More biggerer and betterer.

Bristol is often referred to by many ex Londoners as being like a "little London". While we can appreciate the comparison we at Bristol Traffic know that with the proper building of new bigger wider roads to allow more cars into the city it won't be long before Bristol becomes bigger and better than London. Better because we won't leave our motorways unfinished on the outskirts of the city. Ours will penetrate right into the heart of the city centre creating a vibrant city environment that everywhere else in the world could only dream of. After all we already know that car drivers are the only people who ever spend money in cities and allowing anyone else to get in their way is a sure way to help businesses lose trade.

We have a good start already in the M32 but there's more work to be done if our vision of the future is to come to fruition.

Here as a reminder of why the plan must be seen through is a short film by a young man highlighting where London failed to match up to our vision.

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Sleeping with the enemy

We at Bristol Traffic never hesitate to drive where others may fear to tread in the pursuit of truth and justice for motorists. It is in no small part to our fearless reporting that the war on the motorist is finally being won but are always keeping a look out for any danger that the enemy will retaliate.

Which is why we were very concerned to hear about a splinter group that is being formed specifically with the aim of attacking the rights of the motorist to drive where we damn well please. Who else but the tax dodging, lycra lout, cyclists, always whinging about our hard taxed money being spent on cycling "farcilities" that they should be grateful for. It seems that they want cycling infrastructure that is as good as the Dutch model (which, incidentally, we were very disappointed to hear does not involve David Walliams's wife.)

The meeting of this splinter group was in a far away forbidding place designed to strike fear in the heart of any motorist, yet we were spurred on by the recent revelation that the police planted an informer into an environmental activist group. If they could do it then so could we and so we fuelled up the white van and headed east, braving the congestion charge and the danger that we may need to have sex with some of them (despite being confident that they were all certain to be mamils.)

Our fears were realised; not the sex part unfortunately, but the purpose and organisation of this subversive organisation. Calling themselves the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, it was a group of diverse, passionate and probably even intelligent people that are trying to take road space away from the motorist and give it to pedestrians, cyclists and communities. We were disturbed that there were so many attendees and as far as we could tell, not one of them was actually wearing lycra (apart from us trying to blend in), in fact the ringleader was wearing a suit!

It may be humble beginnings but we really fear that this group could actually make a difference with this manifesto. Whatever you do, do not encourage this behaviour or talk about the set up of their "Embassy" or before you know it there will be 20mph zones and no pavement parking for starters.

Do you really want this to happen to Bristol's gloriously car centric streets?

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The Bloomsbury Problem

Another issue we had with the Russel Square area is that this marked a clear attempt to bring cycle-friendly infrastructure into the inner city, rather than, as in Bristol, leave it places where we hope it doesn't get in the way of anyone important.

First, signs, encouraging cyclists to find their way round

Full green bike paths, with raised kerbs to make it slightly harder to accidentally park in them.

Junctions for the bicycles themselves, with no cyclists dismount signs

And here, worst of all, an "except cycles" get-out clause on a one way street. Not "except cycles, taxis and van drivers", but cycles only.

What is really depressing here is that the Camden council staff behind such schemese visited the proposed GBBN Whiteladies Road development, the one that will help motorists driving in to town by removing the zebra crossings in our way and making cycling more dangerous. We know this as we infiltrated the event, keeping track of what people were saying, and whether complaints were being dismissed -as expected- or actually listened to, and tried to slip our own ideas in to distract them.

On the topic of that camden council cycle team visit, can we extend our apologies to the woman driving the green nissan micra down WL road who was held up for fifteen seconds by the funny bicycle people. Yes, you were right to beep your horn at us for not being in the bike lane, even though cyclists don't have to cycle in them, they can cycle two abreast legally, and the traffic jam ahead meant you weren't losing any time. Yes, you were right to complain that eight people on bicycles at 08:50 on a weekday were causing utter chaos, which is why the local council had arranged the cyclist visit to during the quiet period mid-morning.  Sadly, some of the cycle troublemakers had spotted the flaw there and pressured for a rush hour visit, which is why you were held up by three people cycling two-abreast down whiteladies road.

Because we were trying to blend in with these subversives we did have to come up and argue with you while you were stopped at the traffic lights, as anything else would have aroused the suspicions of the rest of the group.

Sorry!

We didn't really mean to call you a selfish idiot who would clearly benefit from getting out of their car and trying to do some exercise! It's your right to get fat and stay unfit by driving to work and back, stopping only in the supermarket to buy ready-to-fry fast foods.

We didn't really want to dispute the niceties of the highway code and the fact that nowhere in it does it say "bicycles should be banned from our roads"  -because like you, we think it ought to! It was just something we had to do to blend in!

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Walthamizing Russell Square

Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham Forest recently popped over to inner London to denounce the area for having a parking space.

Interestingly, this bit of the city exists in our database, but it was actually so depressing to us we hadn't bothered to put up. Look at this, Malet Street, the heart of the student area, just E. of Russell Square.

1. There is only one free parking space for electric vehicles. 
2. You are limited to parking there for 2h only, which is barely enough for a family-funded arts student to finish three cafe lattes.
3. The fast moving bicycles endanger the paintwork on these premium vehicles. 

Yet to the left of the EV parking space, there is clearly enough space to put in four or five more charge points, enough to make a greener city. Yet it is taken up (even on a saturday) by a vast collection of bicycles -parked on our road tax funded roads- and a zebra crossing, again, tax dodgers stealing Road Tax space.

Slightly south, a row of borisbikes on a pavement buildout.

And in the university itself, some bicycle lockers for staff -even they are being encouraged to cycle.

Paul Dirac -Bristol's greatest physicist, apparently moved from Cambridge to Florida in a dispute over allocated parking spaces. When are the London universities going to realise that the only way to attract and retain the best staff, and the most well-funded students, is by providing parking for motor vehicles?

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