Fixed and Single Speed in Bristol

Fixed Wheels bike. Now that mountain bikes have gone from being cool and radical to the mid-life-crisis toy of men getting tubby, rebels need a different form of rebellion for the run to Sainsbury's. And here it is: the fixie

With no gears, less to go wrong. And with a fixed rear wheel, you can brake by not pedalling, so no need for bike brakes to make the handlebars look cluttered. A very minimal alternative to the mountain bike with hydraulic disk brakes, 6 inch front and rear travel -accessories that can only get stolen. Without even quick release wheels, there is little to get stolen. Hence, no need to lock up the wheels, or even the premium brooks saddle.

Before everyone rushes out to buy one, know that its illegal to use a bike on roads without two independent braking systems -a front brake is actually needed. Also, the requirement to push down the hill too, means that these are the worse possible bicycle for knees. Those mountain bikes are not just mid-life crisis bikes, they have the low gears you need as you age. Bear that in mind.

Single speed bikes do work in the city, though perhaps as they become more popular, the council should give away a new bristol bike map -one that does not show Nine Tree Hill on it


Without such information, single speed cyclists such as this one, may suddenly discover there is a 1 in 4 hill on their journey, and so be forced to get off and walk.

Bristol: Pedestrian City

This on the afternoon of the St Werburgh's Fair: someone has graciously put a sofa in their driveway on Nugent Hill.

It may seem like a little gesture, but when you are walking up the hill, somewhere to sit is good. There are no council provided seats, so this privately managed resting facility is much appreciated. Some day, every hill in Bristol will have a sofa half way up it.

Footway Closed

There is a new activist group forming/reforming to push for pedestrian rights in the city, Living Streets

Hi, we are mailing you as you are listed as a supporter of Living Streets in the Bristol Area.

We are going to rebuild the group in Bristol: this is much needed. Transport dominates the agenda locally and all forms of transport except walking seem to have strong lobbyists.

* The bus network is receiving long term attention and investment through the 'Greater Bristol Bus Network'

* FOSBR and others have successfully won improvements to local rail

* Cyclists are no longer just a 'loud and articulate minority', but an organised and highly effective loud and articulate minority, who have won millions of funding through cycling city

* Even the ludicrous 'Association of British Drivers' has a regular media presence

Who is speaking out locally for pedestrians? No-one, well not in a co-ordinated way.

This is odd, given that we are all pedestrians to some extent. We can see with our own eyes and through blogs like Bristol Traffic, Southville Parking, On the Level and Green Bristol blog that pedestrians are increasingly marginalised.

Current issues include:

· There are unacceptable delays to pedestrians using the light controlled crossings at the new road arrangements at Bond St and Cabot Circus.

· Changes are planned to Blackboy Hill which will include replacing zebra crossings with light controlled ones, to favour traffic and delay pedestrians.

· Pavements are blocked by vehicles in the inner city for days on end as the owners know there is no enforcement.

We think it will be relatively easy to get a better deal for pedestrians and are asking you if you want to help. The door is part open: the new transport executive Jon Rogers states that they will be improving enforcement of parking regulations, supports 20mph limits in the city and is committed to an open style of government. We will not only keep him to these promises but ensure pedestrians are properly represented in all road proposals.

This is an interesting idea, though sadly inconvenient for the rest of us. Take, for example, these roadworks on Cotham Brow, primary foot route from Gloucester Road to the university and Clifton. The pavement is closed for roadworks, pedestrians expected to cross the road.

Where another set of roadworks ensure that there is no safe route on that side either.

This level of anti-pedestrian activity is not an accident -it is done this way to ensure that no cars are held up. If this Living Streets group had their way, these roadworks would have required the road to be shut down, returning it the quiet and peaceful lane it was last summer -and so preventing anyone from commuting through this route. Commuters bring money into the city! Shoppers spend cash in the city! Pedestrians take up valuable space that can not only be used to park cars, it can be used to house mobile phone masts and electricity substations. These are effective uses of pavements. Not this walking thing.

Anyway, the announcement continues

The plan
At the moment we want only an expression of interest - ' yes, count me in'. Please respond to this e-mail if you’d like to be kept informed about the activities of Living Streets’ Bristol branch.

