Secret Stokes Croft parking

We're always looking for some secret parking places round stokes croft -and while we've often seen vehicles parked partially up on the Sydenham Road "anti car" feature, ever before seen a car all four wheels up, as K563ECY has pulled off

Lovely. Look, they even leave space on the bottom of ninetree hill for someone to push their bicycle up.

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Equal penalties, see

One amusing consequence of the RPZ is that as the fine for parking without a resident permit in the "permitted parking" area is the as for parking on double yellow lines, if you aren't resident, you may as well park where it is most convenient to you.

Nice, though S826TAW could have pulled forward a bit more. We would have.

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The front line of the RPZ

Freemantle Square, the council is happily making us pay even more for the right to park near the inner city, and ticketing those who resist!

Fortunately, just down the hill, the zone ends, and on Springfield road, you can double park provided you stay far enough away from the yellow lines as to not infringe them.

Cyclists coming up Ninetree hill should be grateful for this considerate parking by V281MGO

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Red Bull? We thought they were on our side!

A reader, "O.M.", tips us off with the breaking news that Red Bull are sponsoring a bike race up Park Street on Saturday night, Jan 29 at 19:00.

This sounds quite fun, we thought we could join in with the van. We swing past the racers, cut in and park on the uphill side of the road to do a delivery gambit, helping to get our main line of business -discreet delivery of sex toys to all parts of the city- a bit of publicity. But it will not be.

From 18:00, Park Street will be closed to traffic! 

This is so wrong. Not just because it denies Saturday night stretch-limos the opportunity to take stag parties up from the centre to whiteladies road, it gives the racers and the audience an unrealistic view of what Park Street is like without motor vehicles. Which then gives the audience an unrealistic view of what the city would be like without motor vehicles. Unrealistic, because all of us, from the parents driving their kids to school, to our white vans, discreetly delivering inflatable people everywhere from stokes croft to southville, keep the city alive. Have you ever tried to get a child to school on foot? Crossing the roads? Have you ever tried to get a matched set of official Sky TV presenter inflatable dolls (with the official presenters voices- its like having them on your own sofa) across the city on the back of a fixed wheel bike? It just doesn't work.

What galls us is, as  "O.M." points out, Red Bull were on our side. Their energy drink not only lets you stay up night drinking vodka until you have to drive home, if you only get three hours sleep a couple of cans of the stuff will wake you up and have you so buzzing that you'll be driving right behind the vehicle in front, flashing your lights, be they cyclist, commuter or even then avon and somerset police. There they are, doing the 20mph or 30 mph speed limit, and there you are, jittering so much you can barely text ahead to the office complaining that a police car doing 30 is holding you back and you'll need another five Jeremy Clarkson models as now he's the last remaining real man left on TV the fact that he looks like a run-over badger doesn't put the punters off.

Red Bull, whose side are you on? You sponsor a formula 1 team, the cars above, yet now you seem to think encouraging cycling will keep your business going. This fills us with resentment and fear

Also, and this is for the cyclists taking part:

We have given you Ninetree Hill. What more do you want?

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Kingsdown RPZ, interesting, but too early to reach a conclusion

We've been driving round the new RPZ; watching. It's not until the students are back with their cars and their lessons that we'll see how it works, so right now it's in a transitional phase.

What is interesting is how much empty space there is. Here on Dove Street, the entire side of the road that you can park on legally is empty, though the Mercedes driver still wants to avoid the challenge of crossing the road.

Perhaps they didn't have a permit, and as the penalty for paveparking by a yellow line is the same as a non-resident in the resident area, you may as well park closest to your destination.

Elsewhere, the new restaurant Alfred's has space outside it in Alfred Place for lunchtime customers.

And along the road, a view of what the houses must have looked like in Georgian times, before modern inventions came along.

Most interesting was on Somerset Street, which is yet to be repainted. Look closely at the ground here, on Spring Hill

That faded paint implies there has always been a keep clear zone here. We never knew that -all we could see that it was an ideal place for wide vehicles to park. The markings on the ground imply the anti-motorist council will not just leave the obsolete signage to fade, they will be adding double yellow lines instead.

We close by sending our team cyclist round the area (sorry, but we did wait until a Sunday), to get a video. This shows us a number of things.

1. There are some interesting pubs in the area.
2. A loading zone is no substitute for zebra crossing zig zags if it involves more walking.
3. Someone has added parking spaces to Nine Tree Hill.

That final point is interesting. Until now, Nine Tree was lost space, you could park there, but then you could get a ticket. Now locals can park there. How do they get out of this dead end? Presumably by reversing down the road which today is only used by cyclists and pedestrians walking up the hill. Even so, four extra spaces there barely compensate for all the lost corners. Our footage of this area will have to be preserved for posterity, "Kingsdown before the changes came"

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