BRI parking: still waiting for a response from the PR team

After the BRI notified us residents of the Bearpit that we were to be graced with a new 8 storey car park above the only children's playground in the Stokes Croft area, we dropped their PR team a note On Aug 7 saying, essentially, how can you defend this?

We followed this up on Aug 21, saying "hoping for a response here", and got something back saying "we will be answering this".

It's now September, and as they say, "silence is usually a sign of inability to come up with a good excuse".

So again, out with another email. For the curious, here is the view of the staff housing they plan to demolish to make way for 800 parking spaces —the view as seen from the Dove Street flats' kids playground. That's a three storey tenement: imagine that with 5 more storeys above, brought almost up to the railings, and full of cars driving around all day. That's what the BRI wants to do.



One little thing we've come across in our research is the UBHT 2020 Green vision document, which sets out their vision of a sustainable future, especially in light of the NHS to step up to its duty of reducing national CO2 emissions by 80%. Being the largest single employer in the UK, and seeing millions of patients every day, the NHS is a critical part of meeting that goal -so it's good to see Bristol's hospitals leading the way.


The existing document is worth a read though, especially page 8, which estimates 1 vehicle in 20 (where?) is on NHS business -which implies they are a significant factor in our pollution and congestion issues.

Travel by staff and patients is another area we currently do not account for in our carbon footprint.
However, we recognise the significant environmental impact that our staff and patient travel has. It is estimated that one in twenty vehicles on our streets are on NHS business as staff patients or visitors. As such we have developed a green travel plan to reduce the impacts of travel.

There's a followup point on P13,

 supporting a shift away from car travel to more sustainable and healthy transport alternatives.

Sadly, the author of that paper, "Deborah Lee, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Green Champion", appears to have moved up to gloucestershire; we'll have to do some research on who is their replacement at that level, and whether the 2020 green vision has been superceded by one which discusses driving to work as a core aspect of the future.

For now, though, another email to the press team, this time highlighting the fact we know that they're also the PR team for MetroBus, so are actually part of a story of their own: does the PR team for MetroBus believe that MetroBus is going to transform Bristol's transport or not?

From: Bristol Traffic <bristol.traffic@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2018 at 13:59
Subject: Re: hospital parking feedback
To: <James.Hinchcliffe@jbp.co.uk>

Still waiting

It comes across that as the communications partner for the UBHT multistorey car park, you just weren't prepared for any form of detailed analysis. Its was predictable that someone was going to say "how much will be staff?", "don't you have 800+ spaces already when you count up all the parking across the UBHT campus?", and "how can you say it is set back on the hill when there's a childrens playground behind?"

Yet these are exactly the kind of questions you should expect after sending out a letter to those local residents whose children play in the car park, who live in the central bristol "red" pollution zone,

Here's a new question then: how does the UBHT reconcile this with their 2020 green vision, which also covers the NHS's requirement to participate in CO2 reductions, and explicitly says  on page 8 "It is estimated that one in twenty vehicles on our streets are on NHS business as staff patients or visitors. As such we have developed a green travel plan to reduce the impacts of travel."

We are struggling to find any way to make the proposed parking defensible other than an outright admission "FirstBus/Metrobus is a failure and we've given up trying to reduce staff driving numbers". Which, given your position as the communications partner for FirstBus, puts in a somewhat sticky situation.

Please can you at least supply an approximate deadline for your responses.

On Tue, 21 Aug 2018 at 08:51, James Hinchcliffe <James.Hinchcliffe@jbp.co.uk> wrote:
Dear Bristol Traffic.

We’re very sorry for the delay in coming back to you and still intend to answer your original query, but suggest we also wrap that response up with the issue you raise below.

We’ll be in touch as soon as possible with a substantive reply.

Many thanks

On behalf of:

Tel: 0800 130 3270
Email: UHBT@jbp.co.uk
Website: www.uhbristol.nhs.uk/transporthub

UBHT: our next email to the BRI PR team

Two weeks, and silence from the PR company tasked with selling an eight storey car park in the central bristol "red zone" as a benefit, here is our followup to our initial email.

