RPZ comes to Monty: Oh the Inhumanity!

• First they came to Kingsdown, and everyone celebrated.
• Then they came to Cotham, and nobody complained
• Then they came to Redland, and the main complaints were from people just outside the zone.
• They they came to St Pauls, and people were upset about the cost, rather than the parking
• Then they came to Clifton and the shopkeepers who wanted to drive to work were more focused on their convenience than the revenue gains on having customer parking, they paid for tanks to make their point, still lost —and now have signs up everywhere saying "30 minute parking is free, please come and shop despite all the horror stories we put out"

And now: Monty

It's fascinating to see how the Evening Post has finally managed finda an agenda they can get people even in the inner city to care about. Up till now, what the BEP wrote about was irrelevant. Like who cares about congestion in Westbury on Trym or what's happening in Stapleton.

No more. Instead they've managed to stir up horror stories and build a whole agenda which everyone wanting to be elected as a mayor is using as their core election theme.

It's almost as if the paper has found a way to stay relevant in an era of free news over the internet.


Well, unlike the Evening Post we've spent time in Montpelier and have a dataset going back years. On a road-by-road basis, such as Richmond Road.

This is what it used to look like




A road where the pavement was exclusively used for parking, yet still so tight that only the bold drove down it.

If you were, say, trying to walk your kids to school, you'd be in the same roadway, keeping a tight rein on your four year old in case they ran ahead and ended up under an oncoming van or a car pulling out from their parking space on that pavement.


It was essentially a "shared space"

Yet look now? Someone has painted double yellow lines up one entire side of it! You can now drive up this road without fearing for your paintwork!



Incredibly, you don't have to commit to that journey hoping you wont meet anyone coming the other way —as if that did happen, one of you would be reversing up a road so tight that you had to get it spot on or hear a scraping sound.

1. It is now possible to drive up and down Richmond road safely.
2. It is now possible to walk up richmond road on the pavement, and even send a small child to run ahead of you without worrying about it being run over.
3. It is now trivial to for a car and a bicycle to pass.

That is what the RPZ has brought to Montpelier: not just white lines, not just yellow lines —but pavements people can use.

Anyone who says "its destroying Montpelier" clearly has a vision of the area where nobody walked, where scenes of two drivers out their car shouting at each other as to who was going to reverse were viewed as quaint traditions.

And what does the Evening Post do? Rather than highlight how it has now become safer to walk or cycle, how it has become more convenient to drive through, they've pointed to the yellow paint that someone has thrown onto the ticket machine at (00:48). That's the machine on the pavement which was never visible before.

And while the BEP condemn the vandalism, they don' t really, they are proud to report it —and blame the mayor for making the protesters do it.

So for all this "evening post represents the people" fuss they are really fighting to preserve a time when pavements were for parking and children couldn't walk round Montpelier safely.

Why should we, the residents of the inner city care? We are just being mislead by a paper that is happy to manufacture controversy, and happy to find it in the lives of people who are unable to adapt to change. Tough.

At this point the RPZ-haters will be going "So where did the cars go, eh?" The answer there is: the council added extra parking spaces round the corner by marking St Andrews Road for echelon parking.

In this photo you can just about make out a car coming up behind the parked van blocking the view. Which highlights the issue with echelon parking: its got a higher collision rate, and is particularly bad for cyclists.

In order to make the RPZ rollout less controversial, the council chose to make cycling on St Andrews Road more hazardous.

That's something for the haters to consider.

Clifton: last days of Christchurch School paveparking

Royal Park is yet to get its markings, so we can view the invaluable space the council will be taking away, ruining with ugly yellow lines

Here, by Christchurch School, the lines already exist -but as they can be ignored, they have a beauty of their own

Round the corner, there's more pavement space. Its inevitable the council will put down double yellow lines here —just so schoolchildren can get to school safely

Yet look at our archives: we've evidence back from 2008 that there's enough space for cars and children!



Given that small children on scooters can already squeeze past parked cars, there is no justification in adding more ugly yellow lines —or even enforcing the ones that are already there

Royal York Crescent: ruined!

Royal York Crescent is the grandest of the Clifton terraces, overlooking the entire city.

Only now, look out the window and what do you see? Yellow lines.

Completely out of place in a historic environment, such as this pleasant rural-esque scene of a pickup paveparked behind some bollards

Utterly inappropriate removal of echelon parking opportunities on a blind corner.

There's only a few days until the car-hating council start enforcing these awful yellow lines

A few more days for the village to live

It's worth remembering that the motorist-haters were pushing for bike parking on these streets.

bike racks would ruin one of Bristol's —nay, one of Britain's—greatest Georgian crescents!

