Rain Work

If you drive to work in Bristol, you have no idea how long it is going to take. In your head, you have that "17 minutes", the fastest it ever took, some time at 7:15 in the morning during school holidays. That "17 minutes" becomes a goal, one you never quite see again, as instead you get to take that long getting through two traffic lights somewhere near Filton or the A4 towards Bath.
Not being able to predict arrival time means you have to set off early, or compensate for delays by driving extra badly.

If you take a bus, well, you not only have the same unpredictable journey time, there's no way to compensate once you run late. Which leaves the trains, walking and cycling. Trains support a few routes, while walking works well if you live near where you work. Only cycling offers long-distance travel with predictable journey times.

Unfortunately, in exchange for that predictable journey time , you gain a different bit of uncertainty: how wet you will be when you get there. And today, with agressive showers running across the city during the morning, there was a lot of uncertainly.

Here is Saint Andrews roads and the park, all shining in the sun, but shining because of all the surface water, standing out against the black clouds of the next shower.

Still, some people seemed to be out enjoying their ride. You just have to accept that although it is mid-August, hence technically "summer", a waterproof is something you need to wear. At least at this time of year, once your legs get wet, they don't get too cold.

Wheelpark

This is Fairfield School, Montpelier, now closed down apart from a new community school being set up in the caretaker's office.

Being a closed school, the education department gets to explore interesting new uses of school playgrounds. While many parts of the country have sold off all playgrounds and sports grounds, in many parts of Bristol they have been retained -and so provide lots of benefits to the city.

This experimental combined parking/playground area not only provides parking for staff, but will, once rolled out to other schools in the city, provide lots of extra parking opportunities for staff, yet provide a safe play area for children. It will teach the children how to play safely near cars, and reinforce the idea that all open space in the city should be used for parking.

Blocking a corner -because they can

Joe Evans sends in a shot of this little corsa positioned to make turning left into this road harder than otherwise necessary.

Everyone in Bristol knows that the highway code rule about parking near (or opposite) junctions is one of those dream world rules that don't survive contact with the reality of the city. They are parking rules that you need to remember for the duration of you driving test, and then forget. Because that 50 feet of parking space by every junction is valuable space, space that is utterly essential to parking in the city. Here, for example, if the car had parked a bit forward, the driver might have had to walk further.

Invisible in the slipstream

By driving right behind this bus entering the buses-and-bikes-only stretch of broadmead, this car manages to be hidden from the rear view mirrors of the bus.

Which means that it is no longer there, and free to drive down this road.

If you are in the car, it isn't actually parked

The gloucester road showcase bus lane is one of the prides of the Greater Bristol Bus Network. From 4:30 pm, you can't use the parking spaces along the road, as it is a bus lane.

On those rare days when this parking rules are enforced, its not only fast to cycle, buses can go down there quickly too. But those are the days when Bristol's three parking wardens are out somewhere other than the profit-earning city centre. Today, at 5:31 pm -rush hour- they aren't, and there are vehicles parked in both directions.

But if you look closely, there are people in them. Either it is last-minute shopping, or they are actually picking up people who work in the area.
The problem here is that it only takes a single parked/waiting car for the lane to be rendered useless. Bikes here have the easiest option, they just slide past. Or go down North Road, parallel to Gloucester Road, which, apart from the odd very-impatient car is fairly quiet. If you are happy to ignore a car right behind trying to intimidate you by revving its engine, it's a good route. But buses, both FirstBus and the U1/U2 UWE buses have less room to manoeuvre, literally. They get stuck behind the cars and have to wait to be allowed out. And if you are driving, you don't want a bus to pull out as they don't accelerate, stop for passengers and stop to give way to oncoming buses.



Which is why on evenings that the parking rules are enforced, Gloucester Road is faster to drive along than Kersteman Avenue: buses and bikes get their lane, cars have theirs -and the cars do not have to worry about buses in the other direction swinging into their path to get round a van that shouldn't be there.

Further up Gloucester Road, by Horfield Common, there's a traffic info board. It should flag whether or not parking rules are being enforced along the bus lane, so drivers can choose whether or not to turn into Kersteman Avenue.