Hello.

Sadly, we don't seem to have had a reply to our previous email..

Never mind —a polite response would have been nice.

We have a few of questions for our ongoing coverage. While you can opt out of answering them, it will save time compared to filing FOI requests, and give you an opportunity for you to present your arguments.

Terminology

1. What is a transport hub and how is it different from a normal car park?
2. If it is because it has secure staff cycle parking, do the existing BRI and St Michael's hill staff car parks qualify for the title "transport hub"?
3. If not: why not?

Current/Planned capacity

1. Across the entire UBHT Kingsdown Campus of BRI and St Michael's Hill hospitals, what is the total number of parking spaces?
2. What is their breakdown into: facilities, staff, disabled and visitor
3. How was the number of new spaces to build chosen? Was it demand driven, or simply "number of floors times spaces per floor?"
4. With the proposed multistorey-transport-hub, what will be the new breakdown of facilities, staff, disabled and visitor?
5. Why was this specific balance chosen?

Demand Modelling

1. Which tool did you use for modelling demand?
2. Did you model the pollution impact, and if so on the "we trust the manufacturers" EURO5/6 numbers, or the real world datasets?
3. Did your model consider that Metrobus promises a step change in Bristol transport? If so, what impact will it be considered to have? If not, why not?
4. Did any model you explored actually reduce pollution within the central bristol "Red Zone"?
5. Did you explore different mixes of staff/visitor allocation —and what impact did it have?
6. Did you explore different sizes of car park —and what impact did it have?

Finally, can we have the model you've built up? We can sort out the software.


Thanks,

The Bristol Traffic Team (data and traffic analysis department)

Bristol's Parking Problem: 2016 style

There's an article up on the evening post saying for the first time in a generation, a majority of people are using either buses, bikes or walking to work instead.

This is fascinating. Too bad there is no coverage of the methodology of the survey other than it's "a survey of the commuting habits of thousands of city residents". How did they conduct this survey? A random call of Bristol numbers? Did it include s survey of the rural backwaters of S Gloucs and N Somerset? Did they look at the distances travelled to measure commute-miles, rather than just journeys? Did they ask firstbus and wessex bus lines for data, along with ANPR logs and phone company travel datasets? These are the things we need to know.

Anyway, in the list of people the paper called for an opinion, they reached for their Fax Machine contact list and got in touch with Hugh Bladon, Bristol's member of Association of British Drivers, who is always woken up from his sleep for a quote. Hugh Bladon actually lives in Weston Super Mare, a town which is still looking forward to 1974, so it's always surprising that they can contact Hugh for a quote. That's 20 miles away, a distance quoted by Google maps as 38 minutes drive from Stokes Croft on a Sunday evening. If Mr Bladon really does commute into Bristol every day, he'll be spending an hour each way, first on the A370, A38 or M5+ portway, then in stop-go mode through town to finally reach his destination. And for what? To live in Weston? That's the place where Banksy hosted his Dismaland Exhibition —and that's not a coincidence. Probably the main problem they had there was people walking round town laughing at stuff and taking selfies in front of the sea front, not realising they weren't actually at the exhibition yet. Why would anyone voluntary live there? If you have children, think of what it does to their minds? And, think what it does to your life, with 2+h a day sitting in a car.

Essentially, you can't trust the judgment of anyone who lives in WsM of their own volition. So the fact he is called on to be the ABD spokesman is a bit worrying for them: can't they find anyone else?

And what did he have to say? Rather than go for the survey methodology —always the first line of attack—, he accepted the findings and then blamed the council

I suppose people are getting fed up with travelling into the city. here is not enough provision for people to park, and I suppose more people are using the park and rides. I would also think George Ferguson and his 20mph scheme are frightening people who think they might get a ticket for doing maybe 23, or 24mph Those are the sort of things that drive away people.With the expanding economy, I would have thought more people would be in cars. It might also be there is not enough parking. Cycle lanes now take up a lot of tarmac where road parking used to be.

This is hilarious. We have never heard of anyone too scared to drive into the city in case they get a ticket(*).