 

Castle Parking: Taking the 'P' out of Park

Here's the nice new corner piece of Castle Park and Broad Weir where pedestrians can sit and rest after a hectic day of shopping in Cabot Circus. The Council have gone to all the trouble of landscaping a formerly naff patch of ground in an effort to make it a bit more appealing. And like flies to manure, the paveparkers have found out that you can dump a vehicle there all day, just behind the bus stop.But wtach out, that newly laid turf is a bit wet and the mud might get on your tyres:(

Love bristol go brent -issue 2

More coverage of Brent, looking at anything we can learn from here

First, look at how the council has taken a lane away from the road -they could have turned it into a bike lane, but chose to add extra pavement, in the hope of adding extra walking area will increase footfall.

It doesn't, but it does provide some staff parking

Here and across the road

Where the bollards prevent staff parking, the shops are for sale. There are some conclusions to be drawn here.

More tangible is the effort gone to stop shoppers parking on the nearby pavements, with bollards backing up the yellow lines

bollards on bollards
 
It's the removal of the paveparking opportunities, along with the sainsbury's round the corner that killed this high street. Widening the pavement has done nothing for anyone: on foot, on car, or even pedalling along on two wheels

A Community RPZ? In Montpelier? As if.

In Montpelier today, Jon "ex-cllr" rogers is having some meetings proposing some community RPZ as opposed to an official one.

What does that mean ? Self enforced? Warning notes? Or something relying on guilt like the blinking 20 mph lights near schools?

It's not going to work -and if you want proof, take a trip round Montpelier

This is Richmond Road, one of the tightest streets in the area to drive along. Everybody walks in the pavement, because the pavement is the only way to fit two lanes worth of cars in.

Here we can see whether or not community-note-in-windscreen RPZs wil work.

Take this car, S589JDG. Purple note in its windscreen.

Anone thinking this note is complaining about a car on the pavement isn't from Montpelier.
 
It says

THIS IS A BAD PLACE TO PARK - SOME CARS CAN'T GET BY - & YOUR CAR RISKS BEING PRANGED

 While one of our reporters was taking the photo, a van had to get by, something that took about 5 minutes of some of the most careful driving you can do in a van, windows down, driver looking out, the Bristol Traffic consultant assisting.

It only worked because van mirrors are a different height to car ones -they managed to clear each other with 3-5 cm of gap, going through at crawling speed. The driver of this van deserves a lot of credit for how carefully they did this -though it did take about five minutes

If there had been contact, this wouldn't have been a wingmirror taxation -this would have been a bodywork tax. Which would have raised some interesting issues on responsibility.
 
If that had happened, the owner of S589JDG would have not seen any photographs from Bristol Traffic on the event -they'd have been destroyed.

Someone will no doubt comment and say "this is a one off", but our dataset says not: car parking in Montpelier makes it impossible to get any vehicle bigger than a van through without severe damage happening. We've also seen near fights developing in St Andrews Road -the wider road parallel to this one- over who reverses so as to let the oncoming traffic past a road narrowed by both-side parking.

We've stated before that it is business traffic where the cost of being held up can have a real cost attached to the time wasted. Commuting, school runs, shopping trips -fixable by setting off earlier. They aren't working hours and the cost is purely subjective.

Working in the city? Different. Delays increase journey times, reduce the number of journeys you can do a day, and place a limit on revenue.

This is why the Kingsdown RPZ has made driving through it easier. There's no need for anyone to write warning notes in purple ink to anyone inconsiderate enough to park so far out on the pavement that they block passing cars, there will be someone full time putting yellow stickers on the cars that hold up vehicles. These are a lot harder to ignore than purple notes, they stand out "pour encourager les autres".

Anyone who thinks a "community RPZ" is going to work is living in a world of unrealistic idealism -and missing the point that an RPZ would not only help residents get about their lives, it would help the business of the city work.

A roll out of RPZs around the inner city would make it a better city for business driving. No commuter-caused congestion; delivery options -and less roads blocked by overparking.

Richmond road is going to be the front line for a Montpelier RPZ -as it is clear that you can't paint parking bays on both sides of the road -and even if the council opens up the paveparking to make it official, there's still not enough room to get vehicles through.

The only viable outcome would be for one side to become no parking. Which would be controversial -and explain why some people are claiming that purple notepaper put in windscreens would work. A community with some wheel clamps and a tow truck might have more effect.

BRI dropoff zone -working well for Brunel Flooring Limited

Time to nip over to the BRI to see how the dropoff/bus only zone is working.

There's someone being helped into an hospital car; the one behind it is also marked as patient delivery. The lovely "lowered at both sides pavement space" is in use, and there's a car with a driver in it waiting for a space to come free.

The uphill pavement provides an excellent motorbike parking space.

This isn't incoveniencing pedestrians, as Brunel Flooring Limited, in WU050GS

If there is one fault -not enough pavement to go round.
 
