse collection lorry is in the way and ignoring the important traffic being held up. Finally passing that, they can sprint up to Woodland Road, where as you recall the Evening Post was campaigning against two paid parking spaces going away, which we felt was overreacting as nobody parks their except arts students, and their tuition fee increases will eliminate that luxury.
However, today we can see that the paid parking area is also popular for parental dropoff outside Bristol Grammar School -and it actually makes for a nice, low-chaos dropoff area. Admittedly, there isn't enough of this short-stay parking right in front of the school, forcing some parents to stop in the double yellow lined areas, but the alternative would be parking on the other side of this (one-way) street, forcing the children to cross the road. Would you want your children to cross a busy road like this? Exactly. Parking on the double yellow lines outside the school entrance is the only safe place to drop your kids off and be sure they get to school alive.
Now, returning to the Whiteladies Road issue, what does the bus plan proposal change on this stretch? The Oakfield Road crossing will be moved further away from the road, so making it less useful to pedestrians trying to walk from Cotham to Clifton or bag. Plus one point. But, this makes it harder for cars to get out or over from these roads, so minus one point.
Heading in to town, the right hand turn to Clifton will be removed for all but buses. This will turn Oakfield road into the primary rat-run option, but as we've seen, the moving of the zebra crossing makes it trickier. What they aren't doing is extending the bus lane any further south, and they are leaving that toy bike lane in there. We say toy as its so half hearted that no rational cyclist will think they are welcome -what with the faded paint and tree roots, but its very presence implies that some people in the city do welcome cyclists. No, better to remove it and put a cyclists dismount sign up.
Entering the triangle is more informative. Congestion is caused here by traffic joining the road from other places (Clifton, Jacob's Wells Road), and whatever is slowing them down on their final journey. There are no pedestrian-only lights or zebra crossings to play with, so there's little that can be done to make pedestrians feel less welcome, no tricks to make the schedule more accurate.
And that's the key problem. The goals of the showcase route are faster bus journey times and a more predictable schedule. Removing and moving zebra crossings will only help with this out of hours, on weekends and midday, because on a weekday morning the problem is more fundamental: Erlang's Laws. Congestion is a result of the ingress rate of a queue being higher than the egress rate. The reason vehicles can't leave whiteladies road isn't that there are vast numbers of people struggling to turn up Cotham Hill (more on that another day), or any of the side roads, it is because the merging of multiple queues at the triangle creates a bottleneck which having one lane dedicated to bus stops and a taxi rank doesn't do much to help.
And do we care about mid-day firstbus schedules? No -and neither should anyone else. People using the bus at weekend and mid-day weekdays are either people who can't afford a car, people with bus passes, or people who have made some ideological decision to take a bus: passengers FirstBus can take for granted. If they want to make money, they need to get the commuter traffic, and quite frankly, changes to pedestrian crossings aren't going to do it. They may help us car commuters by reducing the number of pedestrians and cyclists, but given our dataset implies that the Whiteladies Road congestion is due to problems in the city centre, those crossing changes aren't going to help buses or our cars on whiteladies road at peak hours, which is when it matters to us as well as FirstBus.
Sorry FirstBus, but whatever datasets you have on congestion problems on Whiteladies Road, they were clearly collected by FirstBus or Council staff during their working hours, rather than during am or pm rush hours. This is the only explanation why your proposals don't just do nothing for us drivers while making pedestrians and cyclists suffer, they don't appear to help buses either.
That's the irony there. This proposal has already got the cycling campaign saying "oppose this it's anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist", it's also anti-car, but we think it manages to be bus-neutral at the same time. That takes skill, that does.
Bristol lost a teenager on Monday: Junaid Nazir age 16, killed on Fishponds Road -in front of his own house.
A taxi driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, then released on bail. We don't know any other details.
One of our contributors went past the site on Tuesday evening -here are their comments:
This was an awful thing to happen, an awful thing to see. Junaid's friends and family were there -all of them utterly devastated. He left to go to school at Filton College, and instead of coming home after another day at school, he never came back. All his dreams are gone, all that is left are memories.
