Reminder:larger craft have right of way

This little video from Portsmouth-way reminds us that larger vehicles do have priority.

That's not just because they are important, but because they are bigger, with worse visibility. Whether it's a container vessel or a Volvo XC90, the reduced field of view means that it's not the pilot/drivers fault when someone gets in the way and then run over.

Yachts are too fragile to be allowed out, even with helmets, lifejackets and such-like. This is why they should be banned from our shores for their own good.

Absolute Vehicle Care Ltd, selling Alloy wheels to outsiders who inconvenience us

Dear info@absolutevehiclecare.com.

Thank you for posting your comment on our alloy wheels are for outsiders posting.

We are aware that we are the highest ranked site when you search blogspot for alloy wheels, and therefore that a comment with some banal chat and back links to your own site would help your page rank. However, as well as using nofollow links to remove them from google's PageRank scores, we have a policy that says if you spam us with attempted to links, we only make fun of you. Therefore, please accept this posting as a gift, but note that the nofollow tag above renders your link worthless and all that you will get is more spam to your email address. Sorry.

There is no point trying to push alloy wheel services to our readers, despite our broad readership in Bristol, because (a) you have a Southampton postcode and are therefore unimportant, and (b) we don't think alloy wheels have a place in the city.

Every driver who has alloy wheels values their wheels. Not only does this prevent them doing operations in the city, it holds up other traffic. Takes this video of the bottom of St Michael's Hill from last month.



The car in front of us is waiting to turn slide into the left turn lane -which has a green light onto Park Row. But it cannot do that as the car in front of it values their wheels too much to scrape against the kerb or to commit more aggressively and get both wheels entirely on the pavement, and they still have a driver-side wingmirror to lose. The selfish decision of the first car to have alloy wheels not only slows them down, it slows down the rest of the city's traffic. And this is on a Sunday! Imagine how much congestion one selfish alloy-wheel owning outsider would cause on a busy weekday morning!

Drivers who value their vehicle's bodywork and paintwork are as much an inconvenience to us locals as pedestrians on zebra crossings and cyclists pootling along. You may not realise this as you live in the provinces and dream of day trips to Portsmouth where you can see three cars in a row, but we city folk know the harsh truth: from a game-theory perspective, alloy wheels place you at a disadvantage. They are easily damaged and, as they are a visible status symbol, everyone else sees that you value your car, therefore are more likely to give way on high conflict roads, such as here, the Horfield Road/St Michael's Hill junction.

Please do not bother posting any more spam advertisement comments, as we will only continue to criticise you for your naive lack of understanding of modern driving techniques and issues, as well as your complete ignorance of game theory and its application in city driving.

Thank you,

The Bristol Traffic Team.

Feedback: the Southsea Cycle Lane

We like to track that we are on message by the mail and comments we get back: if people aren't upset by the truths, well, we aren't writing the right truths. Our Portsmouth Seafront Update upset someone, so it must have been good.

We criticised someone for cycling down the (admittedly wide) seafront, arguing that their actions were not only endangering themselves, their child and pedestrians, but the entire Southsea seafront economy.



This triggered some feedback from Byron of Southsea, who said

"There are a few cheap stalls and a run down arcade along the front...so how much do you think the economy of Southsea is really affected? Of course the real sensible solution is (like many other seaside towns in the UK) to paint a cycle lane along the promenade. It has ample width. We must try harder to get people out of their cars and (safe) walking or cycling."

Well  we looked back through our photographs, dataset, as we like to call them, and concluded that yes, the arcade is a bit run down, as is the funfair at the end of the pier.



The photographs hide the 20mph wind which made the crazy-golf a bit more problematic than usual, but you get the general flavour. Room for improvement.

Similarly, the clubs along the seafront do appear to have seen better days. All that was up and running over the bank holiday was the Southsea Folk and Roots Festival, and even there the bar on the South Pier let the side down by running out of all beers  -even Fosters- by Sunday evening.



However, note that these photographs were taken on the same day we saw the man and his child cycling down the seafront. There is no way to disprove our claim that the cause of the problems is in fact the intermittent cyclists and their families on the sea front, scaring off people from the arcade or the night clubs.

Byron! We thank you for your feedback but we refudiate it!

Portsmouth Seafront update

For the bank holiday w/end we checked out the anti-bicycle improvements in Portsmouth.

We couldn't be bothered to drive our van to where the new segregated bike path is, so we stood by the Southsea Pier to watch two cyclists who have come from it experience the joy of a FirstBus bus turning over them.

