Bristol's secret chainsaw problem

There's a weapon in Bristol that nobody discusses: Chainsaws.

They're a useful tool, but in the wrong hands, danger. Thankfully, chainsaw-crime is fairly low level in the city -and mainstream media hasn't picked up on it. Attend a Police PACT meeting and in between the hippies ranting about cars, we tax-payers rightfully complaining about bicycles and skateboarders, someone stands up and complains about a neighbour cutting someone to pieces with a chainsaw. "We'll look into it", the police say, but nothing ever happens.

This week though, Chainsaw-rage surfaced, with an altercation behind parkway station between a taxi driver and a chainsaw-wielding pickup driver. On a weekday morning.

Having recently had to drive to parkway station and then back across Bristol at 5:20 pm, experiencing the full joy of the ring road at its most stationary, it's easy to understand why this part of the city is road-rage hotbed. But at 10:20 am? The mid-morning lull? Not a tense time at all. Whoever spin their chainsaw must have had a grudge against taxis.

And who do we think in the city has the biggest grudge against taxis? That's right, cyclists. Always getting upset about the revenue-earning tax-paying taxis in the ASLs, always getting upset about the taxis in the bus lanes sounding their horns to get the tax-dodging cyclists out of the way of the important paying customer. Those are the people most likely to go over the edge, get their chainsaw out and run amok round a taxi rank -be it at Parkway or Temple Meads.

Attached is a photograph of an out-of-city Bicycle and Chainsaw shop.

This is exactly the kind of crime-enabling one-stop-shop that should never be allowed. Bicycles are a crime, and a chainsaw in the hand of a cyclist -a crime in the making!

Fear the Angles of Death

We are mailed a link by "VP" to a French video, Angles Morts

This is profound. Up until this moment we hadn't understood why anyone in Paris would pay the premium for a 4x4, even as a status symbol to keep up with your peers, when by doing so you sacrificed the ability to park in a busy city.

However this video shows that yes, the vehicle size may make mini parking spaces unusable, but the higher ground clearance of the machines makes it easier to get your car over the raised separation between road and bike lane, and so park in bike lanes -that are unreachable by "legacy" cars. It opens up more parking than ever before. Having a status vehicle that saves you 30 minutes of snow-chain work on your annual ski trip is an added bonus.

Similarly: SmartCars. By producing a car so small, so nimble, it has managed to get cars into those places that were forever forbidden to cars. By investing in small urban vehicles, Mercedes have freed our European cities' pavements from the tyranny of pedestrians!

a car in disguise

This little tactic from France merits attention: avoiding being towed away by disguising the vehicle as something else.

Given the DVLA drive round looking for tax disks, and the inevitable CPZ rollout will involve ticketing non residents, there's a lot of appeal in covering your vehicle over with a big sheet in the city. Owners of open-top triumphs tend to have to do this anyway, to keep out the water, so perhaps you could get away with it in the controlled parking areas.

France: school dropoff

They make kids walk to school before 8 am in France. Walk. Even though they get little wheelie bags to make it easier.

And all the parents seem to go along with this, as there is no sign of any cars. How was such a miracle pulled off?

Ah. Fencing off the road.

That would probably work in Bristol too, though it would create an extended dropoff-zone further away from the school where all the danger would lie.

France: zebra crossing parking #2

Here is a follow up photo showing one car that has actually been ticked for parking on a zebra crossing

Presumably, parking so far from the pavement, passing vehicles cannot get past


It is good to see such a dangerous and selfish attitude towards other car drivers is punished. Possibly some form of ticketing system for bad parking is something to consider for Bristol, after suitable consultation.

France: motorcycle parking

One recurrent complaint from some of the Bristol Cycling members is motorbikes using their bike parks, and so making it harder to park bicycles. But the motorbikes are forced there because the parking areas allocated for motorbikes are usually full of cars. Unless parking a car in those areas is an enforced offence, motorbikes have to park where they can, which means bike parks.

Here in France, a different approach has been tried.

The reserved motorbike parking area have sheffield-style stands in them, so that both motorbikes and bicycles can be locked in them. This provides a place for both vehicles to be parked, out of busy pavements. Thus even pedestrians are not inconvenienced.

Cars cannot use them, although they can double park in front of them.

This is clearly a simple idea that would benefit motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians. Why then, is it not going to be used in Bristol? Because it would remove valuable car parking spaces in the city. Pushing the bikes and motorbikes onto the pavement saves space for cars. As for pedestrians, well, who cares?

France: enhancing Zebra crossing safety

Another proposal that is hoped will justify the West of England Partnership funded fact finding expedition is that there is a large amount of extra parking capacity on zebra crossings. In Bristol it is the approach to the crossing that is generally viewed as OK for short term parking. But that still leaves the crossings themselves free.

