Christchurch school, Clifton -no yellow lines here, yet!

While looking for places where yellow lines can be removed from Clifton "for traffic calming", we say, with a knowing smirk, we are pleased to see that the roads by Christchurch School, Clifton, as seen here at 08:30 on a schoolday, have no such problem

Residents are free to park on the pavement without fear of harassment.

So can parents who were forced to drive here early due to the congestion problems caused by a city that failed to provide a city-wide motorway scheme like Glasgow. This family is stuck waiting 15 minutes for the playground to open, so have no choice but to park here. It would be dangerous to let the kids out to play on the pavement.

Now: the bad news. The council is proposing putting some parking restrictions in. No worry though -as our coverage of other schools in the area will show, it's completely unenforced, so provides a lovely parental drop-off zone -provided there aren't any pedestrians in the way. The careful parking of residents and parents alike here ensure that there are no schoolkids on the pavement. That said, the school has just won a Sustrans Award. That was for the kids, not the parents or residents, obviously.

Clifton: some bike parking has snuck in to the village

Before we can declare victory in Clifton in the motorists side of the warn on motorists, we must note that some bicycle parking has been added to the village, and it is -shockingly- in use

On the mall: two stands, three bikes, on a buildout that would easily fit if not a 4x4, a little mini.

By the Thali Cafe, more stands and three bicycles. you can tell this isn't Stokes Croft as the bicycles are newer and still retain their wheels.

Further up Regent Street, two more stands and one bicycle.

It does reinforce that induced demand idea: if you provide bicycle parking, they will come. This is why it is critical that the councillors and aspirants do all they can to encourage driving and parking by car, instead of conceding any more pavement or road space to cycling or cycle parking.

On that topic, can we at least praise Clifton for not having a single bicycle lane anywhere west of Whiteladies Road, apart from that one on the approach to the Suspension bridge that doesn't actually work. Active Transport campaigners would probably push for some integrated route to join up the bridge with Cotham Hill, then to link over to Gloucester Road, then Bishopston and Montpelier, their own version of an Inner City Ring Road. They can dream, but as long as we hold the high ground that is Clifton, we will defeat them.

Clifton's Bike Stands!

We'd thought that the Clifton councillors were strong enough to fight back against the cycle city plans in their own wards, but no, someone broke and conceded four stands

Fortunately, two of them are so close together as to be useless

They're on the junction of Frederick Place and Richmond Hill: back road nowhere near any useful destinations, and there's still plenty of pavement for parking. The fact that they are out of sight will stop anyone feeling threatened, and because they are nowhere near Clifton Village, won't do anything to actually encourage cycling.

Nothing to worry about directly, though its a sign of weakness at the top. Question is: who surrendered?

Support the Mall Residents by Double Parking Only

With the Goldfish "I don't remember what Murdoch said" Party council candidate saying more imagination is needed to solve Clifton's problems, well, let's see what can be imagined on the Mall.

Here we see a small car (a smartcar variant WR06EDP) double parked in front of a disabled car. It's not blocking that car, once they've managed to get in 10-15 minutes of zig-zagging will get them out.

Nearby, a little Nissan is echelon parked. There's a note in its windscreen.

On the other side, a Ford Focus CA60BHD double parked, a smaller car echeloned up to the pavement. The latter has the note in the windscreen.

Let's take a look at the note

Mall Gardens Residents Association

(MGRA)

Neighbourhood Watch

IMPORTANT NOTICE

CHEVRON/ECHELON PARKING

IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT OR REGULARLY

PARK IN THE MALL GARDENS YOU WILL BE

AWARE THAT THE MAJORITY OF RESIDENTS OPPOSE CHEVRON

PARKING NOT LEAST FROM HEALTH AND

SAFETY CONCERNS AND DAMAGE. YOU WILL

ALSO NOTICE THAT THE NUMBER OF CARS

CHEVRON PARKED IS DOWN TO A HANDFUL

INCLUDING YOURS. THE AVON FIRE SERVICES

ARE CONCERNED ABOUT ACCESS TO

EMERGENCIES IN THE AREA DUE TO THE

POOR PARKING

PLEASE HAVE CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS

HAVE PATIENCE AND FIND A PLACE TO 

PARALLEL PARK

PLEASE SUPPORT THE RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION

There you have it. Echelon Parking is a health and safety hazard, which is why some of the residents are so concerned about it that they have put together a lovely A4 note printed in colour which they carefully place in the windscreen of every echelon parked car, so as to encourage people to double parallel park instead.