Every time his family leave the house, they are going to pass the place where this child -their son, their brother, their cousin - died.
It was really heartbreaking to be here, I tried really hard to get a photo of the flower and not all the friends and family, -as that wasn't right. They were very welcoming, but it's hard to cover this. No schoolkids should be placing flowers to mourn the needless death of one of their friends.
Afterwards, I went down Fishponds Road -never fun- then turned into Roygate Lane, then onto the railway path. Suddenly I'd gone from the friends and family mourning the death of a sixteen year old to the late summer peace and pleasantness of an almost Dutch walking and cycling route into the city. Yet what point is it in having such a lovely facility if you can't even get across a road 300 metres away alive?
The whole Bristol Traffic team extends our condolences to the family and friends -it will take a long time for everyone to come to terms with this, and -based on personal experience- nobody will ever really get over it. You can never forget.
We'd also like to hint to Evening Post that when they put up articles on tragic events such as Junaid's death, that either they disable comments or they monitor them so all four regular mad commenters don't just repeat their own prejudices -again, and again, and again. This is not the place for them.
Our normal service will be resumed in a few days. In the meantime, there is a growing monument in Fishponds to a failure of the entire "road safety" industry. Consider visiting it.
Over the bicycle blogs, there's a lot of anti-taxi rhetoric. Well, that probably goes back centuries, since the first important people -our ancestors- rode horses and so differentiated themselves from you, the little people.
But if you spend time talking to anyone who worked as a taxi driver, you realise life is hard. One of their big fears is will the passengers do a runner, and if they do, will they just run or try and rob you in the process. Nobody likes picking up passengers to some parts of the city at night. It's the Bristol equivalent of London's "I aint goin souf of the river".
Except for one company. Yellow Cab of Bedminster aren't scared of South Bristol; they will take you wherever they want to go.
Even better they will pick you up from where you want to be picked up from. And on a Saturday, that means Bedminster.
Here DN05KFD is awaiting any passengers on the corner of Boot Lane and East Street.
For those people who can't cross the Boot Lane, their colleague in BD53MYX will pick you up.
Now, some people worry who is not capable of crossing the road, but Boot Lane is the home to the local RNIB branch, whose issues with Pavement Cycling have been covered by both us and the Evening Post before.
Down Boot Lane itself, KR08YJK not only helps keep the pavements clear of bicycles, they ensure that those people whose eyesight problems prevent them from driving their own cars, will be able to enjoy the convenience of having their own vehicle on the pavement just where they need it.
(One of the taxi people was a bit upset about the cars being photographed, but to respect their privacy we didn't include photos of them. We would encourage others to keep an eye on this area to see that Yellow Cabs are providing taxis for shoppers and visitors to the RNIB offices on a regular basis, so they get more used to such activities).
We are against this, because (a) everyone should be fined for riding a bicycle, regardless of where it is, and (b) we don't want anything to encourage more cyclists on the road. That's why we drive the way we do, cut them up closely, drive right behind them to intimidate them. Anything else would encourage more of them out there.
We are also worried that if the police/PCSOs start hanging round junctions, like the Cheltenham Road/Bath Buildings junction, they might look at other issues, such as this tax SF51LDU driving into the ASL on a red light.
We do not to be penalised for doing things like that, and if the police start waiting to spot troublemakers, we might be the victims.
Neither we, nor city taxi 623, want that.
Now, some people may just dismiss this as an idle threat, but we've read the real press release, rather than just the EP coverage, which has the bad news
If the scheme is deemed to be successful it will also be rolled out to include motorists who drive or stop in cycle zones (eg parking in cycle lanes or purposely stopping into advanced cycle lanes). Life Cycle UK will be designing a cycle awareness course for motorists. Again they will have the chance to attend rather than pay the fine.
Scary. Punishing innocent taxi drivers like SF51LDU by making them sit through some presentation about why cyclists matter, or pay the fine. We'd go for the fine, ourselves.
Someone took our photographs, and notified the bit of the council that licenses taxis, who then acted on the complaints. According to a letter which was forwarded to us:
Police and PCSO's monitored the road yesterday afternoon and fixed penalty notices were issued to City Council licensed drivers and to other motorists.