They survived to carry on the short distance before they have to swerve out past the parked cars to then get in our way.

For those people who aren't in the loop, the Portsmouth Council has pulled in plans to expend the bike path all the way west "for review" after complaints about the first stretch. This means there is nowhere safe for cyclists in this part of the town.

Well, some people may make the case for the sea front itself, but you can see on a bank holiday weekend that this is over-busy. The valuable revenue streams of the telescope and southsea pier fairground are dependent on passing traffic. These people walking down here -presumably people who drove here first- hold together the local economy. Reducing parking or making walking more hazardous would destroy it.

This parent selfishly cycling down the pavement at five miles an hour, with small child on the back, is not only endangering pedestrians

He is threatening the entire economy of the Portsmouth/Southsea seafront.

Portsmouth Update

Been 6+ months since our last B.Traffic team visit to Pompey, so we nipped down to enjoy a town whose team is slightly closer to the bottom of the football league than one of our own teams, so a bit of gloating. Of course, their town hasn't offered to pay for a world-cup class stadium, so it cuts both ways.

Now, the seafront, always a source of entertainment.

Today we see someone in one of those so called "practical" bicycles, as opposed to a mid-life crisis toy. But look -she is choosing not to cut across the road into the dedicated two-way cycle route. So much money, and these disrepectful underpeople ignore what we offer them.

Fortunately, not all do. Here, at the end of the path, we can see a father and child at the head of a family group, leaving the road and going over to the traffic island.

An island where they are followed by their entire family. Some people think "sweet", but we look at how much the back wheels of the rear two family members stick out into our lane, and wonder if they'd have the 3rd party insurance to pay for our bumper damage were we to clip them.

We know some people will be saying "it's daft to have a bike path that cuts over lanes, how are you meant to get home alive", but we say "you are ungrateful whiners". We also have to point out that the council is doing the best they can. There is nowhere else they could have put in this much space for bicycles.

Nowhere at all.

Dark times at Pompey

It is grim in Portsmouth. More than usual. Not only is their football team in a financial condition roughly on a par with the UK government, the fact that the UK government needs the income tax from the footballer's salaries to keep the country on a slightly more even keel may be enough to kill the team altogether. The council must be glad they didn't commit to joining in the world cup bid, unlike some others we could name.

Parking suspended. 

This is the echelon parking scheme which would let you pull up and park, watching the sea while you sipped lukewarm tea from your flask. The British Way to enjoy the seaside. But not now, not here, in a cycling town that sadly, finally, appears to have embraced cycling. Last time we visited we saw how some cyclists were ignoring the no cycling signs and enjoying their tax-dodging lifestyle on the wide pavement, but at least sometimes that was enforced, and the council had come down against legalising it.

But what they have done here is worse.

Rather than simply let the bicycles and pedestrians battle with each other, they are going to put in a segregated bike lane along the entire waterfront, and force cars to park parallel to the kerb. This will stop us parking our cars and looking out to see -which is the only reason we drive all the way down to Portsmouth in the first place.

Cycling along waterfronts in cold, biting weather may be a tradition in the Scandinavian countries, in the Netherlands, North Germany and Denmark, but not in Britain. We like our cars, we like our flasks of tea, and we need to park facing the water.

You can see the reaction to this in the local press. We draw particular attention to the NobodySpecial of quotes #15, 17 and 20, whose opinions match our own and draw out how much of a loss this will be to our seafront.

"I don't often get out of the car because either the weather's not suitable for it or I can see everything I want to with the radio on and in the comfort of my vehicle" .

"I am against making a change to the seafront which will remove scenic parking and also 150 spaces just so cyclists can cycle along an official route. It's significant detrimental to the enjoyment of the view by a significant number who drive there."

"If Portsmouth was rebuilt from scratch then it would be designed to take into account proper cycle lanes and a decent public transport system that didn't conflict with the roads. However Portsmouth cannot be demolished and therefore proper cycle lanes everywhere are not possibilities. " 

"Cycles pre-dated motor vehicles but the latter have been adopted because generally they are preferred and are more practical for obvious reasons I should have no need to explain"

We do agree with this poster, though the thought of demolishing Portsmouth does have some appeal.

To close then, a video pointed to us by Drusilla Marland: the closing scene of that 70s classic rock opera by The Who: Tommy. Filmed on the Southsea seafront, it will immortalise parallel parking there; remembering the freedoms we had until the council came took them away. It will serve a reminder of an innocent Southsea the way Our Man in Havana records pre-revolution Havana. Two great cities, two classic seafronts, both ruined by politicians with their dreams of benefiting the little people.
 