Now, some cynics may note that echelon parking works well for small cars, whereas double parking works well for big cars too, so perhaps it's not a concern about health and safety so much as the owners of the big cars wanting to be able to park, and if everyone in a small car echelon parked they wouldn't be able to. We don't believe this. If the fire services are concerned about poor parking in the area then clearly it is echelon parking to which they are referring, and it is critical for these people to invest their own time and money into discouraging these selfish echelon parkers from endangering everyone.

Clifton Park: one possibility

We borrowed Quercus's Land Rover to drive over to Clifton Park one morning, to see where excessive parking restrictions were endangering people.

Well, it's not by Clifton High, as the excessive restrictions at this end (the zebra crossing zig-zags and the school keep clear zone) are both in use for child dropoff. These restrictions therefore provide an important feature for important school run parents, and so should be retained.

Looking the other way, no, no parking restrictions at all. What were these road safety campaigners going on about?

Then a bit further down we saw it. Can you see here? Where there is enough space for a bicycle to go safely along without fear of being hit by a car. Exactly. Without Fear. We don't want that, as it only encourages them.


Real road safety campaigners would actually push for a zebra crossing here, as that crossing by the school is the only way to cross this wide and busy road. But we don't want that, it will take away more long-stay parking spots. Instead we are going to pretend that it's all about safety, when really it's about convenience.

On this, large double yellow lined road, only the car X411WCG is bold enough to assert their rights to park here, even before the excessive restrictions have been removed.

If people are prepared to park here, even when they will get ticketed and fined (at least on those three days a year when the rule is enforced), then that's enough to justify. As it isn't right next to a school, making it residential parking wouldn't remove any school run parking opportunities. If it makes it more hazardous to cycle round the back streets of Clifton, well, if we cared about that, we wouldn't be pushing for more parking -and the ward wouldn't have voted Barbara and Terry back in, would they?

In a cycling city, this space would be turned into a segregated cycle path, before anyone got used to the idea of parking here.

But while Bristol is a Cycling City, Clifton is not part of the city -it's older- and so exempt from any of these changes.

Clifton Park: limited extra parking opportunities here

One area where the Clifton Residents have convinced Barbara Janke, the local councillor and leader of the Waltham Forest Faction in the council, is Clifton Park in Clifton. We drove over on a school-run morning to assess the viability of the idea.

Well, it's wide road, but there's enough parking already on it stop the troublemakers trying to sneak in a bike path or two.

Looking towards the suspension bridge, the school keep clear zone and the zebra crossing zig-zags are both used for school run parents, the zebra crossing providing a way for the kids so dropped off to get to school safely.

You could push for it's removal, but that would make dropping kids at Clifton High harder.

Further east, towards Pembroke Road, something catches our eye. A clear space.

Admittedly, it is on a blind corner and if you approach it at speed it's where you'd swing in. Even if a bit of space was left in yellow at the end, the rule "if you park next to a legally parked car -it's still legal" would apply, so it wouldn't work.

Looking at the placement of bicycles on the road, and the oncoming cars, it's not clear that's the road here is wide enough for extra parking. Furthermore, as the road reaches Pembroke Road shortly further on, there's often a bit of a traffic jam in the morning. Having two lanes of traffic here helps a bit.

What is important though is to stop the walking/cycling troublemakers from noticing that there is no safe place to cross this road other than the zebra crossing in the first two photographs, which google maps tells us is 250 metres away. For someone to cross the road safely (and once we ban Jaywalking, legally), that's 500 metres of exercise. For their own health, as well as safety.