Further operations of this nature are envisaged, as these vehicles are in violation of the Driving Order.
The web site goes into more detail, saying that people got ticketed simply for driving down a road somewhere where they shouldn't.
This is mindless anticar persecution. Yes, if you look at the video one or two taxis appear to ignore the restriction on taxis, but as they are allowed on most other bus lanes, why not this one?
A recurrent theme in the Evening Post web site is how bicycles harass cars. Finally we have collected evidence of this, from our instrumented cyclists.
First off, somerset street, Kingsdown. A taxi is waiting in the middle of the road. The cyclist cannot get past. This is not the taxis fault, it is the fault of the car that has chosen to park on the pavement to the right of the taxi. Together: no room for a bicycle.
When the tax dodger comes to a halt, the taxi/minicab waves their hand to point out that spring hill is to the right, the cyclist could back up and go up that road. But no, the cyclist stays put, and after a bit more hand waving the driver turns their engine on, backs up a bit. And the cyclist continues -then turns up Montague Hill, so making it clear they could have gone up Spring Hill, but were just being selfish and lazy. Think of the extra fuel wasted and pollution costs of forcing the car to turn their engine on and reverse -yet these troublemakers imply they are the "green" transport.
Another day, the Nugent HillContraflow. As usual, a car needs to run the one-way system so as to get to Arley Hill and the new tesco project on Cheltenham Road.
Initially the bicycle blocks the car by staying in the middle of the no-entry section, but then even when the tax-dodger deigns to get out the way to the driver paying for the roads, they get their camera out and harass the driver by threatening to photo them as they do "a bit of contraflow work". And who doesn't do that, from time to time? Yet now with these digital cameras built into phones, stuck on bicycles or helmets, anyone can take a video of an innocent motorist, send it off to the police and have someone get more penalty points on their license.
As the Daily Telegraph says, quoting the AA, "There is a wide range of new regulations waiting to catch you out." driven by NuLabour and their "new government road casualty targets". This nanny-state government went and made up new anti-car laws waiting to trap the innocent motorist, like "being involved in a fatal accident while unlicensed or uninsured" and "causing death by careless driving". As the Telegraph says, if you innocently kill someone while carelessly driving in an uninsured car -and how can you insure your car once the DVLA takes away your license from some minor drink-driving offence- it's now a prison sentence. In the old days, with their requirement for "reckless" or later "dangerous" driving, you could get a lawyer who went to the same school and participated in the same hunt as you and the judge show that you were only slightly careless when you ran your range rover through a zebra crossing full of people while talking on the phone. Now killing people through mere carelessness has penalties! This is so wrong. It is exactly the kind of thing we look forward to a new government fixing. Remove penalties for running red lights and contraflowing, ban the bicycles! Yet will any of the mainstream parties stand up for the motorist? We doubt it!
The continued presence of traffic lights here not only holds up buses and bicycles, it holds up taxis too.
Such as Taxi 107, SD06HSC photographed on Saturday March 18 2010 at 14:57.
Or taxi #686, WV57FRU, seen on Saturday March 18 2010 at 14:57.
Or indeed, taxi # 711, R329YON , seen on Saturday March 18 2010 at 14:57.
Because the taxis also need to make use of this road, the traffic lights should be adjusted to increase the scheduling time on this lane rather than just assuming one bus every minute. With this taxi flow rate, three vehicles every minute, the entire fleet of Bristol's taxicabs (at least 711, we would guess), would pass through this junction every four hours. The traffic lights do nothing but hold up taxis driving down the buses-only lane.
There: congestion analysis, no need for city wide GPS-instrumented taxis. Which is good for the taxi drivers, as it may log them doing things they aren't meant to.
There is a lovely video of a French comedian setting up a fake col summit race, then looping in everyone out for a Sunday hill climb and seeing how they react. It's spoof, but it makes us consider whether we should propose a hill summit event as part of a cycling city, somebody wearing nothing but a pair of underpants to greet people cycling up park street. That's during the day -a half-naked runner isn't that odd on a Friday night, the main issue being will they have any lane discipline.