Blaming the RPZ for removing a large amount of free-at-point-of-use commuter parking is something he should have gone for, but instead he imagines that people are scared of getting a ticket for driving at 24 mph. That's like saying people are scared of using the M4 in case they get a ticket for driving at 74 mph. They aren't, you don't.

As for the "Cycle lanes now take up a lot of tarmac where road parking used to be.". He must have a different cycle map than everyone else. The purpose of cycle lanes is to provide short stay parking. Even bus lanes are only closed to parking for 3 hours a day, 21 h a week.

But he does have a bit of a point: there isn't enough parking. Only what you want to park has changed.

Look at this video of a Bristol (not a WsM) resident cycling to the shops on a weekend.

1. There are no cycle lanes.
2. There are still people driving, not scared of getting a ticket for driving at 23 mph.
3. A lot of the people driving don't seem to looking where they are going.
4. None of the car parking space has been re-allocated to cycle lanes.
5. There are lots of bike racks,  about 8 opposite where Havana Coffee used to be, two over the road by that, then more by costa coffee and sainsbury's.
6. All of these bike racks are full.

There is nowhere to park a bicycle



Our reporter cycles down hill, avoids getting hit by the 4x4 turning from Aberdeen Road without looking, and the hatchback pulling out from the other side of the road without looking, carries on a bit, having to wait with a car in front for a driver taking their time to reverse park, then pulls over themselves to find somewhere to park. First rack: 12 bikes; no room for more. Visible across the road: two racks, four bikes, no space. They continue down to Whiteladies Road. On the far side of the road, there's space for about 30 bikes, looking fairly full. On this side of the road, 6 more racks, space for 12. Except, again, full.

One of the bikes there half of an abandoned frame, lying on its side. So the the tax dodger gets to do something nobody who drives in from WsM can get away with; they stick their own bike on top of it, lock up, and go to the shops. So we see approximately six cars worth of space allocated -all from the pavement, we note- for bicycles, which is a fraction of the space allocated to car parking. What we see in this video is, on Cotham Hill alone, 32 cars, two spaces free. For bikes, 48 spaces: all taken, albeit some with dissolving relics.

Is this an unusual event? Not really; the same situation was encountered on Gloucester road an hour earlier: one space outside Maplins, someone else queueing for it before the tax dodger had even unlocked. Because on that side of the road, there are about eight bike stands, from Zetland Road up. In contrast, if you wanted to drive there, there's more space.

Essentially, we are seeing a shift to cycling as a transport option in some parts of the city —and we aren't seeing the city adapting to that.  Hugh can complain about removal of parking, but there is significantly more space allocated to parking here than any other other form of transport.

This little stretch of Whiteladies Road is interesting, as it is what the ABD use in the videos calling the council "bonkers", showing how shops have suffered from a lack of parking and have had to shut down.



Well, our anecdata beats theirs, at least in terms of being up to date, and what it says is "Bristol does have a parking problem, but it's not just for cars".

(*) If you have —or know someone who has— stopped driving around out of fear of getting ticketed at 23 mph, please get in touch.

Get your tanks off my lawn!

As d-day for the Clifton RPZ rollout approaches, already tempers are getting hot. What will happen? Will it be tanks up Whiteladies road a-la Soviet Liberation of Berlin, or will be house-to-house battling like Stalingrad?

We know this: it'll be noisy.

Clifton Resident James Gadd sends us this video of one of the pre-RPZ skirmishes -one where the Clifton Popular Front and their tank are nowhere to be seen. Here it's commuter vs resident, soon escalating to the police and then finally the builders. As anyone who has spent time in the city will know, builder's trucks are some of the most damaged out there, and so have little qualms about banging up against someone's car while they get their scaffolding out. Which is why that's the time even the police should consider their exit strategy.

Part one: opening skirmish



Part two: the residents come out with their pitchforks



Part 3: here come the Polis



Part 4: I see your police car and raise you a Builder's Lorry


Part 5: call it a draw



James -thank you for these, and we look forward to more as rollout day arrives!