The big risk is that somebody pushes to get a zebra put in here or by the wide Clifton Park/Pembroke Road junction, as that would add at least 20s on the school run. A bit of Walthamization would see this off before the idea even got raised.

Southville's runner problem

Things must be a bit quiet in the Cyclist/Pedestrian wars right now, so the Evening Post has had to concentrate on that other bubbling issue: runners running along pavements.

Mark1864 makes a comment "This is ironic for the EP. A bunch of pedestrians moving faster than other pedestrians are causing problems on the pavement." We think we know who this person is. And yes, it is funny. This is the best set of comments in the paper. Despite the best efforts to turn this into the usual cyclists on the pavement debate, it's mostly pedestrian vs faster moving pedestrian.

One constructive comment from bobob03 is "There are quite a lot of pavements that hardly get any use along the ring road between the M32 and Emersons Green ." Yes, we love the idea of a large group of runners driving from Southville to the A4174 ring-road for an evenings run, except for the small detail that on a weekday evening that drive will take about 45 minutes. Plus the fact that the A4174 ring road is about as exciting as spending an afternoon with an elderly relative who keeps forgetting who you are and repeating the same conversation, again and again.

Anyway, while we are smirking at the comments, we have a fear. These runner groups, who go along in big packs, talking to each other, may form a militant "Bristol Runners Association", who will then go on and demand things like the right to run along pavements in the city -0ur parking areas. Then they'll want zebra crossings retained, rather than pelican crossings, so they don't have to spend three minutes running on the spot waiting for the lights to change.

Better to nip this in the bud right now.

Clifton Politicians: the imagination of Goldfishes

Back in March, we noted Clifton's proposals to sneak in some extra double yellow line removal, using "traffic calming" as the excuse. Well, it's been approved. More on that another day.

But before we look at the councillors actions, let's look at the opposing team, which in Clifton means the Conservative Party, leader one R. Murdoch. The losing candidate the May Election says "we need more imaginative thought to solve the problem" of parking. In particular, this ambitious politician is "undertaking a survey of the entire community, finding out where yellow lines are needed and where they can be taken away" and by doing so, he has found 100 metres of double yellow lines that aren't needed.

Well, Clifton certainly needs help if it is not to become like Montpelier, as LY52RKV and  S899ANW are forced to do. Yet these are nice cars, with wingmirrors -and Montpelier parking doesn't suit them.

We asked one of the tax dodgers what they thought of the proposals, and got this reply, which we quote unedited:

Those yellow lines aren't just wasted parking, they probably stop roads being blocked, helping through traffic, and make it easier to pass bicycles. Replace that with unrestricted parking and what do you get? 25 more cars.

That's not imaginative.

That's about as imaginative as a goldfish.

Imagination would be pushing for even one car club car bay in Clifton.

Imagination would be to put in bike parking in the village so that people don't need a car to drive from their house to the shops.

Imagination would be to discourage parents from driving their kids to school by enforcing rules about keep-clear and parking on pavements.

Imagination would be to use a resident permit scheme to limit car ownership, eliminate commuter parking and ensure that "sustainable" housing has an even harder limit on the number of cars per household.

Imagination would be to encourage the residents to use the bus, instead of trying to reduce the number of hours the new bus lane will be running.

This shows no imagination whatsoever and is painful to read. Are you sure the Clifton Conservatives web site isn't some kind of spoof?

Obviously, we don't agree with any of the actions, but we have to agree with their comments about imagination. It is the lack of action from the authorities that are forcing the residents to act for themselves. Such as here, where DV60XJL is forced to park on the yellow lines and pavements outside Tesco Express.

But even that is fiddling around the edges. As the tax-dodger notes, 100m of yellow lines only transfers into 25 spaces for important vehicles. Noise. And more to the point, we are already using a lot of that space already. It's not "unused parking", it's parking areas reserved for important people in a hurry -such as the Mercedes N445CRP.