We were free then, but not any more.

(photographs contributed by "A", a resident of Portsmouth).

Portsmouth Seafront -safe from bicycles

And so to the Portsmouth seafront, centrepiece of a cycling town. Here we see it on a sunny Sunday in May, full of pedestrians.

And, oddly, bicycles -despite the no-cycling signs

These two-wheeled terrorists are scaring the pedestrians as they pedal past at 6 to 10 mph.

Later on in the day, some teenagers go down carrying fishing rods, out enjoying themselves at the expense of the pedestrians, who are forced to walk slowly for their lives

There had been some proposals to open this path up to cycling; in a survey, 3000 people voted for this, while only 1000 said no. But that survey was an abuse of democracy, as pro-bicyclist pressure groups round the country clearly manipulated the vote, as it came out so strongly in favour of allowing bicycles on this path.

Fortunately, the leader of the (LibDem) council stood up for the pedestrians, and overturned the proposal to provide a safe cycling route along the Portsmouth Seafront.

1. It would have encouraged more people to cycle on the pavement, and endanger pedestrians
2. It would have resulted in more cyclists on the road, getting in the way of cars
3. It would have brought the wrong kind of people to the city.

Now the same council is left with a problem. As part of their Cycle-Town funding, they promised a bike route here. Either they give back the money, or they come up with a different solution. We propose putting up a no bicycle sign on all routes into the city, making it a no-cycling-city. This will reduce conflict on roads and pavements.

Portsmouth Seafront -keeping it British

Now that the leader of Portsmouth council has managed to stop bicycles from endangering themselves and pedestrians, how can they get along the seafront? Ideally, they wouldn't be allowed to. But if they must, there is all we need already there.

There is a road along the seafront, right behind all these echelon-parked vehicles. Yes, the risk of a car reversing into you is high -but stop whinging, at least nobody will open a door into you, so you can cycle in the far left of the car lane, letting tax-paying cars past without inconveniencing us.

There is even a bike lane leading whole families up to this stretch of vehicles

Further along, at Eastney, there is more bike lane. Here we can see it under the car V40NFR, while some pre-teen subversives-in-waiting cycle down the pavement defiantly. Apparently the beach police do stop and fine cyclists for violating the bye laws, but sadly there are none about on this Sunday morning.

No doubt the cycling activists will come back with some proposal, like move from echelon to parallel parking. This is wrong and must be opposed.

It is not just that this will drastically reduce the amount of available parking , leading to an equivalent collapse in council revenues (year round parking fees, something like £8/day), being able to park facing the water is an inalienable right of the British.

Other countries have warm beaches, attractive people with fit bodies in skimpy swimwear sunbathing on them. We in Britain have a cold wind blowing rain over pebbles, with the car being the only place to sit and enjoy the view.

Even on the day these photos were taken, one of the hottest May days in Portsmouth for years, the cars are full of people sitting in their cars. The only concession to the blistering heat is to let down the windows.

Driving to the beach and sitting in your car is a lifestyle choice. But it is more than that -it is the British lifestyle.

If you can't face the water it doesn't work. If your view of the sea is interrupted by happy cyclists it doesn't work. All attempts to put bike lanes in on the road, or to allow bikes along the seafront pavement are attempts by the EU to undermine what Britain stands for. They are trying to make us pedal round our cities like Dutch or Danish people, buying healthy fruit by the kilogram and paying for it in Euros. It is all part of the same continental conspiracy.

Here on the Southsea seafront, we can see in the background the D-Day monument, a memorial to all the people who left from this harbour and died on the continent purely to preserve our way of life. We cannot let these bicycle-pedalling EU-officials take it away from us.

Portsmouth: shopping bicycle parking

This is Gunwarf Quay, Portsmouth, their shiny new shopping centre -an equivalent to Cabot Circus, albeit one with more outlets.

What is this seen by the harbour? An area which could have been used for premium bar tables dedicated to bicycle parking?

And its used too. Something about a highly-visible place to park your tax-dodging toy vehicle encourages people to cycle there and park their bicycles.

There is even a sign telling the owners to lock their bikes up.

Given this area generates no parking revenue, and removes revenue earning space from outside bars, cafes and restaurants, you have to look carefully at it to see if it makes economic sense

• It clearly encourages people to come to the area by bicycle. If these people were going to come by car -and there was space in the car park, then it has lost income from the car park, and for the UK government in fuel.
• If these tax-dodging criminals were going to shop, they are now limited in what they can buy. This may reduce income to the shops.
• They will get in the way of premium spending car driving customers on the roads.

