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!

More about → Discussions with the BSM and other Bristol Driving Schools

Left Hook at Kellaway Building Supplies

A tax-dodging troublemaker emails us this video to say "Is this white van DK04TBX that nearly ran me over on June 10 in its rush to get to Kellaway Building Supplies on Shaldon Road yours?"

Here is the response composed by our lawyers

• Askmid says this vehicle is a VW Transport T30TDi. As the Bristol Traffic Team's white van is a Ford Transit at least ten years older, we deny responsibility.
• We think all criticism of this van is unfounded, as by accelerating past the bicycle before cutting over it, it left plenty of room.
• By indicating its intent to turn left while it went past the bicycle, the cyclist had plenty of time to take evasive action.
• Kellaway Building supplies plays a key role in supplying everything a white van in the building trade needs apart from copies of the Sun and cans of Red Bull. As the Bristol Traffic van is a key part of the Bristol sex industry supply chain, Kellaway Building Supplies rarely appears in our list of destinations, apart from when meeting the needs of an individual with an obsession about loft insulation. A superinjunction prevents us identifying the specific board members of one of our local football teams.

We trust that these answers are satisfactory.

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A brand new Urban Village

We are keeping an eye one some newly proclaimed subversives, the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, whose goal is for S Gloucs to have cycle paths that the Dutch won't laugh at.

They have denounced the new cycle paths of the Tailspin housing estate between Lockleaze and the MoD as something the Dutch will laugh at, which apparently they did.

Well, let's drive out and see, as we were worried that this estate may be encouraging alternative transport instead of the joys of the A4174 ring road of a weekday evening.

Next to the sign advertising a new way of live in a Brand new Urban Village, we see a photo of a family all cycling without helmets on the path beside the estate. There are no houses in the photo as it was taken "before". There is some text in the advert about how wonderful it will be, but the ageing VW Polo hides it.

Nearby, it has that Urban Village flavour -maybe even a taste of Montpelier- as a VW Golf parks up on the pavement, some student cycles by, and the 20 mph roadsign has been twisted to one side by a passing truck.

Round the corner, as the subversives noted, yes, there is a new cycling path which is about 40 cm higher than the old one.

What has changed since last week's denunciation is the give way signs for traffic crossing this cycle path have been removed.

Nothing to fear here then. Business as usual. No happy families will be using these paths to get to the city, or even as far as crashing into the bollards by the MoD.

We hear the Cycling Front are planning a kind of competition one lunch time next week to see who can ride the path, mountain bikes with or without suspension recommended. Keep an eye on their @cyclingfront twitter feed for news.

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2nd2none shows how it's done

Yes we've seen this car before. The miracle that is an internet-scale index/search engine tells us we saw WR08HXK in exactly the same place in Chedworth Road, Horfield, back in March.

Well, before your customers are ready for the pavements of Monty, you need to teach them how to get on and off the kerb safely, and quiet roads like this with plenty of dropped kerbs are ideal. One issue though: six months? And their customer is still learning? That's not good.

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UWE to the Farm pub, by way of Purdown Camp

Someone posts us this (long and dull) video, with commentary.

They say:

You are always whining about bicycles in your way and how your road tax is wasted on bike lanes, but look at this. At 5pm I can get all the way from UWE to the Farm Pub, St Werburgh's, by bicycle, through fields, without using any tax-funded bike lane, public road or blocking any vans, fifteen minutes door to door. You try doing that in your white van. Apart from the 30s waiting for the lights to change on Muller Road so I can cross it, it's lovely and traffic free. So please, stop complaining so much.

Some of our team members also enjoy the fine beverages served by the farm pub; indeed, one of those white vans may be ours. We also agree, that at 17:00, to drive from UWE Frenchay to the Farm pub will take 30 minutes minimum, by either route:

1. A4174 to M32, round St Pauls Roundabout to Mina Road and then that new 20 mph zone to the pub.
2. Down to Stapleton Road then traffic lights and traffic jams to Mina Road.

