The darkness is over. The time of having to suffer in the Park and Ride from Long Ashton to the inner city is over. Once BRT is rolled out drivers coming up the A370 will only have to wait in traffic jams up the A370 and then into the P&R centre. From there BRT will be the solution. Here is the solution. A bus through a clean city, with eight people on bikes and four moving cars -cars on the european side of the road, as noted by Terry "I dream of the Alps" Miller.
More detail from Green Bristol Blog and credit to James Barlow for uploading the video to youtube and annotating it. Both people appear to be somewhat negative about the proposal. Their names have been reported to the relevant authorities for being Anti-Bristol.
Everyone else will realise that cylists will have much to gain from the proposal, as now there will be something to look at on the path other than the tidal wasteland that is the River Avon:
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9 comments:
That was odd- As the animation neared the dock I recognised places I walked years ago.
You seem to be rather against the scheme, and I'm wondering why. I can't help thinking that if you want to improve Bristol and reduce congestion, BRT is a good thing- we aren't going to get everyone on a bike.
I see the problem about the gap under the bridge, but I'd have thought that with simple timetabling the bus lane could be reduced to one lane without any delays.
And the barriers are ridiculous.
1. We worry that the BRT has plans to move up to Emerson's Green, and we know the way the engineers want to do it is up the Bristol/Bath Railway Path.
2. The local transport campaigners wanted ultralight rail ULR instead of diesel buses.
3. The traffic modelling is a program written in the 1980s which lacks data for the benefit of BRT and uses journey time as its primary motivator for choosing a transport option, not cost, weather, etc. I don't trust the data and think the simulation is a relic of computing, not something you should base a city's plans on.
4. The purpose of BRT is to provide an alternative to cars. But it seems to go down on footpaths, on bike paths, rather than on the roads. It may improve car journey times, but at the expense of people who were walking and cycling today. The council are scared to take away road space from cars for the project, but not from the rest of us.
In response to workbike, there are essentially two approaches to improving bus services. One based on giving buses a clearer run along the existing road network (here under the banner of GBBN) and the other based on creating new bus routes by taking over redundant or under used transport corridors such as cycle/walkways (BRT).
The on-road option would require fairly drastic reductions in car use since it's cars that screw up the whole system, whereas the off-road option allows car use to increase since buses will be taken off the existing roads leaving some spare capacity.
So it boils down to whether or not you want more cars on the road. I for one don't so I'm against BRT.
The proposal at the moment is just for Long Ashton to Temple Meads, and by my reckoning at least 75% of the shown route will encroach on road space, so surely that should make you happy?
And as for the BB Cycle Path - is the public expected to see this as it's death knell, as you do? It seems very unlikely that the council could actually plan and win funding for two major transport solutions in the same decade, doesn't it?
The original route was Long Ashton to Emerson Green. This is half of the route. We have stopped the second half -for now- but depending on what they do in at templemeads, it may well end up pointing straight at the railway path, ready for the next stage.
Politically, that's unlikely. But the engineer probably still have their eyes on the path as the best solution from an engineering perspective.
From reading all the BRT docs, the route that made economic sense was actually down the M32. But they didn't want to do that one first as it would upset car drivers more. They targeted the routes they could get away with first.
SP, the proposed route is on-road from Prince street Bridge to Temple Meads, but mostly using existing bus lanes. West of PSB it takes a bus lane out of part of Cumberland Road which will probably mean the loss of parking on the other side (although they deliberately show parking in the simulation - or shamulation!). P&R and other buses will transfer from Hotwell Road so releasing capacity for other traffic. So overall I don't see it taking much capacity away from cars outside the city centre.
I should add that the Bristol Cycling Campaign has not been out-and-opposed to this route, even though it has no direct benefits for us. We do think a functional public transport system would benefit the city, though I doubt that even with BRT I will be able to get a bus home from Templemeads at 9 pm without having to wait half an hour. We are unhappy that the changes required for princes street bridge to allow BRT: remove pavement from one side, provide alternate access to buses -are being blamed on Cycle City rather than BRT City initiatives.
The Evening Post are up to their normal anti-cycling tricks again on this very subject
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Bristol-cyclists-oppose-plans-vehicle-ban-bridge/article-465895-detail/article.html
Hello, and thanks for the info. I'm relying on very old memories of Bristol, so it's hard to tell what's happening from the simulation. I've also been in Germany so long I didn't notice the cars on the right hand side of the road.
Unfortunately I can see the logic in what you are saying about the council keeping morotists happy at the expense of just about everyone else. I've experienced it elsewhere.
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