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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Kingsdown RPZ trouble.

Lots of fun following the Kingsdown RPZ plans. Apparently the local councillor is getting lots of hate mail. We think he should be grateful for the publicity, and considering how much grief his colleagues got on the Sainsbury's Ashton Gate proposal, be glad it's not death threats.

Anyway, the plans are going ahead. Some places may be removed as parking options. Even before the zone is rolled out, someone is ticketing cars parked on non-double-yellow lined pavements, such as here on Spring Hill. Now, this is a narrow road, and with the steps on the pavement either end it's hard to negotiate when there is a car in the way, but this is the summer holidays. The kids are out. This is a lovely bit of traffic calming, yet T198NEF gets to pay a parking ticket, for parking in a way that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in Monty, except the distance from the wall, the two wing mirrors and overall bodywork state would say "outsider". Here on a weekday in Kingsdown, it says "resident".

This is where we differ in our opinions from the No Group. They say "everything just about works, keep parking free". But does it work?  Because it doesn't take that many tickets on your car to justify the cost of a residents permit. So parking isn't really free, is it. It's only free if you don't get caught. That's like saying driving round is free because you don't need a tax or MOT. Yet those DVLA cameras watching us, watching the entries to the city, driving round the back street, find us, eventually. 

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