News update

The team is being too lazy to do some serious reporting right now, but here are some news updates.

1. Crap Walking And Cycling in Waltham Forest is offline, along with all its artwork. While some people discuss why this is the case, and consider whether any of its comments about the Waltham Forest NHS or local council have, in some way, been considered libellous, we are pleased to provide the true explanation.

Waltham Forest acted as a control group in the Cycling England project. Some cities were funded to add more facilities to their city to encourage poor people to cycle. How would it be possible to determine if any increase in cycle usage was related to this work, compared to other trends like the rising cost of fuel? The answer: a control group. Waltham Forest, then, was encouraged to spend no money at all on improving walking or cycling in the city. To see whether motivational newsletters alone would suffice, Waltham Forest was funded to produce joyful "wouldn't it be better on a bicycle" leaflets and such like, things that could be stuck up at NHS hospitals that the staff and all patients would drive to -to see if this alone was sufficient. As the crapwalthamforest blog showed: it was not. With the wrapping up of the Cycling England project, Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham Forest has been terminated. Note also that Waltham Forest itself will be terminated -however the lessons from the Waltham Forest experiment have been learned, and councils all round Britain will be encouraged to Walthamize their neighbourhoods.


2. An M4-A4174 link route isn't going to get funded, as noted by the BBC, "Hopes for M4 link to Avon Ring Road dashed".

We have some bad news for whoever in the BBC wrote that last article, with phrases like  "Hopes for an M4 link to the Avon Ring Road near Bristol have been dashed for at least another four years" and "it could have an important impact on the Bristol and Bath Science Park".

Dear BBC provinical reporting team: there is an M4 link the Avon Ring Road; it is called "the M32". Please consult a map of Bristol before writing an article next time. There is also an option of getting to it from the M4/M5 junction and down the A38, and while a bit longer, it avoids the kingswood to M32 traffic jams caused by people trying to drive round the ring road from Bath to the North Fringe.

The article should in fact be titled: "Hopes for yet another  M4 link to the Avon Ring Road dashed". It could then raise the fact that Chris Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, doesn't understand the theory of induced demand any more than the head of North Somerset council. Specifically it isn't enough to add a new link road for today's demand; the new link road will encourage more traffic, more driving in, more people living out of Bristol and commuting by car to the North Fringe area. It would have been better to admit this and rather than push for a single extra link road, push for a new link road to be added every five years, so as to keep up with planned demand.

Walthamize the planet -and have a nice day!

Abbeywood: West Side Bollard Run

We sent our expendable cyclist up to Abbeywood again to see the other side of the MoD site/car park. Sadly, our fellow traveller, Kayla Maratty, would have been on her four week holiday, so if she's a UWE student, she wouldn't have got a chance to run this cyclist over.



Note how the cyclist swerves out of the cycle side before the first corner. After we took them into the MoD site where we got them to confess to being an enemy of the economy, we asked them about this. Apparently going round a blind corner on the wrong side of the path is stupid. Maybe, but S Gloucs has put the signs up, so follow it.

Further on, you can see the new bollards. Some now have coloured tape on, some reflectors. But it's moot. Their existence is now known and widely publicised. Nobody else is going to run into them, even in snow -unless the council moves them or adds some more -perhaps on that first corner?

Knowing of the existence of the feature, does our test subject obey the signs? Follow the approved lanes? No they don't! Instead they treat it as some kind of opportunity to go through them as if they were some kind of obstacle course, "practising singletrack manoeuvres at near-race-speed", they said, whatever that means. Such actions were wrong before the bollards went up, now that bollards are in, it should be a crime. And to think that the S Gloucs bollards actually encourage such action -that simply appals us.

Notice how we say S Gloucs bollards. We thought initially that these were MoD features, it being Ministry of Defence land and all (which is why cycle campaigner Terry Miller got detained by their site police for behaving suspiciously and taking photographs here last week). Yet as the video shows, the signs and bollards go on out of the site, right up to the A4174 Ring Road, one of the two proposed Ring Roads we actually got part of. That means it came from the council, presumably out of their cycling budget.

This is what introduces such a moral dilemma for us. It makes cyclists feel less welcome -good, and it doesn't take away any driving options -great. But is it enough? Apart from that one person who crashed into one, how many cyclists are going to give up their commute from this feature? And it stops us driving down the bike path here.

This is an ongoing topic and we will cover it more. Our experiment to see if anyone in S Gloucs is capable of reacting to reports of vehicles parked on the bike path is going well, so far, no reaction from anyone. But more research is needed.

Tiley of Bristol embrace Cycle City Hartcliffe Way

Hartcliffe Way, the southern bit of the A4174 ring road. Now, with the cycle city program, with a bike path along it.

How will the people use it? Well, we don't care about pedestrians or cyclists, because, well, they aren't real people.