Aberystwyth Road, Bishopston

Time to catch up with the Aberystwyth Faction's proposals for an improved Gloucester Road -one that makes the bus lane tidal and so adds short-stay parking in the opposite direction.

We have now heard from the councillor behind the petition:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Willingham <David.Willingham@bristol.gov.uk>
Date: 17 December 2013 13:48
Subject: RE: Gloucester Road Parking Changes

  The petition neither mentions nor proposes making any changes to bus or cycle lanes as that is not what it is asking the council to change. 

  If you visit Gloucester Road, then you will find that there are various parking bays that could be brought into use to allow the traders to benefit from more passing trade during the peaks, without having a detrimental effect on cyclist safety.

  As a local cyclist who uses the Gloucester Road, I have no intention of trying to make it more dangerous for cyclists, and if done carefully and in the right locations, I believe the proposed change would make it possible to share the limited road space a little more efficiently.

  If the council do decide to act on this petition, then they would be required to perform a highways safety audit of any locations they intend to change, as well as statutory consultation on any changes, so all road users, local residents or traders could have their say.

Regards,

David
--
Cllr Dr David Willingham
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Bishopston ward

So there you go: it's about sharing the limited road space a little more efficiently.

If you look at the petition, it does call out the recessed parking bays outside  288 Gloucester Road -the original Maplins site -these changes are non-controversial and likely to be unopposed, except perhaps matched by some demands for bike parking alongside.

What is a flash point is going to be the sentence "Furthermore we call upon Bristol City Council to implement "tidal" parking on Gloucester Road,". Because its goals, "Parking on the inbound carriageway during the evening peak" means "no bus or bike lane inbound in the evening rush hour", while "Parking on the outbound carriageway during the morning peak." means the same in opposite direction.

This is where the controversy lies. What is being proposed here implies no bus lane to-and-from the North Fringe commute, which means

1. No bike lane for anyone heading to the north fringe
2. No bus lane for anyone trying to get the Wessex red busses. These are the ones used to get to and from UWE -and if the students can't go by bus or bike, that leaves car. We don't want that. They don't pay enough taxes to deserve any tarmac.
3. Anyone commuting by car up the north fringe is now going to get held up by congestion on the A38. As that's something that wasn't covered in the C4 documentary: what it was like to drive down Gloucester Road before the showcase routes were launched. It was much, much, worse. The buses would have to stop in your lane to let passengers on and off, and if there was a bus heading north stuck behind a minicab with its hazards  on near the minicab office, your road would block as the two buses would never be able to pass each other. Gloucester Road was only viable as a driving commute option on those days that the council was actually enforcing parking. Which is something you wouldn't know on the commute until you were committed. 

See that? No matter how you get to the North Fringe, car, bus or even bicycle, the showcase bus route benefits. We don't expect the motoring advocate groups to realise that, as Bob Bull of portishead, official spokesman of the ABD in the evening post, is too busy complaining about his journey along the portway to appreciate how the bus lane helps commuting by car.

We do fear that the bus companies will pick up on this -as will UWE. And the cyclists, well they are the all-powerful-cycle-lobby.

Gloucester Road is going to be flash point there.

• Statistics imply that Gloucester Road has the highest number of reporting cycling incidents. -if you add Cheltenham Road to the figures, the A38 stands out as either the busiest cycling route in the city, or one of the more hazardous. Notable is that the Railway Path, which has the highest use, doesn't appear on the list at all.
• Bristol Cycling Campaign's followups on police involvement in any of these incidents imply the outcome is "not interested". This has the potential to be an issue in its own right.
• Even the mountain bikers are getting involved in this. Because while they are happy doing things like the red bits on the Super Nova trail, they at least know if they do get it wrong, they won't have somebody on the phone drive straight over them.
• A lot of the North Fringe employers have Bicycle User Groups with group mailing lists -easily organised, and capable of co-opting driving colleagues into the battle.
• The cyclists have more influence in the national press.