Even if we don't want people thinking outside the box, we do want our councillors to think of a much bigger box than adding 25 more cars to Clifton. Or maybe thirty if you force the cars in hard enough.

We want much, much more. Here's what we propose

• Making the downs all year round car parking, rather than a pay-to-use luxury on summer weekends
• Removing  zebra crossings, school keep clear zones, and that bit outside the church, as they all take up space. 
• Adding a multi-storey car park somewhere within the area. Yes, it's full of old listed buildings, but that didn't stop a large car park going up on the edge of St Pauls, did it?

Faffing around with 100m of yellow lines isn't going to solve the problems the area has. At least the locals are already imagining more than this so-called-contender has to offer. This is important, as the councillors in charge share the same limited imagination; it is down to us citizens to act.

For the next few days, we're going to cover Clifton!

En Vacance

Apres le petit problem entre le Bristol Traffic reporteur, le Massage Club, le Avon and Somerset Police est the White Van, nous somme maintenant en France pour un vacation. Phew...

Ici, le "Rules de la Road" et different de England. 

Par example...

In Le Havre, un grand town avec plus du people (plus du 180,000) ils are constructing une 'Tramway". Ils also 'ave un unique idea, qui est quite good - 'le lanes de cycling, avec parking parallèle de le kerb, mais un peu further out". Les voitures est stationment dans le centre dans la rue, est le bicycliclests have sont own special lane pres de le kerb. Manifique.

Pas de dooring ici, je thinks.

Expecte encore de reports from France, until le petit problem avec le Police est decide en Bristol.

Montpelier: is our work done?

Youtube referred us to this (nonembeddable) video of an eight year old doing the school run by bicycle from York Road to Colston Primary School.

01:32 P232YEU. Seen them.
03:46 Eagle Coaches coach waiting in the bus lane. Seen them.
04:45 Family walking across the road. Seen them too.

When even independent videos include content that we already have on our web site, we can conclude that our attempts to build a mass-surveillance infrastructure out of google's datacentre facilities and community contributions are successful. At least for Montpelier, Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and bits nearby.

Does this mean it is time to retire: Our work is done? Maybe. But first, time to visit some other parts of the city.

Welcome to Clifton Week at Bristol Traffic!

Discussions with the BSM and other Bristol Driving Schools

We always have a special place in our coverage for driving schools, as they have to teach beginners the hard art of driving and parking in a city which, excluding Clifton, is anti-car.

Here, up in Filton. Evolution WM10YHO show that the way to park is up on the pavement.

In front of it, a shared space. This eliminates the pavement entirely, and makes for some fun high-speed chicanes.

Speaking of driving schools, our ongoing discussion with one has had a new comment. The instructor does provide some good insight into what it's like driving a bus in the city, so those commenters slagging off FirstBus drivers should really save their anger for FirstBus management.

He also raises the issue of which laws should be ignored first:

I completely agree with people should not park on double yellow lines or zig zags or to close to junction corners all of which cause a danger to other road users but I do not count parking 2 wheels on the pavement in a very narror street that was never meant for parked cars in the first place as the same level of offence.

We don't bother with making decisions about which action is more defensible than others. We ignore them all, hence save time thinking about which action is more right than others.

We also note that we haven't seen that particular driving school in our database. The driving school that most pops is the British School of Motoring. The BSM may have more market share, but they are to be commended for something else: they are the only driving school that we have documented teaching people how to park in Montpelier. The other schools, they pick you up, then take you somewhere safe to learn to drive. The BSM actually hold their lessons in Montpelier.

In-town, in Richmond Road, Montpelier, we have a heartwarming sight. No, not the cyclist going up the hill with the Sainsbury's bag on the handlebars -it's the BSM instruction car WV60WJF.

We don't think driving and parking in Monty has its own test yet, so we're assuming it's a lesson. As Richmond Road is one of the hardest to drive and park on, we congratulate the BSM for showing their pupils the way forward -or at least the way up on the pavement without damaging your wheels, hitting the wall or paying the wingmirror tax on the way up the road.