The council could also put together some kind of logo'ed banner at the top, to congratulate those city cyclists who top out
Something to make them feel grateful and welcome, and reinforce how the city values their contribution.
There's a weapon in Bristol that nobody discusses: Chainsaws.
They're a useful tool, but in the wrong hands, danger. Thankfully, chainsaw-crime is fairly low level in the city -and mainstream media hasn't picked up on it. Attend a Police PACT meeting and in between the hippies ranting about cars, we tax-payers rightfully complaining about bicycles and skateboarders, someone stands up and complains about a neighbour cutting someone to pieces with a chainsaw. "We'll look into it", the police say, but nothing ever happens.
This week though, Chainsaw-rage surfaced, with an altercation behind parkway station between a taxi driver and a chainsaw-wielding pickup driver. On a weekday morning.
Having recently had to drive to parkway station and then back across Bristol at 5:20 pm, experiencing the full joy of the ring road at its most stationary, it's easy to understand why this part of the city is road-rage hotbed. But at 10:20 am? The mid-morning lull? Not a tense time at all. Whoever spin their chainsaw must have had a grudge against taxis.
And who do we think in the city has the biggest grudge against taxis? That's right, cyclists. Always getting upset about the revenue-earning tax-paying taxis in the ASLs, always getting upset about the taxis in the bus lanes sounding their horns to get the tax-dodging cyclists out of the way of the important paying customer. Those are the people most likely to go over the edge, get their chainsaw out and run amok round a taxi rank -be it at Parkway or Temple Meads.
Attached is a photograph of an out-of-city Bicycle and Chainsaw shop.
This is exactly the kind of crime-enabling one-stop-shop that should never be allowed. Bicycles are a crime, and a chainsaw in the hand of a cyclist -a crime in the making!
On our way back from Primark, we note mild chaos at Marlborough St. Bus station. A taxi wants to pull up to the taxi-only dropoff zone but can't; a car waiting for arriving passengers is there. Other vehicles are going up to the "short stay" pavement and not blocking through traffic. The taxi has no option but stop in the road to unload, causing some tension in the vehicles behind. But all of them are just trying to do the same thing: park here to pick up or drop off passengers. There is an option for parking round the corner, by the new magistrates court, but for some reason (security?) a perfectly wide pavement is bollarded off.
There's still some space opposite; only one vehicle is using this. It is worth remembering about though, if every you need to pick people up from the bus station in a car.
Some people think that ASLs are just for bicycles. Others that they are for bicycles and motorbikes.
Actually, they are for taxis such as this one NK53OSB, number 719, and anyone else in a hurry.
This is of course, the junction at Cabot Circus where Troy Atkinson got run over last month. The flowers are down, the markings on the road fading. Everything is back to normal.
Especially in these challenging times. Come on, it must be. It puts money into the economy, which is good. It keeps people employed, which is good.
So it's nice to see someone putting some money into the economy in Redland. Not constrained by the planning system (unlike the poor inhabitants of Clifton), and despite being in a conservation area, it makes perfect sense to spend something for the privilege to park a car in your garden. After all, an RPZ may sneak up Whiteladies Road at anytime. And it's certain that a Showcase Bus route will.
So it's refreshing to see someone bucking the trend in Sustainable Redland and paving over their garden. And dropping a publicly owned kerb. And removing unsightly paving slabs (they only crack when you park a car on them, after all). And putting in high-quality tarmac paving instead for the benefit of all.
Development. Let's all do it. For the sake of the economy.
It first showed up in our Entering Free Monty posting, now it is time to cover the issue in more detail.
Bristol Taxis are now required to have a standard colour, Blue. This will distinguish them from minicabs, which can retain their grubby beige colour.
Here are some of the new taxis, SH08UCV and SH58PHV, sighted in Alcove Road, Fishponds. As you can see, they provide a uniform colour scheme for the pavement And so make everything cheerier When you compare it to the taxi across the road, W502PHY, the new colour scheme is a clear improvement.
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