Does this want to make us get out or van and start cycling? No. What it does is reinforce our demand for a new road from UWE to Lockleaze, and a re-opening of Boiling Wells Lane from Muller Road to St Werburgh's. This will stop both Lockleaze and Ashley Vale from being forgotten parts of the city.

More about → UWE to the Farm pub, by way of Purdown Camp

Snuff Mills: benchmarking Bristol Traffic

Our coverage of cycling families endangering car paintwork created some feedback from one Tony John Cooke, who expressed some concern that some of our claims (helmetless cyclists are uninsured troublemakers) lacked proof. Tony, the fact that cyclists are threats to our city and its motors are Axioms; we don't need to prove it, it is self-evident. We -and the rest of the media- work forward on that axiom, just like most of mathematics works on Euclids set without worrying about whether or not parallel lines ever meet.

Our goal when we set up this project was simple:

1. Timely coverage of the city's real transport issues.
2. Project the motorist's point of view, not the watered down stuff that the Evening Post and Daily Mail pushes out.

To check we are meeting these goals we benchmark ourselves against the competitors and the cycling press. Tony -your very complaint re-inforces our conclusions that we are being strongly consistent with our  messaging, so it cheers us up no end.

But is a complaint from one person enough? No, of course not. Which is where benchmarking ourselves against the mainstream press comes in:

1. We check that we are ahead of AA and RAC foundation thinking by looking for their press-releases reprinted unquestioningly by the BBC and other outlets. 
2. We verify that we are consistent with the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.
3. We verify that we are ahead of the local newspaper by reading it sometimes.
4. We compare our coverage with comments in the on-line press, to make sure we represent the real opinions of readers.
   

In particular, we keep an eye on our competitor, the Bristol Evening Post. For those readers out of the city, know that it is the city's premier daily newspaper, although we find that the South West Big Issue does tend to have more in depth coverage of economic and political issues. What the B.E.P. does have is a local news remit, though the reduction in staffing means that it is generally reduced to reprinting press announcements or criticising the council. Those press releases from Tesco, Bristol City Football Club and other major revenue sources are always welcome, but they do support some local pressure groups where their campaigns don't conflict with the needs of the supermarkets or BCFC.

On Thursday Sept 9, the coverage was on Snuff Mills and the proposals to replace the dirt track with a cycle path. This would be the continuation of the one which runs through Eastville Park, one we are aware of but haven't bothered to denounce.

Here a path runs along that bit of the Frome river which is not under the M32 flyover, providing somewhere for pedestrians and cyclists.

It looks like it might be a nice place to walk or cycle. But it doesn't really go anywhere right now, not until a link to UWE has been sorted out.

Which is where the Snuff Mills connection comes into play. Now, as metric of how up to date we are - success metric #1 -, we covered this issue on 8 july 2009, when we expressed our concerned that the improvements may degrade from the wilderness experience of the park. That is a whole fourteen months before the Evening Post heard of it. This shows the advantage of our reporting tactic: getting out and about in the city, versus theirs: waiting for press releases from organisations like the Snuff Mills Action Group.

Now, this is where things get complicated. According to the Snuff Mills people:

we reached a compromise with Cycling City following a meeting on site a few weeks ago. They agreed a narrower path and other changes to the scheme, but then emailed us the following week to say this was no longer acceptable because of the needs of the 'disabled community'.

We don't know anything about that, but we do encourage readers to go to the Snuff Mills Group, look at the proposals, come to their own conclusion and contact the council. We suspect that even the cyclists may be despairing about the effort being put into creating bike/pedestrian conflict here, while inner city troublespots -like Stokes Croft- have been abandoned. There's an obvious reason for that, nobody wants to take on the motorist.

Anyway, returning to our benchmarking theme, we checked out the comments. Remember how we are campaining for a new dual carriageway to be built across purdown to provide a fast route from an expanded Lockleaze to the M32? Some of the green party people in the city think this is some kind of joke. Sorry, but if you look at the comments of the Snuff Mills article, you can see that we are merely slightly ahead of the mainstream press.