In France, the crossing itself is a parking facility. Yet it still functions as a place for tourists to wait in the hope that a passing car will stop for them.

Possibly, parking over the crossing may warn visitors that these crossings do not provide any safety feature, and that passing cars will not stop.


And so should not be used.

Given that Bristol cars do not stop as often as they are nominally required to do at zebra crossings, adopting this French innovation would have similar safety benefits, and add much more parking capacity to our city. As the crossings are often placed close to schools and shops, parents and shoppers would benefit greatly.

France: school parking

And why the airport travel? Because the West of England Partnership have recognised that the contributors to this blog are doing more to improve travel in the area than their previous set of consultants, so are funding our trips to different parts of the world. This week, a look at how the south of france deals with their traffic problems.

Look at this. Its a school, with the same car-on-pavement problems as all of Bristol's schools, but fixed.

A set of bollards away from the kerb effectively stop any parents, even if they own 4X4s and are really important, from using the pavement parking area. And you can't park in front of the bollards as that would block the road entirely, which is generally considered bad form.


This is clearly wrong, as it denies these important people the right to park their cars next to the school, so forcing them to park further away and walk, costing the parents 10 minutes, twice a day. With 110 schools in the city (i.e. ignoring nursery and private schools), and room for four cars in front of each, that's 410 cars/day parking in directly front of Bristol schools, a total of 8200 minutes. Which, under the revised NATA road costing rules, means that allowing parents with cars to park directly in front of the school, saves Bristol's drivers lots of money.

No, Bristol should not use such low-cost techniques to stop parking in front of schools, when we can show that such parking saves the city's parents so much money.

A little bit of the Alps.

It's been wet out there on the bike, the trails are muddier than they were in January. The only bright spot it any videos still to watch from the Tour de France. No stage winner got expelled for failing a drug test, so you don't get to watch a race like the Landis Columbiere/Joux-Planes stage or Vinokourov in the Pyrenees...knowing that the winner of the stage is now serving a two year ban from pro-cycling for EPO, steroid or testeosterone abuse. We can look at the alps, and think, it would be great to go out there.

Of course, fitness aside, there is the small problem of surviving cycling round the French towns. Their priorite a droite rule that gives vehicles to the right priority isn't too hard to deal with, as we are used to cars ignoring UK right of way rules. The cyclist-driver communications may consist of French words they don't yet teach in school, but a bit of UK swearing seems to work, and if not the old nose-blow into the open window is still an option.
No, what's hard is learning how to cycle properly on the wrong side of the road, so when you jump off the pavement onto traffic, you do it into an empty lane, instead of going head on into a french bus. You need to develop the instinct to fall to the right instead of the left, and you need to look out for traffic off your left side. Skills that are hard to learn in Bristol.

Until today. Because, with the opening of the new Temple Meads/Eastside Bridge Crossing, there is a new bike path joining Temple Quay with the ibis hotel. A French hotel, by a French chain. And look what they have given us, a new french style bike path, with pretty little cobbles.

With pretty little logo cobbles to gently show cyclists which side of the path to cycle on.


Logos that are on the mainland europe side of the path. Yes, we now have, in Bristol, a bike path that is officially for cycling on in 'mainland' style. So even though the Alps are a distant dream, we can head down here and train for it. We can cycle along on the right-hand-side of the road, looking ahead for the next patisserie, dreaming of our next pain-au-chocolate or mille-feiulles. Yes, with this path, Bristol is slowly becoming a continental city. [Photos by TerryM and SteveL]

Bike Lanes Near Annecy

For contrast, here is a bike lane near Annecy, France.

It is designed so that road cyclists and rollerbladers can proceed at top speed down the path

A small gravel area on the side with a "pedestrian marking" shows the area for mountain bikes to have fun in, though there are no jumps or other technical obstacles to make it very interesting.

At the actual junction there is an offset barrier which allows roller bladers to zig-zag through at full speed

While bicycles have a slightly harder chicane-style solution to the problem of crossing the road without stopping.

Discrimination

As has been covered earlier, parking at corners is fairly common, regardless of whom it inconveniences

But what do we see on this little French car, but a polite note telling them not to park this way in future

But look, the car is barely sticking out from Brookfield Road, Cotham into the narrow alleyway of Brookfield Alley. It is hardly blocking anyone, and if they are blocked in, well, they could reverse out 100 metres onto a blind junction on Cotham Brow, what's the harm in that?

I think someone is just picking on the car because it is foreign. In France, having a number plate with a 78 or 92-98 as the last digits would mark you out as from Paris on its suburbs; everyone else would treat you badly. Here we can't distinguish which parts of the UK a car is from, but something French is an obvious target for telling off