Putting it together, the shops may think that a review of the bus lane and a tidal system may get wide support -after their success in ensuring they retain their commuter parking in the RPZ-, but they are potentially getting into trouble. How are they going to react if cycling campaigners start handing out leaflets saying "email your councillor" to cyclists waiting at junctions on gloucester road? Can they take the trade of cyclists for granted -or are they going to have to deal with people coming into the shops, creating queues at peak hours, then when they get to the counter announcing they won't shop there as the shopkeepers are endangering their lives.

This is going to one to watch.

As for now, at the time of writing (16:02, Wednesday December 18), the petitions stand at

• Cyclists for a better bike lane: 135
• Aberystwyth: 73.

That's gone in a week from about 62-63 each -the cycling petition doubling, the shopkeeper's going by ten. This should be a warning sign to the councillors: they run a risk of making more enemies than friends here.

The Aberystwyth Faction: short stay parking matters more than life

This is just a first post on what is going to brew up into the next story to keep the Evening Post readers suitably outraged. Remember: we covered it first.

Regular readers may recall our coverage of a recent channel4 documentary, one that showed how the council was enforcing the parking restrictions in the showcase bus route at peak hours -and worse than that, by doing it with CCTV, ensuring that people really really didn't stop there, rather than "stop for 10 minutes -no harm done" stopping.

Well, now it's got national coverage, it's going to blow up

The "more parking" campaigners did manage to hold off the rollout of resident parking zones nearby, so ensuring that the parking areas will be available for staff and other commuters -leaving a remaining problem: where do shoppers go?

The answer is obvious: the bus and bike lanes.

Hence a petition: Fairer parking on Gloucester Road.

This is The Aberystwyth Faction's petition

We call upon Bristol City Council to remove peak parking restrictions from all parking bays that do not cause obstruction to traffic lanes of Gloucester Road, 

...
Furthermore we call upon Bristol City Council to implement "tidal" parking on Gloucester Road, and to permit the following:
•Parking on the inbound carriageway during the evening peak.
•Parking on the outbound carriageway during the morning peak.

This is pretty significant as if they get their way, it means that the bike lanes will be dead, and the bus lanes will only work for people heading towards town in the morning, away in the evening.

Which means that anyone trying to cycle in the opposite direction, say to school, or even to work on the North Fringe -and get there alive, are stuffed.

The right to park outside a shop is more important than the rights of others to live

In the other corner, just warming up, are the people who mistakenly believe that their right to live is more important than allowing people to get a bag of chips without having to park round the corner and walk 100 paces.

Their petition: Petition: Uninterrupted Cycle Lane on both sides along entire Gloucester Road

This is going to go head to head -two pressure groups, seeing who can be the loudest. Those demanding that Gloucester Road becomes like Aberystwyth: free range parking, or those who don't want the cycling clock pushed backwards -but instead want the bike lane expanded and enforced.

It's going to get exciting!

Clifton Expanded Parking Opportunities -consultation

Back in 2011, we looked at the Neighbouhood Partnership proposals for Clifton, adding more parking under a guise which even we were impressed by "to calm traffic". That's a great lie -one to use the next time we get told off for double parking while delivering some of our special adult entertainment products to the Clifton area.

We looked at -and supported- proposals for

• The removal of two bays in Hotwells
• Adding parking in the bottom of Pembroke Road and  further up
• Removing the yellow lines on Clifton Park.
• Adding more parking anywhere it could be found in Princess Victoria Street

It's been nearly two years and we suspected this plan had fallen by the wayside, as the traffic planning officers cornered the councillors and pointed out that the political price of adding eight to ten more parking spaces to the area wasn't worth it. Assuming unrestricted parking on Pembroke road and Hope Chapel Hill, 6 more residents (i.e. voters) would get somewhere to park overnight. If the clifton village parking added an extra four spaces, with a 2h limit, then an eight hour day would add 24 parking opportunities. That's 30 votes overall -max. Yet the political capital spent up on trying to fight the cycling city in one part of the city would be high -because you'd be having to say "we won't spend any money providing safe crossings of Pembroke Road, or the east end of Clifton Park" -issues that also matter to Clifton voters -and potentially more than 30 a day.

Good news! Over Christmas -when the schoolparents would have been away, the consultation for the Traffic Regulation Order to add these spaces has arrived!