Montpelier mixed-use area

Here's a lovely shot of evening Montpelier. Three kids cycling round the street; two adults pushing the bikes up the hill. Further down Richmond Road there are some more people walking in the middle of the street, carrying shopping bags. A taxi will nudge its way up the hill, but carefully, rather than the 35+mph that is their ideal speed.

This street effectively makes Montpelier Bristol 's first people-first-cars-second area. And to achieve this, the residents didn't need any contributions from Bristol City Council. Instead they came up with their own goal - a safe place to walk and play- and a simple strategy to achieve this.
What did they do? Well, if you look at the edges of the picture, you can see it. Along each side of the road, completely blocking every pavement, is a near-continuous line of cars. This forces pedestrians into the street, but the cars are positioned such that the road is too narrow to drive fast. If the parked cars were not here, through traffic would speed, and the children would be constrained to the pavement, rather than being able to enjoy the whole width of the street. And, as they are cycling, that would increase the risk of pedestrian/cycle collisions, which as we all know, is the greatest danger facing this city.
It is contributions to innovative road design like this that make Montpelier a leading part of "Cycling City Bristol"

Bike Lane? No, Parking space

Richmond Road in Montpelier was blocked off to cars over a decade ago, leaving a narrow gap for bicycles.

Or alternatively, leaving an extra space to park cars, here the mondeo P322VUY.

This is 7 O'Clock in the evening incidentally, there is room to park three cars in the street in front of the Passat and the little Nissan. This car doesnt need to waste time reverse parking though, not when there is a perfectly good space here for a car. And bikes? Who cares.

Proud to be a rebel

Another shot of a car parked facing the wrong way down a one-way street.

There's something about Fremantle Square, Kingsdown, it brings out the rebel in people. It would be trivial to drive another 6 metres and do a quick turnabout to park facing the right way, but then the driver of the VW polo H954FPK wouldn't be making a statement. Namely "I don't believe in one way streets".

Parking Lessons

One photo we are always fond of is the learner-car-parking-bristol-style snap; the car doing something that would have the driver fail their test instantly, but which are a prerequisite to driving and parking round the city. Speeding, running traffic lights, anything of that nature, though parking is the easiest to snap.

Here Robbie's Driving school, car a blue renault clio WV06FXL, teaches a learner driver the correct way to park on double yellow lines. Notice how well the car is parked -aligned with its neighbours, and not even blocking the corner. This is skilled parking.
{car: WV06FXL; location: kingsdown}

Range Rover: All parking tickets will be offset

This site is gradually building up a datset of vehicles, but not one that is statistically valid. We can't say "silver cars are more likely to park illegally than blue ones", because we don't have the data on all the cars parking legally. All we have are photos sent in by our team members on their journeys round the city. However, in our current photoset, 100% of all parked range rovers we have encountered are either parked on the pavement, on double yellow lines, on the no-waiting bits by schools, or all of the above. That would appear to be somewhat significant.

It could in fact represent a design defect in the vehicle. It's just too wide to park in Bristol, and unsuited to reverse parking. Drive-in, drive-out parking is all you can do, which means you need to find big empty places (school no waiting zones) to drop your kids off.


Which is why we propose that just as Landrover offset two year's worth of Carbon on a new Landrover Discovery, when you buy a Range Rover, the company should offer to offset two year's worth of parking tickets. For vehicles YJ52NYE and L008YXR, that would make parking in Picton Street much less stressful. Indeed, it would make parking your range rover so stress free that more people in Montpelier could consider buying one.

Cycling rule enforcement in NY

As part of the coverage of cycling-city-ideas-from-abroad, here's footage of the New York Police enforcing traffic laws, which apparently includes a requirement to have a bell. Clearly lacking a bell is a punishable offence.

Bristol cyclists do not yet receive such treatment, which must upset some of the people who write letters to the Evening Post on a regular basis. Incidentally, this shows the merits of wearing a helmet. (Source: Gothamist. Very divided comments).
Updated: the New York Times has more detail. Apparently the cyclist was arrested for his part in the incident -for "attempted assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest".