We will have the minimum of bureaucracy and will not flood you with emails, promise.
Please let us have your comments on what the problems are where you live, and ideas for tackling them. In two weeks we will mail all those interested with a summary and an invitation to draw up a strategy.

You can find the national Living Streets strategy here

We look forward to hearing from you!

Steve Meek
livingstreetsbristol at gmail dot com
Coordinator
Living Streets Bristol Branch

So there you have it. Either a militant pedestrian group to push for pedestrian rights, allies with Association of British Drivers in the war against bicycles, or an attempt by the cycling campaigners to create a mock dissent group, like an Eastern Bloc trades union group. At this point in time, it's to early to tell which.

UWE: Recognised Pedestrian Route

Right on the edge of the UWE campus, there's a "recognised pedestrian route to campus". It says so in big letters and a symbol of somebody walking.

That's a really strange concept. The city proper has these things called "pavements", and with the notable exception of Montpelier and Clifton Wood, they are generally considered "recognised pedestrian routes". Yet here, out in the car-centric city fringe, they have signs up telling you where you are expected to walk.

And where to walk from? Well, there is a zebra crossing, with another sign at the far end.

It says: "recognised pedestrian route to car park 20".

Ahh, now it becomes clear. For a moment there was the glimpse of hope, the idea that thousands of UWE students would walk in to campus from somewhere, maybe the train stations, maybe nearby housing, and go to lectures. But no, they are walking in from Car Park 20.

That tells us

1. There isn't enough space on campus for all the staff and students to drive in, they have to have more parking across the road.
2. There are at least 19 other car parks. They have not yet numbered up and opened the car parks on the former-HP land they recently bought, and B&Q Filton is not official parking, so those areas are not included in the total.
3. There is no expectation that anyone will walk to UWE except from the car park.

UWE is probably the best, the greenest of the sites here -take a look at the queues of cars leaving the MOD at 1700h for a contrast, and the U1-U5 buses are the best road-based public transport options in the area. However, barring theLockleaze path, driving is probably one of the main access options to the city. At least compared to its neighbours, the students drive small cars and fill them with their flatmates, so the CO2/head and congestion impact per student is less than for the companies -but it does set them up for a lifestyle of sitting in traffic jams, one they can use for the rest of their life. Think about it: Oxford and Cambridge: cycling. London: tubes and buses. UWE: driving to lectures.

Prince Street Bridge

Here is the long promised Princes Street bridge improvements, giving us a chance to offer some Copenhagen Chic-style photos of bicycles.

First, a lovely shot of a woman with a child on the back, heading straight for another woman on a bike, who is shouting "Sorry! No brakes", as they have a near head-on collision.

Looking the other way, here is a bike going with the traffic and hitting the pedestrian/bike shared zone at full "road" speed. There are some pedestrians in the roadward part of this, so the bike is having to swerve round them. If they had been a few metres further along, more emergency measures would be needed.

Here is the exit of the bridge looking northward. By only parking in half the ASL, the taxi is providing room for bikes, but that is irrelevant, because the southbound bike is actually in this lane heading towards us. If I'd been heading north at speed without lights, I would have hit them at the narrow point.

And here is a bike cutting across the oncoming traffic before banking hard to get into the bike lane. Luckily the Focus isn't hitting the cobbles that hard, and there is nobody coming on the bike section.

No, it isn't too early to say "told you so", only that it is fairly chaotic. Vaguely reminiscent of a level crossing in india -it will be great to see what happens on a bridge swing.

1. The entry and exit needs to be wider, so that 2 lanes of bike traffic and/or pedestrians can be accommodated
2. people need to get used to it.

It looks like a fair few cyclists are swinging into the cycle path for the southbound stretch, trading off two road crossings for a time saving. To minimise danger on the road crossings they are going sooner rather than later, so the bike lane has become a contraflow. The narrow entry points/exit points create problems for bikes; conflict with pedestrians will happen in the middle.

Victory over Eastasia will soon be ours! Your chocolate ration has been increased to 35g/week to celebrate!