Not only that -they propose to add a space by taking away a proposed on-road cycle parking buildout! Finally a part of the city has stood up to this invasion of bicycles, by opting to provide a short stay parking opportunity for a car instead  -leaving cyclists with some insecure bollards that only the foolhardy would use.



To invest in adding 30 parking opportunities a day over making walking and cycling safe is a bold move -one for which we congratulate the two councillors for doing! They must have felt that those thirty votes may keep the two liberal democrat councillors safe, despite the fact that their Westminster colleagues are widely derided as the useless lap-dogs of George Osborne and David Cameron, Presumably they recognised that the people trying to walk or cycle in Clifton are poor people, unlikely to live in the area -or if they do, unlikely to vote.

We in the Bristol Traffic team are overjoyed that in one part the city, the people and the councillors have finally listened to what we have  been saying since 2008; pandering to the cyclists and pedestrians is a mistake!

Looking back at the old days, when the late Chris Hutt was our Clifton Correspondent, what was the third post in our history? Photographic proof that Range Rovers didn't have anywhere to park near the schools except the pavements.


Clifton has always been a special place for us -as much a centre of the driving and parking community as Stokes Croft -albeit with less run-down vehicles-so are excited about this new proposal, part of what we now term, the anticycling-city.

We strongly encourage everyone who supports us, who wants our streets clear of tax-dodging cyclists, for us not to be held up by pedestrians trying to get over zebra crossings, to read the TRO, and respond praising it fully.

We would particularly like for respondents to draw out the proposal "to remove the cycle parking place in Princess Victoria Street (not in force on-site)". This is the best example of how this TRO represents a bold action by the residents and councillors to do something nobody else in the inner city has done -to fight back!

Secret Whiteladies road GBBN parking

We are happy to declare the whiteladies road showcase bus route a success.

Before, parking here on whiteladies road was forbidden, because it had zig-zags. Now it is somewhere you can park during rush hour.

This is because the parking restrictions are not live until the signs go up-until then buses and cyclists get to go down the single lane, while we can park there all day.
 
Apparently this enlightened state of affairs will last another month or two.

Hold the Road 2

Last Friday, we reported on the 50 plus new parking spaces available on Whiteladies Road. We featured Audi YL06DYP taking advantage of the new spaces.

It appears that, whilst owners of lesser quality German vehicles have yet to take advantage of these new parking spaces, word has spread within the Audi driving community.

Here we see another Audi - WV60EZL - taking advantage of the same space.

As a civic service, we're thinking of writing to all car manufacturers to let them know of the scheme provided by Bristol City Council as part of the Greater Bristol Bus Network.

H/T Dru Marland for the photo

Hold the Road

As regular readers will know, we have covered the GBBN (Greater Bristol Bus Network) before.

We were sceptical at first, thinking that it might reduce parking opportunities in favour of the most profound losers in society: those that don't own a car.

Well, there are still cyclists, pedestrians and buses using Whiteladies Road, but it turns out that the revised road layout carefully concealed at least fifty new parking spots.

Here we see YL06DYP taking advantage of one of these new parking spaces. 

This is genius: we look forward to more use of Bristol's roads for static vehicles.

Free Cabot Circus and Primark Parking

People are always hitting this site looking for free parking near Primark and Cabot Circus -here's a new one.
 
As this is in the centre of the bearpit roundabout, you will have to somehow sneak through the crash barriers to get in.

But how to get out?

BRI parking issues on Southwell Street

Someone cornered a team member a few weeks back and said "where are the secret plans for Southwell Street?". We forwarded them on, but are still waiting back for the note the police stuck through their door advising them on the rules for parking on pavements in Montpelier.

We are also trying to get permission to reprint one email from Ben Hamilton Baillie, Kingsdown resident and shared-space advocate, sent to the Bristol council denouncing the proposals. We need his permission, plus a review from the legal team, before printing. Legal? Well, it is somewhat critical of the plans.