Pavement Parking: we have no choice

Similarly to the corner parking issue, pavement parking is only done in Bristol due to the parking pressure put on a street by residents and commuters

Here, for example, is the new suburb built near UWE, that clearly suffers from both problems. These cars, including the saab P82KGM, would not willingly remove the ability for people to walk on the pavement if they had any choice in the matter.

Corner Parking: what makes you think we have a choice?

We want to make it clear that despite the articles on corner-parking , we understand that often times parking at the corner is not done
through choice, but because there is nowhere else to park your car

Especially in a busy part of the city, like Clifton.

Innovative corner parking techniques

During the holiday season, Bristol residents are encouraged to take photographs of interesting traffic innovations that can be brought back to Bristol. Here Pete Jordan has highlighted a more advance form of corner parking that he encountered in Galway, Ireland.

Instead of parking parallel to the kerb, across the corner, the car drives directly onto the pavement at the corner. This allows a bigger car to park while using up less of the valuable kerb space. It may also give more options of directions to drive off in when setting off, so delivering more flexibility to a driver in a hurry.

Perhaps this parking style could be encouraged by the appropriate markings on Bristol's streets.

Cul de Sac safety

It's very considerate of Bristol Council to help people driving into a cul de sac; they paint these yellow lines in the road as an indication that one cannot continue further. Of course, on reaching the end of the road, what else can a driver sensibly do but stop?

Blocking the slope in the curb there is an extra thoughtful addition: it stops cyclists shooting straight out onto the road and possibly having an accident.

(Picture and text by Pete Jordan)

East Street: a secret short cut

There is a secret back-route through Bedminster that only a few cars know about it. Here we are going to blow the secret wide-open and share a way to skip three traffic lights and about ten minutes on a weekday morning.

It's called the East Street pedestrian zone, here demonstrated by -----. It may say buses only, but as we've seen before, that's a hint. Any law that isn't enforced doesn't exist, and as driving through here in a car is never punished, you may as well. So who wastes time going round the back streets of Bedminster, when they could punch the core at speed? Losers.

Bristol Motorcycle City

One unmentioned beneficiary of the Cycling City initiative will be Bristol's motorbikes, who can take advantage of the bike parking in Gloucester Road, thus avoiding having to block the bike lane the way cars need to.

In broadmead, a couple of bike park slots provide a great place for a bike. Some people may argue that there are areas for motorbikes, areas marked Solo M/Cs, but as these are used by cars, motorbikes only have one remaining option: the cycle stands.


There are also lots of motorbike friendly short cuts

You can recognise these by the drawing of the motorbike with the red ring around them.

Cotham RTA

People say there is no community in Cotham, but when a large crunching sound happens in the street at 9 in the evening, all the neighbourhood comes out to see what happened. The driver of the Corsa was sitting down in a daze and not in any obvious need of first aid. Which was good, given the only trained first aider was myself, and on our last site training exercise we lost three of the two patients -from preventable issues. Here I got to stick up the hazard signs and take some pictures.

A red ford escort van had been descending Cotham Road, probably at or below the 30 mph speed limit. There is an 20mph sign, but it's a hint only to be ignored on school hours. A silver Corsa appears to have made a right turn into the path of this van, being hit hard enough to rotate round and do serious damage to both vehicles. With the fuel leakage and all, whoever dialled 999 asked for the set: Police, Ambulance and Fire.

While waiting for these to turn up, friends of the Corsa driver "mysteriously" turned up, at which point the driver tried to do a runner. This is where the Cotham community kicked in, as we managed to stop the driver and hold him there until the authorities arrived. That's what they don't show on Casualty, nor do they show that its the fire brigade who turn up first, as the police and both ambulances are busy in the city centre with the usual Friday night festivities.

When the police and ambulance did turn up, the Corsa driver was stuck in the ambulance and then, apparently, detained by the police, allegedly due to them being drunk.


