Changes on Woodland Road

It's been a few weeks since the RPZ rolled out, a year since Chris Hutt last commented on it. Time start looking at the impact of the RPZ on the city.

The RPZ has devastated Woodland Road and the rest of the university quarter. With some of the staff having parking in the (former) front gardens of the buildings, these roads used to be a lovely commuter spot, just before the pay to park area. Students got up too late to get look in.

But now, well, completely empty at 08:30. That not only makes it bad for commuters, it makes it a more pleasant place to walk and cycle. At least on those days when some Big Society volunteers act as community lollipop people.

The sign of cyclists just makes things more painful, as we know that not only do they not pay to be in traffic jams, they don't have to pay to park.

Fortunately, we managed to get our white van to the BRI-managed "shared space" area that is Southwell Street, which had a little bit of pavement left for us.

Important: we have heard rumours of changes planned for that road/NHS parking area.

Any anonymous documents or emails are welcomed at the usual email address. We like them to remain consistent with our mission statement "be 12-18 months ahead of any breaking news covered by the Evening Post". If we don't get anything in the next few days, we will have to make something up.

Evening Post! This is not the war on motorists!

The EP is upset that the council wants to turn 12 paid parking spaces into 72 on-road bicycle parking spaces. The title of their article "IF drivers think it's hard to find a parking space in the city centre at the moment, it's about to get worse.".

We love this. Some people are probably expecting Bristol Traffic to be up in arms on the same topic, but we are too busy laughing at the naivety of the E.P. to bother. Here is why we aren't complaining.

1. We have had a copy of the plans for about a year. If the E.P. is surprised, it means they are out-loop.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: "Nick Pates"

To: "Alex Woodman" , "Mark Wright"

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:25:43 +0100

Subject: Pay and Display cycle parking proposals - Cabot

Dear Councillors,

As part of the Cycling City project we are proposing to remove

10metres of pay and display parking at seven locations to replace with

cycle parking. I have attached a plan of all the proposed locations

as well as a draft letter that I intend to consult with.

I would appreciate any comments you may have.

Yours sincerely

Nick Pates

Cycling and Walking

Bristol City Council

Twelve months ago these plans came out. Where have the E.P. reporting team been? Probably hanging around with Bristol City people getting wined and dined to believe that after England win the 2010 World Cup then its a cert for England hosting the cup in 2018, for which we need a giant supermarket in Southville. Got some bad news there, folks.

 2. We were consulted on the plans. We are Bristol's premier web site collecting data and reporting on traffic issues in the city. Unlike the rest of the motor lobby -the RAC, the ABD, the AA, we are rational. We don't just deny bad news or the entire process of science just because we don't like the answers. We collect data, and reach conclusions.

3. We support it! Really! This does not mean we have changed sides!

Why do we support it? Because they are taking away pay-to-park spaces, and nobody uses them as you have to pay. We much prefer zebra crossings, double yellow lines, traffic islands to a slot that demands money and which offers time limits on the parking.

3. The only people that park in most of the areas are students. Not tax payers. Students. We can see that by doing a drive by last week, out of term time.

Tyndall's Avenue: empty parking spaces. The university staff either have access to the car parks, they get the bus in, or they park+walk. 

Round the corner, Woodland Road. Utterly empty. We, the tax payers, have paid road tax already, so we refuse to pay extra to park. We'd rather drive around for half an hour to find an empty corner in Cotham then walk in.

The only people who use this are not only students, they are the students with enough money to pay for parking, which is a small subset of students: the ones with lots of money. We feel no guilt about having their parking options removed, so they can't drive over the downs for one lecture, half an hour in the gym and then home again.

The argument here is therefore not "bike parking vs car parking", it is: how do you want students to get to university?

1. By car. Only parking in the paid bits if they can't get a free space nearby -our spaces.
2. By bus. Not ideal, but you can get a lot more students to one bus than 40 cars, and they don't take away our parking spaces, as we have been known to park in bus stops too.
3. Walking. FirstBus hates this at the zebra crossings, we don't like it on Cotham Hill, but you can usually swerve round them while making a phone call, though you have to shout out the window rather than use your hand on the horn.
4. By bicycle. Yes, we despise them, but if they are going to cycle in, they won't try parking on our secret places like Highbury Villas. They may even decide its not worth walking or cycling down to the uni for half an hour in the gym, so not even get in our way on a bicycle.

The best bit: if there is no option to drive in, some of these tax-dodging students may not bring their cars at all, which will free up more street space in Clifton and Redland.

Now, can the E.P. stop being 12 months behind what's being planned and help join the coalition to fight US proposals to stop you doing things like downloading porn onto your laptop while driving.This is the real war, not some argument about how twelve students a day will get to the cafe for lunch.