Against that

• It frees up space in the (small) car park, which only has 1500 spaces. If you can fill that up with shoppers and still get people to come by bike, you earn more.
• If the people come by bicycle they may be thirsty and hungry, so spend more in the bars and restaurants.
• Provided you are selling high-margin products that fit in carrier bags on handles, you can still sell goods.
• Fuel VAT and Tax loses don't show up in the balance sheet of the shopping centre, and that money may instead be spent on products within your facility.
  

There is probably a spreadsheet you can write to work out the numbers here: how much space to dedicate to bikes, which comes down to revenue earned against revenue lost. A key aspect of this spreadsheet would be one conclusion

If you have space in your car park, and people choose to cycle instead of drive, you are losing money -unless they spend the money saved in fuel and parking in your shops.

That is, it only makes sense to dedicate space to bicycles if it brings in extra customers, rather than diverts customers who would otherwise pay the hour to park. As Cabot Circus has 2500 spaces, it fills up less often, so there is less benefit in providing cycle parking.

Of course, the other factor in the equation is the revenue-per-bicycle. If bicycle parking encourages poor people to visit, then unless you get lots of them, each spending a small amount, you don't gain much. Same for pedestrians.

In Portsmouth, they've clearly concluded that the cyclists bring in enough money, that they should be welcomed. Though not if they cycle along the seafront...

Portsmouth: hitting the beach

Portsmouth is more than just a cycling town, it is a town with a beach: Southsea.

Do people cycle to the beach? Yes, some do.

Even unfit ones who have to hang on to their friends.

Once they get there, the people can lie in the sun. They cannot swim, on account of the water being ice-cold.

And they cannot cycle along the seafront, as there is a bit of a hold-up in the plans to make cycling along the seafront safe. But as long as you know a direct route to the seafront, you can get your bike to the water's edge. But not along, oh no.

Portsmouth Revisited: Albert Road #2

The road may look cycle friendly, but what it is like to ride? What is it like for tourists or locals to pop down to do their Saturday shopping

The bike parking outside supermarkets, chemists and other useful shops are handy. Those that are by zebra crossings not only stop cars parking there, they make it easy to get your bike across the road when you park (get off and walk), and to get back on the road in either direction when you are finished. This is better than Gloucester Road, where the parking is on one side, but half the shops you want on the other, and no easy way to cross except run for your life.

At the same time, it's a busy road. Try cycling down it at 20-25 mph (it was flat), and a van will still try to overtake you at speed and cut in. It is like any shopping street in any non-cycling-city.

Some bits have bike lanes, some bits have double yellow lines. But double yellow lines get ignored by vans, which ends up creating tailbacks into the junctions behind them,

At least here the FirstBus driver was generous and opened the door to let some of the passengers out.

A trip along Albert Road on a shopping day reinforces the argument that it is better to have a 20mph road that everyone shares than a 30 mph road with bike lanes. Because once the bike lanes are occupied by parked vehicles, they are useless.

Portsmouth Revisited: Albert Road

Last time our cameras visited Portsmouth, we were impressed by the bike parking along Albert road, but unhappy with the fact that it is still a 30 mph road.

Why? Because it reinforces the idea that you shouldn't cycle there, makes it more dangerous to walk across, and downgrades all the 20 mph side-roads. Side roads that have to deal with cars turning it at 30+ mph, and cars accelerating out of them as they approach a 30 mph stretch.

What's it like in summer? Busy. Busy with shoppers, busy with cars, full of parked bikes -and with a fair few families out.

No helmets, no high-viz, not even entry-level body-armour. Shocking.

There aren't even any cars parked on the zebra crossing. This is not Bristol.

Back on the Portsmouth Seafront

We in the B.T. team have just sent a delegation down to our sister cycling-conurbation, Portsmouth.

For those visitors to this site from outside the UK, you will have to take our word that Portsmouth is a gem of the south coast of England, an island in an estuary mixing the industrial heritage of naval forts and yards going back to Roman times with a modern sea-front development.

Or you can visit it.

This is our organisations first visit since Christmas, to see how the cycling-town project has been progressing.

We saw more bicycles out on the road this weekend than ever before, and many more than you would even expect to see in parts of Bristol.

This could be due to the efforts of the council and its execution of its Cycling-Town plans.

Or it could be despite those efforts, as we have an update on the Southsea Seafront question.

A tough question indeed: how best to enjoy the seafront -or how best to get there.