What is apparent is that even at "urban" 30 mph speeds, a car-car collision is enough to do serious damage to cars, possibly even write them both off. The Escort van was built by Ford from its traditional balsa wood material, and without features such as air bags or ABS. The manufacturers fought tooth and nail against airbags being mandatory, because that would reduce profits (increased sales of unequipped cars, and the premium pricing of the feature for drivers who wanted it), and still make safety features -ABS, anti-skid, etc, as options except on fast cars whose engines make the features irrelevant. It is possible that here they could have made a difference.

What is also apparent is when such a collision occurs, it helps to have active engagement from the community. Not lynching the driver who screwed up, just retention, basic first aid, that kind of thing. Drivers should consider carrying a disposable camera for photographs -one with a flash.

Finally, know the laws of the road. Not just the "don't drive drunk" rule, but the fact that only the driver is liable. Because that Corsa appeared to have a head-shaped dent in the passenger side of the windscreeen, the side with no airbag. Yet no passenger. Whoever hit the window did a runner before anyone could get out and see what was up, possibly to call their friends over and get help home. Yet they didn't need to. They could have waited and been seen by an ambulance. Still, getting into a car with a driver who has been drinking is not what one would call a smart move; you can't expect them to think through the followup either. I believe my son has learned this lesson from watching the whole event instead of going to bed, and he was very proud of how his dad helped stop someone running away.

Mistakes: your purpose in life may be to serve as a warning to others

Disabled Parking Economics

If you ever go down Horfield Road, by Saint Michael's Hill, during weekday or weekend hospital hours, you will see a line of cars on the double yellow lines, often including the bus stop.

None of these cars get ticketed, because they have a disabled sticker on them. Which, given they are clearly visiting the hospital, could well be justified. You don't go to the BRI if you can avoid it. But why park on the yellow lines? Is it because they can, and there is no room in the car park? Not quite.

There is room in the car park, at least on this weekend shot. So that's not the reason. Here's the reason, from the United Bristol Healthcare's parking site Terms and Conditions.

2 pounds 20 an hour, 60 quid fine. Disabled parking is only allowed in the few disabled slots. Which at the time of inspection, were all taken up. So disabled people driving to the hospital on a Saturday for some ongoing treatment are given a choice of 2+ pounds/hour for the car park or free parking where the bus stop is. What rational person would not block the bus stop?
Given the patients are making a rational decision: it's cheaper to park on the double yellow lines, why doesn't the hospital recognise the ongoing need for disabled parking and say "anyone with a disabled sticker can park free for the first two hours?". Again, rational thinking.

Every disabled driver parked in their car park would bring in zero pounds/hour revenue. Every space used for disabled parking is essentially lost money. Assuming the opening hours of the hospital are 0800 to 2000: 12 hours/day weekdays, and during those hours the car park was full of cars. That's 185 pounds/week, or 9600 pounds/year for every disabled parking space, or every disabled car parking in a non-designated parking space. If an average of eight disabled cars were to park in the BRI car park (that's the normal number of disabled cars on the yellow lines), that would be an opportunity cost to the BRI of just under seventy-seven thousand pounds per year.
And that's why you get disabled cars blocking the bus stop outside the BRI. Not because the disabled drivers are being lazy and selfish, but because someone in the UBHT with a spreadsheet decided that letting the disabled patients park for free would cost them too much money, and having them park illegally outside was not their problem.

MOD path improvements: MTB race training

Mountain Bikers will be pleased to see that the MOD have just added a race training obstacle to their course; a left hand bend where you arc through the vegetation before hitting the road at race speed:

Overtaking through vegetation is actually an effective race technique, though you have to have speed before committing as you shouldn't pedal during the operation -too much risk of plants getting into the drivetrain.

For those cyclists who do the Filton-city centre run on a regular basis, this is welcome. Currently only the Lockleaze to St-Werburgh's route has anything in terms of offroad entertainment; making the through-MOD route more technical would make it less dull. Some people may argue that in fact South Gloucestershire Council, as part of the Cycling City initiative, would actually want to make the route better to cycle, but they are missing the point. Bike lanes are not for bicycles. They are either to keep bikes out the way of cars -by putting them in the way of pedestrians- or they are part of section 106 inconveniences which companies have to pay for when they build big things.

(thanks to Shawn for this photo)