In the meantime, here's what's happening as a video

and a photo of V984DNA

Why the increased number of vans on the co-opted pavement and over the pedestrian-in-middle-of-road paintwork? BRI parking changes. With the closure of most of the Horfield Road car park for building works, there's a deficit of patient parking. 75 spaces in the St Michael's Hill car park area (through the tunnel to the right, perhaps?) being opened to patients and their visitors. Hence less parking for staff -who have no choice but to park on the pavements or pretend pavements.

There's a notice up on a lamppost on Marlborough Hill discussing this. It also lets slip that staff parking permits cost £4/day. Not bad for the city centre, not bad at all. Given that once the NHS gets privatised in the next 6-12 months, the annual "consultancy fee" with our GP for getting a disabled sticker will probably go up to £200/van, this rate starts to look appealing for city-centre commuters, although it's not quite as flexible as the magic blue sticker.

Cheltenham Road Parking issues

Now that the police have gone, the bikes and bus lanes have returned to their key role in the city: providing parking.

Here we see the outside of Uplands Mobile Multimedia, vendor of sound systems for cars.

Only customers and staff can park on its driveways, hence the large warning of 7x24 wheel clamping, £125 pound unclamping fee. If only we'd voted for the SNP, such things would be illegal, and we'd get free parking at the BRI. As it is, you can get clamped on private land. What to do.

Well, the shop provides a nice answere underneath:

PARKING
NOTICE
Parking in the
BUS LANE
`is permitted'
between
10am-4pm
Monday-Friday
&
All day Saturday
Your co-operation
is appreciated
THANK YOU

Technically that's wrong, as parking permitted all day sunday too, and after about 6:30pm weekdays. And if you are really important, you can park in it whenever you want.

What's interesting here is the "your co-operation is appreciated" phrase. Who do they want to co-operate? It's not the people parking -they don't need to co-operate. No, it must be the bus drivers, the cyclists, and the council, who must be kept an eye on in case they ever want to extend the bus lane hours to the whole day so as to help people on bicycles and public transport.

Abbeywood week, a discussion

Yesterday we mentioned that one problem with parking on the abbeywood cycle paths was not just the new bollards, it was harassment from cyclists. Here, sadly, we have an example.

This is V134DYC, a lorry minding its own business, parked on one of the Abbeywood cycle/pedestrian paths. By getting almost entirely on the path it is not interfering with any passing traffic.

Yet our cyclist reporter felt that there was some need to criticise the driver, to take a photograph of them, "for the database".

Fortunately, our lorry driver sees their gambit and raises it by pointing out that they too have a camera in their lorry, and the cyclist looked pretty silly -which, coming from a professional hi-viz person, are pretty harsh words.

We aren't convinced that the driver saying that Hitler used to disappear troublemakers like our cyclist report actually wins the argument.

1. Godwin's Law implies that whoever reverts to analogies with Germany's National Socialist government of 1934-1945 automatically loses the argument.
2. It's not clear that that government did persecute cyclists except when their religious or political beliefs were not aligned with that of the government.
3. It's not clear how this possibly incorrect bit of history deals with the problem that now there is nothing to stop cyclists taking videos and photographs of vehicles in their way and sticking it up online.

We look forward to better arguments in future.

Abbeywood Bollards: they don't help motorists

Having looked at the bollards, we are not sure whether we support them. Not because they can injure cyclists, but because they prevent motor vehicle access to the bike paths. We paid for them, we should get to use them!

Here, for example, is a South Gloucester Council lorry S764THY making use of one of the Abbeywood bike paths to park their lorry somewhere while they do some work on a roundabout.


If you look at this area, the double yellow lines mean that the shared pedestrian/bike path is the only place anyone can park. Yet bollards and harassment by cyclists -more on this another day- mean that the council and tax-dodgers are, together, removing our parking options.

Experiment #2011-1: we are using this path as an experiment to see if the war on the motorist really is over in S Gloucs, by reporting vehicles here to the authorities ( parklegally@southglos.gov.uk ) and making sure that nothing happens. If anyone gets told off or ticketed: the war on motorists is not over.