Some drivers -such as the driver in LB53LTZ are being forced to double park

Again, Persecution

Up at the top of St Michael's Hill, the BRI Physio department now has a stock plastic covered warning note to put in car windscreens -here AP03AVB.
-

This is a polite notice to make you aware that you are parking on the pavement. You are obstructing the pavement. A member of the public has complained as there is not enough access for pedestrians and especially wheelchair users. Where you are a member of staff at Hampton House or a member of the public, it is in your interest to move the car as soon as possible and not to park here again, otherwise you will be fined either by a Traffic Warden or Security.

 
All this, because "a member of the public has complained"? One person? Why should the wants and needs of one person outweigh the needs of the many who need somewhere by their hospital or place of work? And look, there's plenty enough room for someone on foot to squeeze by.

 
we're also going to pick up on the "fined by Security". It's a public pavement. BRI security have no right to fine anyone for parking on public pavement. Private pavement, maybe. But not the public highway -or the designated parking areas alongside

Love Bristol Go Brent #3

As we said, the pavement provides extra parking options. First, note the bollards, They aren't designed to stop vehicles getting on to the pavement so much as to make it clear to pedestrians that turning vehicles can cut over that corner. Vans that want to park can just get up onto the pavement past the bollards


Some viewers may think "this road is four lanes wide in every direction, and the pavement is perfectly wide enough to have a good, segregated bike lane". Those people are missing the point.

  
The four-lane-wide road provides enough space for an HGV to do a U-turn.
 d
So letting it get up and park on the pavement in the direction it's going.

You couldn't do that if there was a cycle path here.

The sheer provision of a vast off-road "pavement" here is a fantastic facility for motorists. It's wide enough that street furniture can be kept far enough back to make parking along here easy -regardless of the length of your vehicle.

Bristol just lacks the imagination. Even that "let them park on the pavements" mayoral candidate explicitly mentioned Gloucester road as an example place where paveparking shouldn't be permitted.

Yet Gloucester Road is a shopping street -like this one in London- the provisioning of more pavement parking area is what is critical to keep it alive. Look at the one here -even with all this excellent paveparking it's barely surviving.

THINK BIKE - DO CAR

Something is not right. The council are trying to brainwash our faithful Bristol driving masses. "THINK BIKE" messages on electronic boards on our commuter route from our country residences to our city waged jobs. Not local neighbourhoods that we are passing through. This is definitely first and foremost our commuter route.

 

So it's good to see Summerhill Motors sticking up for us, the intrepid commuters, and fighting the walking and cycling message that the City Council are trying so hard to push on us.

 

They've gone to the trouble to park not one, but two cars, successfully totally blocking the pavement and another third car in the bus / cycle lane. A double score! Giving a strong message to not only pedestrians that walking is just not acceptable, but also to those trying to use public transport or cycle too that their behaviour will not be tolerated.

To make it even better this is on the "Wesley Way" route that the council have created to encourage people by telling them that this is a safe walking and cycling route! It is also close to a local school, hopefully showing those that choose to walk or cycle to that school that such behaviour is just not right. They should be driving the school run, preferably in a car bought from Summerhill Motors.

 

It's good to see the local businesses sticking up for us, the not local people and helping us to remember to "Think Bike" but then to "Do Car".

Empty Threats

A sign on Colston Street, in the secret off-road parking bays

Please do not park here on the pavement

Building Maintenance work is in progress and access is required at all times.

Please be aware

your vehicle may be removed by the police for illegally parking on the pavement.

We, the people of Bristol, will resist such war-on-motorist threats to remove our right to park on a pavement.
 
We, N685LRT and DF09DVP do not fear!

Persecution

Someone has put a letter on the car TOB773Y saying "Please Park less Selfishly"
 
Does anyone denounce the dustbin for taking up its bit of the pavement? Or that bicycle at the bottom? So what's wrong with that car's actions?

New BRI Parking Opportunities

there's a new area to park at the BRI -they've taken away a stretch of pavement to create this expanded parking zone

In theory it's for the free bus and some "drop off only" spaces. In theory

We know that the pavement space is now a new short-term parking area for vehicles such as office team KMIIUAL

while alongside that is a new "secret" disabled parking space
 

Y726HYD  is showing us the secrets of the BRI

Cyclists take up too much space

Pesky cyclists. As you can see from the picture, these bicycles are taking up far too much space from an important Pavedrive & Paveparking facility. We could easily squeeze another hatchback in there.

Cherry Picked Catering: cherry picking the parking

Nice to see the new residents of this Hotwells restaurant, Cherry Picked Catering, have managed to find a good buildout for their van

We are concerned that the pedestrian needing two walking sticks to walk past it may inadvertently scrape the paintwork, but as they selflessly went onto the road, this risk was transferred to oncoming traffic instead.

G4S: keeping the pavements safe

"P" sends us a pic of a G4S van KJ05MZP in Cardigan Road Henleaze, neatly paveparked by double yellow lines.:

G4S have been receiving a lot of bad press these days about security and safety at the olympics. It is nice to see that here they are making sure that no pedestrians on this pavement will be hit by fast moving cyclists -as all cyclists will be on the road here.