Monty's pavements

If every vehicle length of Montpelier pavement has a 10% chance of being free, then the probability of a four vehicle length space being entirely free of vehicles is .1*.1*.1*.1 or 0.0001. Not zero, likely to happen eventually, but so unusual that when it does happen, here on Fairfield Road, it merits a note. [Incidentally, there is no field by Fairfield Road. The place name is all that remains].

Note also the abandoned sofa. These facilities aid walking around a hilly part of the city.

Elsewhere, on Picton Street, A&M Driving School car G55MAT is practising the problem of getting up onto the pavement, with only two vehicle lengths of free space to work with. This is quite tricky for a new driver -we congratulate this learner for their skill. Not so close to the houses that the doors get bashed, not so far out that passing vehicles are blocked. Nicely done!

Bristol: Pedestrian City

This on the afternoon of the St Werburgh's Fair: someone has graciously put a sofa in their driveway on Nugent Hill.

It may seem like a little gesture, but when you are walking up the hill, somewhere to sit is good. There are no council provided seats, so this privately managed resting facility is much appreciated. Some day, every hill in Bristol will have a sofa half way up it.

Making Bristol more pedestrian friendly

It is pedestrians who are meant to get priority in road/junction designs. Not cars, not cyclists, not FirstBus. Yet they normally come out worst. A bit of pavement narrowed in St Pauls for an extra car lane; pavement elsewhere covered in bike parking stands for the bikes. And then there are all the cars half way up the pavement.

So its nice to report something different: the emergence of extra seats at the tops of hills.

Here on the climb up from St Werburgh's

And here on Brandon Steep, the road south of Brandon Hill.

These sofas will help people gradually take up walking up hill, by providing places to rest, and so make Bristol a better place to walk round.