Students: they think they own the road

One interesting aspect of our secret-instrumentation of unsuspecting cyclists is that we see how differently people behave in situations we would not normally encounter. Normally, when heading up Cotham Hill as a last minute Redland-Mum sprint we'd sound the horn and expect people to get out the way. But here, as the cyclist crawls up, you can see the students out and about uninterrupted.

And very interesting it is too.

You can see that they are quite happy to step out without looking round, without turning their head to see if there is any risk. Yet Cotham Hill is your first option to sprint on the school run after the crawl down Whiteladies Road; your first chance to put your foot down. These pedestrians think that shared-space means they get some of our taxpayer space, when really it means we get to park on the pavement we pay for.

As for the other roads -plenty of room for double parking. Yet not with all these students just wandering around. There should be a law against them.

Drive round here, run one of them over -you get the blame. They should not be allowed to walk round without passing some "walking in the city" test and getting third-party insurance. And as winter comes in, they need to get with the hi-viz clothing.

Students have stolen our parking!

Days after the banksy-takes-our-parking debacle, now woodland road is closed to cars

There are pedestrians, but few are walking round in hi-viz

And the banksy ice cream van has moved

What is up? Students have arrived. The university is giving them a false sense of security by closing the roads. Better to give them each a hi-viz top and show them how to cross the city.

Banksy Parking Logistics

Lots of new visitors coming to our site are not using the usual keywords "high viz fetish", but now "banksy parking". Lots of other people are either concerned that this criminal is stealing our parking spaces (now no parking allowed there, 24-hours a day), or looking for somewhere to park. We welcome the new visitors, even the one who denounced our concerns about the loss of parking spaces as petty selfishness. Selfish, maybe, but petty, no!

zulu1001 says:

"Oh please!"

"It's something that is really popular that does no-one any harm. Let celebrate this rather than complaining about a perceived traffic inconvenience."

Well, zulu1001, it is not just the loss of a few parking spaces that matters, it is the fact that all these visitors to the city are taking up our commuter parking spaces in/near Woodland Road and Tyndall's Park avenue, the last free parking area nearby, just when the students had all left for the summer. Because you need to be in that queue before 08:30 to be sure that you will get in the first 450, and not have to wait at least an hour for the first group to finish, so called "art lovers" who have driven over will be there grabbing the spaces before we regular commuters can get them.

For all those people coming to this site looking for the best place to park for the exhibition, can we therefore point you all at Montpelier? Come off the M32 before you reach the end of the road, go into Montpelier and park on an empty bit of pavement. It will get easier throughout the day.

Then walk all the way to the show via Stoke's Croft, Jamaica Street, Dighton Street and Park Row, past all the other free graffiti the city has to offer.

Having been inside the show, can we note that it is not very authentic. This "landscape near Hartcliffe" painting, for example, does not recognise the off-road skills of the locals, who can get a stolen car way further up a muddy track before having to torch it. That painting is more a Clifton-down class of off-road parking, which may give a new clue as to the graffiti-criminal's origin.

Finally, can we close by reminding the locals not to mention the fact that Boston Tea Party at the top of Park Street does the best coffee, cakes and meals of all the cafes in this area, because if word does get out its lovely garden at the back will fill up. Point the turists at Cafe Nero and Starbucks, it is all they expect and deserve.

Sustrans route 4 open again

Woodland road, full of walkers and bicycles

Because the roadworks are gone, the cyclists dismount signs gone, the path open. Now students can walk or cycle all the way to the university, which is on the other side of Tyndall's Park Avenue

Some people -and we know who you are- will bemoan the lack of safe crossing facilities on a busy road leading to Clifton. Given the traffic lights at the junction of Tyndall's Park Avenue and Whiteladies road, 200 metres to the right of these pictures, lack a pedestrian crossing period -and that for a route used by taxpayers as well as students- there is no reason to add any safety facilities to this crossing.


Students are young, fit and fast. On the person with luggage is going to be at risk.

Over in London, Boris wants to shave six seconds off every green man crossing. This is to reduce congestion and increase traffic flow, possibly handling the consequences of his rollback of the western congestion zone and the big-car premium tax. The official walking speed is now 1.2 metres/second. Anyone going slower that is either a tourist or someone elderly or unfit.

Over in New York, campaigners are pushing for longer crossing times, to help the elderly, advocating a speed of 0.75 metres/second.


But that is the US, with privatised health care. In Britain, with the NHS, the old, the frail and the unfit are often a net cost to society -they cost in health and pensions, and bring in little tax. Having a crossing policy that penalises the slow with death reduces the long term costs to the state, and so saves money.

Priorities

The fiat X402EDB may appear to be endangering road users by blocking the exit of a downhill bike lane that corners into Woodland Road, on the popular sustrans-4 route to the university.

It is, however contributing to road safety.

Because it is not just sitting waiting, the driver is on the phone. They have pulled over to make or take a call. And as studies have shown that even hands-free phone calls are dangerous, it is far safer for everyone to have the car pull over than drive round.

