And so get into the queue leading up to the M32 that much faster.
It's a tough road to walk or cycle across; you need to wait at the lights and factor in to the light schedule the fact that cars coming off the m-way are slow to react to red lights. In the Bristol Cycling Campaign, the Muller Road/Shaldon Road junction is viewed as positively lethal, the fact that 'safe route to school' improvements made it even more dangerous should have been a warning sign about threat that a "cycle city" bid could present.
One thing that Josh's study didn't do is ask where do these cars go to? Where are they coming from? Assuming they are coming into the city on the M32, not using the ring road exit but pulling off before getting stuck in the traffic jams by the M32 junctions further into town, these cars are heading to North West bristol, but not the North Fringe. So where do they go?
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I wonder the same about the similar number of cars driving through our village: what on earth is so wonderful about the valley to the north that the people driving from the south want to get there? Surely they can't all work in Mercedes.
Thanks for the continuing blog posts BTW, it's encouraging me to get into cycle advocacy here.
I cycle Muller Rd -> Sheldon Rd every day to get to and from work. I don't find the junction at all "lethal" As long as you obey the lights its perfectly safe, the only area of 'danger' would be the raised manhole covers when turning from Muller Rd into Sheldon Rd, but there is a line you can take that avoids them, and stops cars overtaking you from behind (safer!!). Only other element of 'danger' is trying to stop comming down the steep hill that is Sheldon Rd, and thats only dangerous if you are riding beyond your ability.
As for where the cars are comming from, in my experience I follow the same cars from Feeder Rd in Brislington all the way to and down Fishponds Rd, under the motorway and down Muller Rd. After that they carry on towards Filton along Muller Rd. You can verify this by doing the route at rush hour, generally its faster on a bike :-) Also using the route are all the Bristol Council community minibuses which come from their depot at Arnos Court to work in the council estate around Sheldon Rd. I think there are a lot of people who think its a quicker cut through than using St Philips Causeway and the M32.
Hope that answers your questions. BTW I don't use the path up from St Werbergs so can't comment on how safe the lights are for that part of the road junction.
And as Workbike said... great blog, I love reading it, have even started taking my own photo's in the hope of getting a good one I can submit to you.
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