In particular, look at this comment from our favourite E.P, commenter, James Carmichael of Highridge, whom we have covered before, and who has even achieved national fame:

"I used to live in this part of town, and what that area really needs is a link road connecting Fishponds Road to Broom Hill, through Wickham Glen and Eastville Park. This would relieve the traffic around Blackberry Hill.

But will we, the law abiding, tax paying motorist get this perfectly reasonable request granted? No, of course not. We're not blathering cyclists.

James Carmichael, Highridge"

We see his point. The council is spending our tax money on paths, but no new roads have been added to our city for some time -despite the parkland being up for sale. We propose the DfT should buy the parkland and add the roads or city needs.

We have been saying this for some time -that the city needs a new route to Abbey Wood, a new road between Dovercourt and Muller Road, and Muller Road should get uprated to a motorway or a new Lockleaze junction added to the M32.


The fact that we came up with our vision, some weeks before the most vociferous of the Evening Post commentators proposed a new road through Eastville Park, shows that we really are setting the agenda in this city. We aren't just reporting on news months old, we aren't even following press releases or comments in news articles. No: we are laying out a vision for a new city, one with the ring-roads back.
 

There you have it. Our web site is upsetting cyclists and pedestrians enough for them to complain to us, we are years ahead of the B.E.P. in covering developments, and months ahead of their readers. The AA and RAC "think tanks" aren't even beginning to think at our rate, let alone on our agenda. We are in charge.

We close, then, with a video of what the completed bit of the Eastville Bike and pedestrian path is like. Look at it, and think how much lovelier it would be if you could use this as a ratrun alternative to Stapleton or Fishponds Roads?
Bristol Traffic: more than just a news site -creating the new city.

More about → Snuff Mills: benchmarking Bristol Traffic

Council meeting today!

Today, Sept 7, is the next council meeting, where some protesters will be campaigning to protect the parkland of the city, such as here, the fields by Lockleaze, from progress.

The green party, are obviously against it.
Question is, what should the B.Traffic stance be?
To us, this green stuff is all wasted space which could be replaced by drive in superstores or more housing. But we fear something: the consequences -the congestion.

Look at this "field" above. Soon it will be a playing field for Fairlawn School. Behind the trees, the hill drops down to Muller Road, a key bottleneck in this part of the city, and a road you can waste hours on of a weekday evening.

There is no point redeveloping these forgotten parts of Lockleaze without adding a new dual carriageway to the M32!

There. We said it. S106 infrastructure money needs to go into either uprating Muller road to a full dual carriageway -as we've advocated in the past- or adding a new route to the M32.

Which is where an idea springs to mind. St John's Lane. From Purdown Camp down to Stapleton. Twenty years ago you could get car up it -admittedly, a stolen one you'd have to torch afterwards, but you really could drive all the way up it from Stapleton to Lockleaze. Not now. There's a gate in the way, relegating it to being nothing but a foot/bike path.

But sometimes, the gate gets opened by the allotment people, and the dream comes back.

A dream of a road, from here, the top of the city, right down to stapleton, and then, ideally, a new M32 on-ramp. Just a short one, like the Mina Road on ramp; enough to reward people with big-engined cars. And here, a place for the road to begin.

Look someone is trying it already, with their Peugeot 306, X615EDB, seeing just how far down the footpath they can get.

What better way to enjoy a summer evening than to drive down here and to dream of more dual carriageways.

Trivia footnote: the fields above date from the civil war; some of the hedges are apparently historical monuments or something. Presumably St John's Lane has the same history and access rules, despite the gate and the no trespassing signs. Sept 10, 1645, was when Prince Rupert of the Rhine and hence Bristol surrendered to the people, at least in the form of Cromwell's New Model Army. So what will happen this week, 365 years on?

More about → Council meeting today!

Bacon Roll opportunities off Muller Road

At last there is a use for the widened pavement on Muller Road -part of the North Fringe Cycle Path, which is still ongoing.

The sign lets passing motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists know the current cost of a bacon roll at the van round the corner, in front of B&Q. As you can see, this is popular. The van itself is the one in front, two Sita vehicles behind it, more in the B&Q parking area.