So far, nobody from the BSM has got in touch with us. However, we are pleased to have video coverage of a discussion between some under-employed tax-dodger and the BSM car WR60CUY, which can be seen driving into the ASL on the red light: the bicycle doesn't get their green light until Shaldon Road is on red, so the car has had five seconds of red before it comes to a halt.

When queried about what the driver thinks the penalty for driving into an ASL is, the driving instructor comes back with the correct answer: anyone who cares about such things doesn't have a life. We actually think this summarises the entire country's cycling activist groups: they only do it because they don't have real lives.

Congratulations to the BSM for putting this tax dodger in their place!

Artistic Massage

People get in touch. They say "Dear Bristol Traffic, which Stokes Croft establishments do you recommend for your special needs".

Apart from Slix and Rita's for food, there is a whole set of massage parlours. Some of them are being gentrified, what with the free WiFi, the mineral water and copies of French newspapers -ideal for visiting heads of the IMF and similar institutes.

None of those matter to us, but we will draw attention to the recently repainted frontage of "The Massage Club"

Needless to say, our white van is more usually seen by "the back entrance"

Remember: say you came from Bristol Traffic and ask for a discount!

Cornerish Parking

Now that Aberdeen Cars appears to have the edge in PaveParking, we are going to share another parking secret from Bristol. It's "Cornerish Parking"

We define Cornerish Parking as "to park one's vehicle within sight or walking distance of a corner, but not actually on the corner itself"

Here we see it in Kingsdown, just of St Michael's Hill. It is far enough away from the double yellow lines to be exempt

In Clifton, someone is showing, well, less imagination. That issue with Clifton and it's lack of imagination is something we'll have to get back to,

For now, just note that the further east you head, the more imaginative you have to get.

Even so, not even Kingsdown stands a chance against Montpelier.

Here at the junction of Cobourg Road and Old Ashley Hill, we can see a '205 that's been cornerishly-parked so long the front left tyre has gone flat.

Clifton isn't even a contender here, while Kingsdown, it tries, but doesn't really stand a chance. 

RPZ expansion plans

The Evening Post is terrified that the RPZ zones "the great RPZ failure" as they call it, will be expanded after the people in the area who responded to the six-months-live survey were more in favour of it than at the beginning of the zone.

Some people expect us to come out the newspaper's side. Sorry, we're a data driven project which means we drive out to get the data.

1. The RPZ makes it easier for us to get past bicycles as they now keep closer in to the pavement. Result: time saved, and with less fear of dooring, even the underpeople seem happier.

2. The spaces that were normally used by commuters are now free for delivery vehicles.

• We don't get held up by vans in our way who don't move until we sound our horn and shout at them.
• Our vans can park outside their destination without having to walk or double park and get harassed by people trying to get past.

Kingsdown is one of our popular destinations in the sex-trade-supply-chain, especially as some of the massage parlours use our services to give the punters a lift up the hill again "after you get it up -we get you up", the slogan goes. Having easy parking makes this faster and more discreet.

We suspect the Clifton-faction, the "Keep Parking Free" people will be foaming at the mouth at the expansion plans. Already the Clifton Conservatives are complaining that it has made illegal parking worse in other areas. This is not something our dataset shows, and we have data going back three years now.

We actually look forward to the rollout of an RPZ in Clifton, as that's another popular delivery destination for our products and faster journey and parking times will help our business model. They should get out more -we'll give them a ride home!

Plot 6: bus station or parking?

For all those entrants to the Friday Quiz: behind the purple fence with the no skateboard or ball games signage is a temporary car park. Temporary. We need something more permanent.

This is why it's exciting to hear that the infamous plot six, the now defunct post-office-railway-integrated sorting/delivery office may well be turned into a multi-storey long-stay car park, and not, as some troublemakers demanded, a transport hub for buses, trains and bicycles.

Providing an integrated transport hub here would merely encourage people to use train+bus, or train+bike, and not offer the revenue opportunities of, say, a five storey car park.