What we are pleased to see is Tiley Motors of Hartcliffe Way recognising that anyone walking or cycling is deficient, but there is an obvious solution: get a car.

Tiley's have parked their budget vehicles on the bike/foot path, so attracting the attention of the underpeople, while clearly making the point that for just £795 the poor unfortunates could get themselves a motor and join the grown-ups.

Now, when the cycle city money turned out to only be 4X that spent on a single slip road to the Cribbs Causeway shopping mall, yet these new paths offer shopping opportunities, then even we cannot denounce this cycling city initiative any more. Tiley of Bristol! We salute you!

Breaking News: Abbey Wood goes to the Dark Side

As Bristol's Premier road traffic news outlet, we are saddened to bring some terrible news from the North Fringe, from MoD Abbey Wood. They are going to forbid anyone who lives within three miles of the site from driving in to work, by removing their right to park. They say it is due to excess parking pressure, but if you look at the parking area furthest from the entrance (i.e. the bit close to Lockleaze that requires you to walk afterwards), it's clear this isn't the case.

Therefore this entire plan is purely an anti-motorist conspiracy.

We received this memorandum by the "abbey wood motorists collective", who are trying to stand up for the British way of life, here in a government facility.

MoD staff demand car park action.

Following last year's car park overload fiasco when the nearly 8,000 MoD staff at Abbeywood where forced to park on the access road to nearby Hewlett Packard, the site management team have announced that from January 2011 they plan to tackle the shortage of car park spaces. 

You'd have thought that the MoD plan to do the sensible thing - use their diminishing Defence budget wisely - and build new multi-storey car parks over the entire (currently open site) single storey car park hence doubling the available spaces... But no! 

Apparently the MoD has instead decided to revoke the car passes of those who live within 3 miles of the site! 

This has understandably caused outrage amongst staff. How on earth do the management think people are going to get to work? One member of staff said "Someone dared suggest I could walk to work, I mean WALK, 3 miles. The furthest I've ever walked is 300 yards. It would take me hours". It has been suggested that the idea might encourage staff to think about using other means of getting to work other than their cars. Someone even suggested that there is a perfectly good bus service in the local area, or that they could ride a bike. "What on earth where they thinking, buses are meant for common people. Ride a bike? You must be joking" said one MoD mandarin climbing into his chauffeur driven staff car. 

If it is true, then it means that the MoD has joined the war against the motorist, just as the Department of Transport comes back onto our side.

We await further news.

MoD Abbeywood cycle path access issues

Remember how only a few weeks ago we wanted to turn the back bike path to abbeywood into a proper road. There may be some good news there.

First, note how the bike barriers are down.

The fence to stop cyclists dodging the barriers now looks lonely, the path put in by people dodging the fence may even recover.

The cyclists may be happy, but not all. Not Clive, whose email we picked up.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Clive
Date: Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 10:39 PM

Car access on MOD Abbey Wood Cycle path


I was amazed to see a car coming down the MOD Abbey Wood Cycle path (between the gated end of the lockleaze rugby grounds and the MOD gatehouse.


The Driver, Mr Blair, was quite upset that cyclists were impeding his 'Right of Way'.
Mr. Blair apparently lives in the house at the top of the path and claims that the route past the MOD has been 'his' right-of-way for 300 years .


When I arrived at the scene, he was arguing with a student who he claimed was blocking his way. During his 'discourse', he caught a girl with his car door as she tried to get past.
Not a happy chappie.


Now, he may indeed have some access right to his property via the cycle path ( I don't know, only S. Gloucester Cncl. can answer that) but does this mean he has vehicular access via this route?


If he does, than S. Gloucester should signpost the track to warn cyclists and pedestrians that it is a shared thoroughfare, as most people will not expect to find cars on the path.
(travelling at the national speed limit)


How do I go about progressing this (from a safety perspective) to find out if Mr Blair is allowed to drive his car through this section of the cycle path, and if so, ensuring cyclists and pedestrians are aware of the danger.

This is interesting. It's why we put the maps up last week. First, let's assume that the Mr Blair is the person by the rugby grounds who has an interested in old vehicles, many of which without tax or insurance. Driving them on private roads is the only thing he can do.

The MoD roads on Abbey Wood are private, so if he has a historic right of way to get there then yes, he can drive down the bike path. That way he can drive his old cars without all the pesky government regulation, health and safety nonsense about seat belts and brakes working. Road tax, that stuff.

One funny thing though, which the maps raise. Does the right of way extend to access to the MoD roads, or does it go to the woods and hence to the HP site, which has been fenced off since the mid 1980s? Is his claim for 300 years access is right, by our estimate this would put them within 50 years of end of the English civil war, some time before the Jacobite rising in Scotland, and therefore possibly predate Britain coming into existence.  As ancient as nine-tree hill.