And there's the problem, see. Parking. This van and its customers need more space than this side road can provide. What to do?

Well, when we turn the camera round 180 degrees, we get an idea.


There's a bit of a stream, then a large amount of space. Unused space. Well, technically it's parkland, but as the council say, "it is little used other than by dog walkers" . They say that in the document which discusses selling off the site for development.,
Possible open space disposals in the Horfield and Lockleaze Neighbourhood Partnership Area.

In Horfield Lockleaze, two spaces have been identified as low value and are proposed for disposal. In some cases the value of a space could be improved by its partial development, allowing housing to be built facing onto the space and providing natural surveillance to the remainder. Then, what is often a poorly and misused backland site, can become of greater value to the local community and attract more people to use it.

See that? An underused bit of green space can be be made useful by development. Because a big wide bit of greenery, without housing overlooking, it's too scary to visit. We don't propose housing though, we propose expanded car parking for the bacon buttery van.

There you have it then. Wasted greenery -grass and trees- which could be redeveloped.


There's just one small flaw in the plan. As they say in their document

Planning permission has been granted for a cycle route through this space to connect Dovercourt Road with the road alongside B & Q and from there to Muller Road, this includes a long bridge over the stream. This will effectively divide the space into two.

Yes, while the parks team have been busy working out how to save the council money by selling off parkland, those road-tax-funded cycle route planner people have been busy getting a cycle route designed here with a bridge going over the stream. Oh, the irony! We relish in it! There they were, thinking they designing a nice route to cycle through greenery, using Bristol Council land over the railway land option -because it would be easier- when someone else was trying to work out how best to sell off the land, and, because there currently isn't any cycle traffic through here apart from the odd MTB-er who does the stream at the top, ignoring the extra throughput planned. We laughing, obviously, while the locals and cyclists are probably wailing and gnashing their teeth. Just think -if people drove onto this parkland for picnics, like they do on The Downs, it wouldn't be up for sale!

What do we think? Well, those people who like a bit of greenery and a bike lane through it ought be dropping a note to the Lockleaze Voice people, saying, how do we stop this? But we, well, we are thinking how best to salvage what could turn out to be a completely wasted foot/bike bridge. Our solution: use the bridge to get to and from the bacon roll van! Our road tax, put to use!

More about → Bacon Roll opportunities off Muller Road

Shared Space at work

Lovely photo of how the Shared Space idea, where the lines between pavement and road are blurred to produce a safer environment, helps on Dovercourt road between Horfield and Lockleaze -this road is also going to be part of the North Fringe cycle route, if funding for the bridge at the bottom doesn't get taken away and used for something useful like parking by a school.

Look how this stretch of pavement not only provides somewhere safe for children to play, but parking for a van, the minivan K648EJH -and a bus stop!

If you look at the full size image, you can see the woman in the photo is happy, she really must appreciate this shared-space infrastructure, giving her somewhere pleasant to stand while waiting for a FirstBus bus to turn up.

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Breaking news: lockleaze to be less forgotten

There are signs up hinting that Lockleaze is to be less of a forgotten quarter, primarily by adding more houses. A forgotten half, then.

The locals are upset about this, in the form of the lockleaze voice, and are organising a meeting with the council today, July 27, at 7pm in the Cameron House.

Some people no doubt expect us to be in favour of turning the green fields of Lockers into housing, but oddly enough, we aren't.

• Without adding a new dual carriageway up to the North Fringe, it will only make congestion on Muller Road worse.
• We are worried that it will force the teenagers on their motorbikes elsewhere, such as in our way on the road.
• There a no plans for a heliport. Helicopter parking is a popular need, yet there is nowhere safe to do it.
• We quite like looking at greenery when stuck on the M32.
• Important celebrities undergoing coke and alcohol dependency treatments at the discreet clinic nearby do not want look at the little people.

Consider attending if you too find your concerns coincide with ours or those of the residents themselves.

More about → Breaking news: lockleaze to be less forgotten