So far, we are pleased to see that S Gloucs parking services are happy not to care about this path, with this reply twelve days after we reported the issue:

Thank you for highlighting this problem to our department, however our Civil Enforcement Officers are not able to deal with (UNNECESSARY OBSTRUCTIONS) under the current Legislation Traffic Management Act 2004 (TMA04), this offence still comes under Police Officers or Police Community Support Officers who only have the powers of Enforcement for this Offence. 

I have also passed your complaint onto our street care department who are in charge of highways maintenance and asked them to investigate this issue and to please remove this vehicle from its obstructive position. 

Hope you find this information helpful and should you notice any other vehicles parked illegally with in South Gloucestershire please don’t hesitate to contact our department.

We are now continuing our experiment on new vehicles to see if S Gloucs police are on our side or not. The fact that Filton police station appears to be manned only by an answering machine bodes well.

Secret Clifton Down Shopping Centre Parking

dichohecho points us at this secret parking space hidden behind Sainsbury's on Whiteladies Road, which is also handy for that fine beveraging factility, the Alma Tavern.

This will let you combine a swift pint or two in the beer garden with some Saturday shopping, without having to deal with the shopping centre's own car park, or the now-paid-for railway parking area.

Irony

Apparently Americans don't 'get' irony.

Here in Bristol we thrive on it.

Especially at the Zoo.

Car Park.

On the Downs.

The mayor visits

Lovely story behind this photo -click on the link to get the full details from Gothick Matt on Flickr of his encounter of the Mayor's car 


What's impressive is not just that this is the second sighting of the car AE1 in our database, but that the photographer took the photograph because. as a Bristol Traffic reader, they've started to appreciate the things people have to do to park their car in the city -here on double yellow lines on a roundabout partially blocking the bike access.  We welcome such audience participation and are glad that Matt didn't cause any bother.

Incidentally, part of the Big Society theme is that we too may have our own elected mayor, "our own, personal, Boris". In the past, we have suggested that Carol Vordeman would make a good elected mayor. Since then we've moved on: the second tier former celebrity we want to rule us, to fix this city is Noel Edmonds! We support Noel Edmonds and his taxi for our own, local Boris!

4X4 Parking opportunities off Park Street

One of our reporters "P", sends in a couple of pics of Berkeley Square, off Park Street. The first notes the availability of a large area of  parking spaces.

Yet round the corner, the range rover K200V is parked in front of the steps, on the yellow lines. Our reporter asks us to explain the reasoning here.

Well, its obvious why anyone who owns a range rover would park where it has.

• It's drive in, reverse out, saves with the trickiness of a parallel park in such a vehicle.
• It's probably cheaper. If you park in a paid area you are expected to have a ticket, whereas in the single yellow lined area, it is free except if a traffic warden is to catch you out. If the penalty is £30, if the cost of being ticketed is less than one in 30, it's cheaper than paying a pound to park for a while.
• The paid parking area may be time limited, the penalty for parking their past the limit the same as on the yellow line -so why not park closest to your destination.
• Most importantly, the steps from the park actually provide a safe and convenient access point to the vehicle. Without them, getting in and our your Range Rover can be quite tricky.

Some people my think that the RR is blocking pedestrian access to and from the park. Not so. It is possible to get in and out, you simply cannot run down the stairs and straight into passing traffic. In the absence of any tax-payer funded pedestrian safety features, the range rover driver is providing such safety features as a charitable gift to people too poor to afford their own 4X4.

Vertical Parking: a new technique

A reader of our blog sends in this photo taken on 26th April 2008 showing a new parking technique in the quiet residential streets of Stoke Gifford

This is Ratcliffe Drive at 6am on a Sunday morning and it is the neatness of the new method of parking which is perhaps especially worthy of a mention. Apparently no-one heard or saw anything during the night (when, presumably, the "vertical parking" took place).

It does appear to have damaged one of the wing mirrors, which is often one of the motivators for parking on-pavement. However, once that mirrors is off -and who needs them anyway- it will work quite well. You can get a full vehicle into the same space normally taken by half a car. If used in the inner city -we are thinking Montpelier- it would let people double park on both the pavement and the road, so double the entire parking capacity of the area.