If there really is car access on this path and to the MoD roads, then it shouldn't just be a luxury for one person. No, it should be something we can all enjoy: a new road between the A4174 Ring Road and Lockleaze, an alternative to the always congested, speed-camera enabled Filton Avenue.

More investigations -and maybe some experiments- are needed.

Before the war on motorists began: Splatts Abbey Wood

This is a before and after map series, full details of why to crop up later in the week.

First, the North Fringe, 1987. Congestion on the A4174, running through the middle of the photo: minimal. The roundabout centres on gridref ST6135787, apparently with trees on it. To south, a large blank space -the remains of some quarry or something. Crossing it, three power lines, one phone line, and a footpath from the sports grounds in the left side to some fields just E. of Splatts Abbey Wood, then roughly north. All of the area was under the control of Avon County Council; there are still some signs up in the area if you know where to look. In the S.E corner, just S. of Bonnington Walk, Sta (dis) remembers the existence of some station? Lockleaze Station? (no: Horfield Railway Station)

What is clear is this: No congestion on the ring road. No cycle lanes from the sports grounds to the ring road. Less traffic lights in the city. Not a coincidence.

Now, map two, printed in 1997, in the time the socialists were in power, and things were bleak.

The A4174 roundabout has moved to ST61607880, though not with the trees. South of it, the wasteland for motorbikers is now MoD abbey wood, with a moat on the NE side to eliminate the risk of anyone driving a truck full of explosives in, parking to the east and south-west and positioned to reduce the damage caused by anyone getting a car/truck full of explosives in there and blowing it up. Although the NI peace process was making progress, the tendency of the Provisional IRA to mark some kind of stalemate by blowing up prestigious targets on the mainland meant that these things were considered important. The disused station has been supplemented by the Abbey Wood railway station, which apparently has direct connections with Wales. The former Filton Junction station, north of the A4174, is now marked as Sta (dis) to indicate its new state.

South of the MoD facility, just north of where the Tailspin housing estate is still being built, a bike path. And what else has changed? Congestion. Is it any coincidence that there are traffic jams on the A4174 now that a bike path connects Lockleaze with the ring road, and that the new roundabout and the one by the M32 have traffic lights? We think not.

The final item of this note is the rights of way, the footpaths. These two maps imply that there was never any right to cycle through the rugby grounds, even the footpath doesn't go direct from Bonnington walk, but instead via Landseer Avenue. And here's the best bit: the right of way finishes by going through the MoD moat, through some of the building, and out the other side. We think pedestrians wanting to walk from Lockleaze to Sainsbury's should be made to walk this route, as it will reduce the number of them pressing the cross button on the pelican lights at the ring road.

Cyclist Harassment of Hospitality Industry Training driver on the A4174

Last week's focus on Abbeywood and the nearby area should have been enough to show cyclists they were not welcome in this part of the town, the car city. Yet shocking coverage comes to us of a cyclist in this very area, harassing a car driver on the A4174 ring-road for using a mobile phone. We will let the contributor, "A", speak for themselves:

One of the big advantages of driving a car is that it leaves your hands free for other things like reading some papers, or talking on your mobile. Or in this case both (steering can always be conducted using your knees). Never mind that talking on the phone might occasionally distract you from the actual job at hand (driving) causing you to collide with the odd pedestrian, cyclist or anyone else.

That's why we were so upset to see this video of an unknown cyclist accosting this poor employee of the very appropriately named HIT (Hospitality Industry Training) on the A4174 near Coldharbour Lane, Filton.

There he is trying to have a conversation on his phone, whilst looking through what looks like his appointment book when this cyclist has the cheek to ask him what his employer thinks of him driving using a phone. Just for the record again, that's Hospitality Industry Training Limited, www.hittraining.co.uk, tel 0800 093 5892, the vehicle a white Renault van, registration number AY09ZNP.

The driver with the phone doesn't shock us -what else can you do in the awful traffic jams there- but what shocks us is how the cyclist shows no shame at all. Not a bit. In fact, we suspect they are proud of what they did.

Abbeywood Week: Advertising on the A4174 in a cycling city

This is on the A4174 looking towards the Abbey Wood roundabout, behind that UWE and the M32. The right is a post-post-industrial landscape, such as a closed down Woolworth superstore.

The piece of tarmac with some fading red stripes in front of the camera is the bike lane. Yet predictably, the cyclist is in the pedestrian area.

One might think it is a bit odd to have a bus lane in the middle of a bike path, but this is part of the S. Gloucs integrated transport plan: bicycle and bus. More importantly, if the North Fringe commuters are to embrace cycling, the existing business plan of advertising agencies "adverts at junctions where cars get stuck" goes away; we drivers stuck in our cars are their target market. To deal with cyclists, it is not enough to have adverts where they can see them, the cyclist needs to spend time in front of the advert. Putting the advert precisely where they will run into it achieves this.