It comes down to priorities. Which would cyclists prefer
1. Cars blocking bike path exits on downhills
2. Cars moving around with the drivers on the phone rather than paying attention
The choice is obvious. Stationary hazards are manageable; they can be dealt with. Drivers on phones are a death threat. We should celebrate this driver for the choice they have made.

ice work

This looking down Cotham Hill from the St Michael's Hill roundabout, a couple of days after the snow had turned to ice.

bikes and pedestrians get the same experience: danger. Except that as bikes lose balance in such a spectacular manner, its pretty hazardous.

Getting off and walking is good here; the alternative is to into the oncoming traffic lane.

Further down, the ice has a couple of melted patches: the drain and the manhole cover. Those are actually the two thinks to look out for here: you need to go between them, curve round to the left of the traffic island and plan for the not-that-unlikely event that any car approaching from Woodland Road to the left in a search for parking spaces will actually stop before the bike lane, and/or look in your direction before turning.



This is actually, believe it or not, an invaluable road traffic facility. Not just for bikes; it is the bikes going down here that creates the opportunities for cars heading the other way to pull out at the roundabout. The only other way to get out is to deliberately pull out in front of another car.

Building Work Priorities

This is where Woodland Road meets Tyndall's Park avenue. Due to the fact that a very large water drain tunnel goes underground here, there have been ongoing roadworks for some years, right across Sustrans NCN route 4, and a popular walking/cycling route. We've discussed crossing this road before.

Cyclists dismount, the red sign on the left says, which is a request, while the sign on the right says Cycleway Closed Ahead. This is technically untrue, unless you have a very loose definition of "ahead", because the cycleway is actually closed in front of the sign -not behind it. And what, play tell, lies behind the sign?

This is where it gets interesting There is some crane, some building work. But also, a large stretch of pavement fenced off. Why? So that the people who are working on the site have somewhere to work. They know that if the pavement wasn't fenced off there would be nowhere to park, and hence alternate transport options to and from work would have to be considered. Like, foot, bicycle or even bus. All of these options would be unacceptable.

Therefore, a large stretch of pavement has been fenced off for car parking. What we have here, then, is a longstanding roadwork that takes away the primary walking/cycling route to the university, is covered in no-bicycle signs, yet quite happily takes away a stretch of pavement so the people who work on it can park their cars. Why? Because it is more important that these three people get to drive to work than have the thousands of students who cross this junction on foot or bike get across safely.

Priorities, see. The priorities you set provide an implicit message on who is important, and who is not -and students come near the bottom. The only hard question is who comes out lower: students walking to college, or students cycling there?

Not technically corner parking

This Honda RJ55KAO is not actually parked on a corner, because more than half of it protrudes past the junction of Belgrave Road and Woodland Road.

Therefore, corner parking restrictions do not apply.
Woodland Road is part of Sustran NCN4, the primary walking/cycling route between student's at Bristol University's Hall of residence -a mile or so up the hill in the direction of this photgraph- and the university itself, just behind the camera. The Bristol Cycling Campaign considers this a strategic walking/cycling route for students. The person who parked this car clearly agrees, and thoughfully left enough space for someone to squeeze through in front of them.

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.

University Approach

Starting to collect some data on the university. A key finding is that walking is the primary way students get to university, something they do despite the effort the city goes to run them over. This is the Tyndall's Park Road/Woodland road junction.

Up until about 1992 this was open to cars, making Woodland road a high speed alternative to Whiteladies Road. It certainly made cycling down T-Park-Road trickier as cars were prone to pulling out in front of you while you came down at speed. Then the junction got closed of for a year or so while a storm drain was constructed underneath the city -car access never came back. Instead we got a road that is intermittently available to pedestrians and bikes. Currently the roadworks are being anti-bicycle. Cyclists dismount, the sign says. These signs are a stock requirement of all roadwork sites in Bristol, as the alternative would be thought and effort. If they could have a sign "pedestrians go away" they would use them too.

With the roadworks and the scaffolding truck, its a kind of edgy junction. You can get half way out and with no visibility, have to assume that when a car goes uphil (to the right in this picture), its safe to pull out. We are fortunate all students are fit as you need to be able to sprint across.

We are also grateful that most cars in Bristol don't deliberately set out to run over pedestrians and bicycles in their way. Here a car graciously slows down to avoid hitting a bicycle head on.

Where are the students going? To their 9am lectures. Where are they coming from? The halls of residence, other side of the Downs. This junction is not only part of Sustrans national network route 4, it is the primary by-foot commute for a few thousand students. Clearly it is not felt necessary to provide safe road crossings here. Further up the hill, there is a zebra crossing, but that will be replaced at considerable expense by a light controlled crossing so that buses can regain priority over pedestrians.