A walking strategy for Bristol

Over from the Bristol Cycling Campaign comes their proposal to the council on a walking strategy for Bristol.

All of the artwork appears to come from contributions to this site, which shows that our secret plan is coming to fruition. Bristol Traffic is becoming the city's best public database on transport issues, all stored and indexed by our strategic partners Google and Yahoo!, and we gladly give permission for photographs to be reused if we get credit. (Please check first, some third party submissions via flickr may have different.

We think you should read the entire document. It's interesting to compare the campaign's point of view: pavements should be valued, not treated as space for cars and mobile phone base stations, to that of the local press, which imply that it is bicycles that are the greatest threat to pedestrians. The Evening Post appears to be trying to create a split between walkers/cyclists, rather than unity against a common problem: cars and the danger and inconvenience that too many of them are creating in the city.

For those in a hurry, here is the summary:

The Bristol Cycling Campaign strongly believes that a walking strategy is needed. Walking has to be recognised as the primary mode of short-haul transportation in the city, and is an integral part of any public transport story. It has to be made safe.

We propose

1. A 20 mph speed limit
2. A focus on strategic walking routes
3. Fixing the walking gaps in the city
4. Reclaim pavements from cars
5. Make crossing roads safe
6. Aggressive solutions to the school-run parking problems
7. Keeping the pavements clear of clutter.
8. Include walking and running for leisure
9. Active engagement of other groups that care about pedestrian safety.

We believe that a walking strategy should have a goal such as "easy access on foot to key destinations". We also propose a set of destinations:

• Local facilities: shops, pubs and similar.
• Local pubs. Walking to the local pub helps reduce drunk-driving incidents, but walking home after drinking alcohol does significantly increase the risk of being hit by a car.
• Schools. Walking, scootering, kid-bike-on-pavement and kid-on-bike-with parent should be viewed as the preferred transport options to primary school; teenager on their own on foot+public transport or bike that for secondary school.
• University: no students should be driving to Bristol University.
• Public Transport hubs. Pedestrian access to the central bus station, templemeads and, to a lesser extent, Parkway, stand out here as opportunities for improvement.
• Local bus and train stations. Without the ability to get safely to the access point to the public transport infrastructure, this infrastructure is inaccessible.
• Health care and social services. These should be accessible by someone with physical disabilities.
• Central shopping areas: Bedminster, Whiteladies road, Gloucester road, Cabot Circus and Broadmead are examples. These can be visited on foot or foot+bus.

We do not directly discuss walking to work. For those people who live in or near the city centre, this is already an effective option. Many people do walk round the city.

What's wrong with this picture?

Here are some photos that were hanging around unpublished. St John's C of E primary school, Clifton

The entrance is on this cobbled alleyway. Some children are walking down the middle of the alley.

From the other side, the same unusual scene. Parents and kids walking to school. Not only is the pavement free of parked cars, the road itself is open to kids to walk down.


From the school run perspective, this is very unusual. Why does everyone walk to this school, when the others in the area seem to have all their kids come in by car, cars that then have to park up on the pavement. By eliminating the drive-to-school option, it is safer for everyone to walk.

Some people may view this as a success. But we at Bristol Traffic view it as a failure. By removing the option of driving to school, the school is not only forcing the parents to walk their kids to school, it is forcing the parents to continue on their journey, be it home or to work, on foot. Therefore it discriminates against people who want to drive to and from work. What's worse, it even creates pedestrian traffic that gets in the way at zebra crossings. We should identify what this school has done, how it achieved this walk to school transport structure, to make sure no other schools attempt it.

Walking Strategy

The council is trying to put together a walking strategy.

This web site may submit some data, a key theme being "to enable walking you need footpaths and pavements that you can walk along, and somehow make it safe to cross roads"

A key concept would be to determine which destinations in the city it is important to walk to and from. The main transport hubs, for example, the city centre, local shops and schools.

And of course, the university, where the primary halls-of-residence to lecture route is something to be known and valued, rather than something to be treated as a problem.

Student travel options

There is now a U-bus running up and down Whiteladies road; this could offer a functional bus service to Bristol University. What other options are there? Let's see what we can see from a tour during student hours.