Ring Road problems

Anyone who says that a southern ring road will solve traffic problems never goes to the Northern half of the A4174 on a weekday.

This is the MOD car park approach to the A4174, not even the RR proper, yet the road is blocked by cars

Here they are stuck, waiting to get onto the ring road. What is wrong? Don't know. When will it be fixed? Don't know. The BMW to the far right of the pic knows a sneaky solution, an "exit strategy" that works. Too bad the MOD don't have viable exit strategies for other problems, like wars in Afghanistan.

Looking north to the roundabout you can see the BMW way ahead in the left lane. Instead of trying to turn right at the car park exit roundabout, it went left as far as the abbey wood nursery, did a U-turn there where the lane separation goes away, and snuck up the left hand lane for vehicles heading west. The congestion is mostly for vehicles heading east towards the M32.

Whatever happened, it spreads. Here is Muller Road, fifteen minutes later. Same thing: no movement of motors towards the M32.

South Gloucs. council needs to recognise the problem and widen the A4174, while Bristol Council needs to listen to us, and widen Muller Road. Cut down the trees, take away the unused pavement. Job done.

Signage

This pedestrian/bike sign not far from Emerson's Green shows not only some distant destinations, but "public house", directing you to a nearby public house

This is of course "the bridge inn"

Prior to the transformation of this quiet greenery into a ring road, this pub was a dull, rural pub. Now, overlooking the ring-road, it is remiscent of one of the 1960s service stations overlooking the M6 (i.e. like Chernobyl B services just N. of Lancaster). Cyclists can have a rest cycling alongside the ring road, sip a beer, and admire the passing cars, while shouting to each other over the traffic noise.

Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems

This is the A4174 Ring Road heading from Emerson's Green to the M32. It is a weekday evening, so even the high-occupancy traffic lane is full of single occupant vehicles not moving.

Campaigners for the removal of the 2+ lane during the morning rush hour dream of this exact same situation on their morning drive in.

This jam is pretty predicable; morning and evening: traffic jam here. There is no cause other than traffic volumes on the ring road, caused by M32 congestion, caused by an inability of vehicles to get off the M32 at Muller Road, St Pauls and the city centre, which is caused by buses and bicycles taking up space, and the excessive number of pedestrian crossings, according to our strategic partners the Association of British Drivers.

The ABD have recently flagged up a new concern, that the EU is building a new in-car spy network -CVIS . For those of us building city-wide vehicle spy networks, this is news, as EU funding would be very handy. This led us to the CVIS home page, and a recent workshop on intelligent roads. At this point we feel we must disappoint our ABD fellow-travellers with the bad news that this is not an attempt by central government to track everyone's movement. That can already be done by monitoring mobile phone movements across cell quadrants; no need to force upgrade-every car, as it covers old vehicles and pedestrians. No, this is actually an attempt by the car manufacturers to render the entire current fleet of vehicles technically obsolete.

A key problem with today's vehicles is that they last too long -hence the German and UK old car scrappage scheme -people just aren't buying new cars at a rate that sustains the EU car industry any more, and there is a limit to what can be done on the mechanical engineering side of car design and the appearance of cars to make them obsolete faster. By adopting a high-tech interior, from MP3 and SatNav to DVD players to children, you can introduce an obsolescence rate driven by the lifetime of technologies, not engine longevity. The CVSI scheme takes that idea and raises it, by having the in-car computing communicate with peers (warn vehicles nearby of ABS-hard braking, ice conditions, crashes), and with roadside infrastructure.

The best summary of the work is New Transport Paradigms of the 21st century. Ignoring the fact that new Transport Paradigms of the late 21st century are likely to be a horse and cart and a sailing ship, it's an interesting read. On P28, for example, a key feature of the system will be that it will tell you that you can drive down a bus lane. In Bristol, we do not need to wait the rollout of an EU-wide car-to-car communication infrastructure to do that.

From a datacentre-state, the CVIS infrastructure isn't that interesting. We can already track vehicle movements, so the only issue here is that the city is trying to provide data back to the cars, such as where there is a parking space, then reverse parking for you. But how do you prevent non-CVIS vehicle owners from ignoring your rights and stealing that space first?

The other amusing entry is from the French Autoroute Operators, which on page 17discusses their objectives: profit

Factors of success of cooperative traffic management

1. New actors in traffic management (automotive industry, telecom industry, equipment and content providers,…) work with road operators.
2. The business model recognizes the economic value all along the chain of the information production.
3. To give evidence that each driver need on board reliable traffic information and pay for that as he does for tyres, energy or airbag.

This is pretty profound. It implies that the road operators view the road safety data -traffic information- that they collect as their property, and only something that should be shared with the cars if the drivers are prepared to pay for it.

This is not a police state, no, its just another source of revenue for the road operators and the car manufacturers.