More of the Portsmouth Seafront

More on the Portsmouth Seafront, in a cycling town.

This is the Eastern end of the area, Eastney. Formerly fairly navy-centric -the building is the navy swimming pool, now open to the public.

At the end of this 30mph stretch of road -a road which closes due to storms in winter- there's a bend. On this bend, there is a hint of a bike lane. A hint. The dashed line on it means that cars are free to cut across the corner, which is what anyone taking the corner at speed would do.

The safe and sensible action for any fit cyclist would be to pull out, acquire the lane and so have no concern about cars swinging into you, but giving you more exit strategies if there turns out to be something like a parked car round the corner.

Which is not that unusual, given the way the bike lane ends, the road narrows and the first free-parking area near the seafront opens up. If even here, midwinter, there are cars in the way, high summer is going to be worse.

This is a bike lane for those willing to die, or at least injure themselves. Not for commuting, not for leisure work. You can't even bank into the corner at speed, what with the wall on the left-hand side. It has no value whatsoever. The only possible explanation for its existence is to push bicycles out of the way of cars. But even that is less than ideal, as they will still get in the way of taking the corner at speed, and then they will swerve out unexpectedly once the lane ends. Which makes it of limited value to anyone.

Portsmouth: the seafront

There's a presentation up on Portsmouth's Web site, talking about their cycling town plans, in which they wonder why the money spent on adding a no cycling sign to every lamp post hasn't reduced the amount of sea front cycling.

There are so many signs, it could almost become the logo of the cycling town.

Yet, as Galileo is claimed to have said: E pur si muove! -and yet it moves, or in this case, and yet they move, they being the cyclists on the seafront path.

Why do these pavement-criminals cycle down the wide seafront enjoying a pleasant conversation, when there is a perfectly safe road alongside?

Maybe they don't percieve the road as safe? All along the seafront lies vast swathes of echelon parking, drive in-reverse out parking, here with a car showing exactly the problems it raises. This minivan managed to scrape its front bumper driving in, yet still poked further out the back than the other vehicles, and when it moved, even approaching car traffic had to hit the brakes.

Given a choice between a road with cars reversing into you without looking, and a wide, safe seafront, the only people who are going to choose the road are the fit ones who can go up to 20-25 mph and don't want to waste time swerving around dogs being walked.

The surprising thing for Pompey then, is not why the presence of some anti-bike signs and intermittend persecution of teenagers haven't stopped the majority of the seafront cyclists to stop cycling down the path, but

1. why some people don't cycle along the path, but choose the road instead.
   
2. why the cycling team were surprised that the signs had no effect whatsoever.

Cycle Town Portsmouth: the bollards

One impressive feature of the shopping street in Portsmouth is the number of bollards to discourage driving and parking on the pavement. This is downtown Southsea, not Pompey-central, whose infamous Tricorn Centre has been demolished and awaiting someone getting finance to build a replacement. Our Cabot Circus has taken on the role of being Britain's new Tricorn Centre.

By this zebra crossing, there are bollards and bike parks to stop anyone parking their car on the pavements in the zig-zag area. Given the cost of adding bollards, there's a signal here that such parking was in fact a problem until they went in.

Similarly, side roads have bollards mid-pavement to discourage cars, people with push-chairs, etc. Sometimes you have to make a little sacrifice.

Does it work? It depends on your definition of "work". Certainly it stops cars parking half on the pavement in the zig-zag section of a zebra crossing.

Mission Accomplished, then!

Portsmouth: corner cases

When a road in Cycle-Town Portsmouth is a 30mph road, there's now an implicit message you can drive faster. Given the ambiguity of speeding enforcement, that means up to about 30-38 miles an hour. Yet there are all these side roads now with a 20 mph limit. Do the drivers slow down to the allowed 20 mph range (max about 24 mph) before entering, or do they turn in at full speed slowly coasting down later.

In this photographer's limited experience, it's the latter. If you are crossing a 20mph side road adjacent to a 30 mph main road, you still need to fit enough to sprint across the side road at speed -more speed than 20-mph everywhere areas.

Sometimes they've tried to deal with this by narrowing the pavement, and adding bollards to stop you cutting over the pavement at speed. This road looks like it is actually two-way, so narrowing down to one lane at the junction is very aggressive.

Presumably bikes can take the corner on the pavement and let their front suspension handle the high-speed landing as they push off the edge of the build-out.


Other roads have less traffic camling; this child who has the audacity to ride his bike on the pavement is as at risk to cars turning at speed on a 20 mph side road as if it didn't have a speed limit.