First off, this stair case is interesting. Students heading up and down the hill are strictly segregated into two lanes. Two overcrowded lanes, with people running down the hill either side of the path. One might think that opening up the central bit of the stairs to pedestrians, rather than fencing them over with highly reflective paint for safety would improve traffic flow. One might think that. But everyone knows: wider roads leads to more more traffic -presumably the same rule applies to pavements. It is necessary to close off half the steps to discourage people from walking.

There is a bike shed, but it is only temporary and not big enough. In the week since this picture was taken the stand was taken out of action, leaving only the railings and disabled access areas opposite. Again: providing bike parking would only encourage more bicycles.

What does that leave?

It leaves this, the pay and display section of Woodland Road. Here is a bit where any student can drive to work, provided they are prepared to pay for the right. At 10am on a monday, nobody is. But later on, it is seems popular, with groups of students getting out their shared cars. If you are only going in for one or two lectures, and sharing a car, short term pay and display parking will probably be cheaper than the bus.

Mobile phones by hour of day, day of week

This is a pretty big image -it's the phones by hour by day table presented as a graph; every day appears side-by-side. Follow the link to see it at a resolution where it works.

Some immediate observations

• Nobody walks around between 0400 and 0600.
• The rest of the time, the streets are busy.
• Friday and Saturday night are when people stay out late -so late that Saturday and Sunday Mornings are peak hours beween 0000 and 0400.
• Weekday traffic peaks in the morning between 0700 and 1100. There's a quieter spot, a busy lunchtime, then another quiet spot. But not much in it -traffic throughout the day is fairly constant.
  
• Peak evening times - monday to thursday- are from 1500 to 1800
• Less people come past at that time on a Friday -instead traffic is higher later on in the day. Possibly going straight from work/study to enjoy themselves, coming back afterwards.
• Sat and Sun have later starts, but their mid-day traffic is on a par with weekday midday traffic
• Saturday and Sunday's traffic levels seem the most mathematically "normal": traffic goes up, peaks mid-afternoon, then declines. On weekdays, office/study/school hours interfere.
• Monday is the quietest. Less people out at in the early morning, less people on every hour.

More complex work would break it up by phone: identify who was returning; also do some grouping tricks to identify students by term times and then then see if their phones have a significant different grouping.

bluetooth device data

This is an alternate presentation of the data, split by hour by day. Here as a table for anyone planning on doing their own analysis -just paste it into a spreadsheet and create a chart. Citations welcome.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
0	19	38	27	47	50	79	107
1	16	34	33	30	43	72	76
2	6	50	15	23	16	49	72
3	3	14	2	11	15	29	45
4	7	12	7	12	9	23	18
5	12	15	15	21	13	20	8
6	57	61	72	59	47	21	16
7	150	180	168	191	188	39	24
8	227	274	261	245	255	78	28
9	179	227	217	261	237	155	54
10	156	211	193	220	225	166	82
11	182	206	218	200	244	173	121
12	213	259	243	232	236	206	146
13	200	243	255	244	235	239	172
14	193	227	237	238	239	220	203
15	252	283	287	311	308	195	228
16	263	297	263	325	291	229	182
17	291	353	329	319	290	220	155
18	183	224	232	245	207	199	143
19	128	167	182	215	209	187	115
20	94	105	147	140	147	170	79
21	87	110	126	94	123	95	85
22	68	84	95	93	102	109	80
23	58	73	78	74	116	103	35

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia

News from the Ministry of Truth (Bristol Section)

This site welcomes contributions from all participants in the Bristol Travel area, and today we are pleased to have a contribution from the Bristol Council section of the Ministry of Truth, here to bring us some current news.

1. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Anyone who believes the enemy was at one time Eurasia is mistaken and should report themselves to their nearest Ministry of Truth office for correctional measures. It is only by struggling with our Eurasian allies that victory over the Eastasian animals will be achieved!
2. The chocolate ration will be increased from 60g/week to 40g/week!
3. The single pedestrian crossing on the Princes Street Bridge will be widened, along with a lane for bicycles to get past. This reduction of car traffic from two lanes to one lane is necessary part of the Bristol Cycling City Initiative.