Two issues

• We hope the car park is SUV friendly, as Cabot Circus is, and not 1980s-legacy-galleries style.
• This is going to increase demand for road access to the area, especially as the Portishead railway line is not going ahead. We propose recognising that the Coronation Road cycle path is a waste of space, and turning that entire pavement into another inbound lane. Yes, some trees will have to go, but they will grow back elsewhere. And as Elf-King Ap Rees says, the South Bristol Link road is critical to make commuting by car into Bristol quicker. Anyone who says otherwise is making "mischievous misleading comments"

We praise the Waltham Forest Faction of Bristol council for their plans, and the assistance of North Somerset and S Gloucs councils.

On this topic, we saw an article recently arguing that the suburban dream in Bristol is in trouble. The actions to improve driving options from North Somerset show that this is false. What has changed is this: the important people in the city, rather than live in the fringe suburbs, have moved out of the city altogether, into the picturesque towns and villages outside: Portishead, Clevedon, Wotton-under-edge, etc. While public transport to the fringe of the city is collapsing, those with money still need to come in, and the increasing use of road space by cyclists, resident parking schemes and expanded pavements is anti-capitalist. It is critical that Bristol Council -who would otherwise pander to their electorate- recognise that the true wealth of the city depends on these out-of-city commuters, and meet their needs: fast wide roads, low-cost in-city parking. The Plot Six and South Bristol Link Road are only part of what we need.

Friday Competition: Temple Quarter

Over in Temple Quarter there's a big purple wooden fence up with some marketing blurb, including a photo of someone on bike in hi-viz who is "building the future in Bristol"

Where is Temple Quarter. Next to station, where the cyclists dismount stretch of a sustrans route begins.

In the other direction, there's a sign saying "cyclists should dismount for their own safety", specifically, if they don't, they may hit the barriers put to make cyclists dismount for their own safety.

One commuter deftly negotiates the safety feature. One that presumably creates a pedestrian/cycle conflict too.

People might think the area picks on cyclists, and hence note the complete inconsistency between the marketing and reality, but that's unfair.

They pick on all round things, be they cylindrical or spherical.

Now: the competition. What is behind the big purple fence?

Rubbish Parking

There is a fair amount of pavement parking in Redland. We've chronicled a small proportion of it over the years. In roads like Woodstock Road, and Clarendon Road it's rife. 

So it was a shock to see a car (in fact more than one) with all four wheels on the road, parked next to a tree. We suspect that the tree may be the reason, but it's always the exception which proves the rule.

And the Redland Rule is "Park on the Pavement", unlike the Stokes Croft Rule, which is "Park in the Cycle Lane".

If you break the rules, though, you will come in for some flak...

Keeping Tesco Safe

Here one weekday morning, the police are ensuring that Tesco is safe.

Especially from people on bicycles, who will have to past further out on the road.

This will make the customers feel less threatened -even during the hours that the bike/bus lane is active.

Britannia Movers International: Try the lanes of Cornwall instead

There's a lovely piece of advice for anyone naive enough to believe that they'd be welcome cycling up the dedicated contraflow cycle lane or Arley Hill. It says "try the lanes of corwall"

What WA58BVD really means is "dont' try these bike lanes". We thought it was funny.

If there is one criticism -a minor one- the lorry is making it hard to get down the road and hence to the M32 for those of us who have paid for the privilege. A bit of forward planning, like, say, coning/dustbinnining off the front of the house would have let the removals van load up without taking any road space away from us.

More coverage of WA58BVD elsewhere.

Tax-dodgers: we knows who you are

Don't think we aren't building up a list of subversives. Here is "Adam Eff", on the railway path, sporting a Bristol Bike Project T-shirt and pushing one of his children in a fancy bullitt bicycle for a price at which he could have bought a car with a few years left in it.

And what's that at the front? One of those little bike-cams, if we aren't mistaken.

As George Osborne says of these people:we will find you and make you pay