Anyone who believes that there are in fact two narrow pedestrian footpaths on this bridge is a thought criminal.

Anyone who proclaims differently in public is guilty of spreading malicious propaganda against the city.

Anyone who claims that the proposed Princes Street changes are necessary to permit Bus Rapid Transit bendy-buses to get over the bridge without spending money on new bridges is repeating untruths.

Anyone who believes that the announcement was phrased the way it was to put the blame on cyclists or to redirect Cycle City funding towards BRT development is misguided. Please report such subversives to the truth maintenance committee at the council.

Thank you for your co-operation. Ministry of Truth (Bristol Section)

Shopping without cars

One of the hardest things to cope with without cars is shopping for food, especially bulk food shopping. It's OK if you have time to walk to the local patisserie to get some pain au chocolate in the morning, but if you need a week's food you need to hit either a supermarket or one of the remaining high streets, buy your entire weekly load and head home. Without a car or a bike trailer, you are constrained by how much you can buy, so end up having to shop more often, which is pretty time consuming.

Here is some evidence of people who have embraced foot shopping.

This Sainsbury's trolley is in Cheltenham Place, Montpelier. The closes Sainsbury's supermarket is in Gloucester Road, across saint andrews, and about a mile away. Someone must have pushed it all this way, presumably full of food.


And here is another trolly, resting in the undergrowth near Lockleaze. A couple of miles from Sainbury's Filton site. So again: someone has pushed a trolley a long way, hopefully full of food. It may have just been pushed to UWE full of food -as a lot of students have been doing- and then "joyriders" took it from there, but it is still a sign of foot-out-trolly-home shopping.

The supermarkets don't like this, some people view it as unsightly. But why should supermarket trolleys be limited to the car park? That's a very car-centric world view. As part of our cycle-city, we should encourage people to walk to supermarkets and push trolleys full of food home. Why not have trolley return points at UWE and other parts of the city where students live, so as to aid them to live a car-free life?

A Wall of students

Here are a few hundred students walking up Cotham Hill; presumably all trying to make 9am lectures.

Today an insurer has been blaming "podestrians", pedestrians on the phone or an MP3 who step out and don't hear traffic. That is a dangerous action, though in a city with bicycles and the odd hybrid car, actually looking before you step out is safer.

At the same time, any vehicle heading up this hill should not be surprised that students are going to step out; they are a critical mass on foot, walking from their accomodation across the downs to their lessons. They aren't driving, they are saving on bus fees, and they aren't cycling on the pavement, which must keep the Evening Post letter writers happy.


The main people who don't like this surge appear to be FirstBus, who are pushing for a design on Blackboy Hill that tries to stop the students using the zebra crossing, and hence slow the buses down. Yet our data clearly shows that the relevant pedestrians will step out on the road anyway. Moving from a pedestrian first to a vehicle first junction will only cause collisions and blame the pedestrians.

As for this road, maybe we need a new "students warning" sign; something involving a statue with a traffic cone on its head, perhaps, to tell drivers to calm down and recognise they don't have the right of way.

France: school dropoff

They make kids walk to school before 8 am in France. Walk. Even though they get little wheelie bags to make it easier.

And all the parents seem to go along with this, as there is no sign of any cars. How was such a miracle pulled off?

Ah. Fencing off the road.

That would probably work in Bristol too, though it would create an extended dropoff-zone further away from the school where all the danger would lie.

Alternative Transport

For some reason, walking and cycling is often categorised as "Alternative Transport". Historically speaking, walking is in fact the primary form of transport ever used, since mankind first used it to render the mammoths extinct; travelling by water probably comes second.

Sometimes, though, you encounter really alternative transport, such as that documented by these photos.

There is nothing more alternative than walking round Bristol dressed as a tree

Except maybe following the tree dressed as market garden vegetable and singing while waving a stick or a tambourine.

That's what Bristol has to offer over London. London: Transport for London, congestion charging, the tube and the soundtrack of whatever the other tube passengers want to play on their phones.

Bristol: painting yourself green and dancing from pub to pub to music only you hear in your head.