Not participating in the daily mail survelliance infrastructure

The Bristol Traffic Project is, as we have repeatedly declared, a community-sourced police state, using the datacentre infrastructure of our strategic partners Google. Google have published some of their datacentre photographs, for people to look at while reading about how google use atomic clocks to implement causal consistency between locations. The reason that Google's "Spanner" system does this is to ensure that all their computers round the world have a consistent view of "when" they are.

The Bristol Evening Post, with whom we no longer have any strategic relationship, hasn't needed atomic clocks to implement a global-scale consistency model; indeed their articles do not usually implement causal consistency; the notion that actions (e.g burning carbon fuels) have side effects that happen afterwards (climate change). Nor are they eventually Consistent: at no point in the future will the various articles and newspapers of the daily mail portfolio ever make coherent sense.

This is not news; it is not important. Except now, anyone logging in to the thisisbristol web site to add a balanced comment about how Cllr Gollop is going back on his word of being an anti-cycling councillor and now pandering to the lycra-criminals is, if they use a gmail.com email address, asked to sign in with their "google ID".

And when you do that, what rights does Google say the thisisbristol web site -hence the Evening Post and the rest of the Daily Mail portfolio say that they want to have to your account:

TINReg is requesting permission to:

•     Manage your tasks
•     View your email address
•     View basic information about your account
•     Manage your contacts
•     Know who you are on Google

What does that mean? It means the Daily Mail/this-is- set of web sites want to:

Manage your tasks
Have the ability to read and update your todo list in google calendar.

View your email address
See your email address

View basic information about your account
See what your claimed gender and age is.

Manage your contacts
see below

Know who you are on Google
See who you say you are

It's that "Manage your contacts" one that worries us. Because Gmail builds up a list of contacts automatically, based who sends you email and who you email yourself, the google contact list is really "a list of who you communicate with".

That's a really interesting piece of information. Know that and they can start comparing your contacts list with the other people who comment on the paper.  And because they have the contacts list of those commenters, the site could even find common contacts between two commenters  -even in the case where the two commenters do not know each other directly. That is, in graph-theory terms, one degree of separation. Before long they'll have built up a graph of the communications between people in the city, which is pretty valuable stuff. Facebook have that to an extent, but only between people who explicitly declare each other as friends. Even so, that subset of links was enough for Facebook to show that there is usually a four-hop connection between any two people in the US: four degrees of separation. 

If the entire portfolio of the Daily Mail web sites start collecting your email address and those of all you talk to, they stand a good chance of building up a map of who talks to who amongst all people who log in and comment in any of their web sites.

We don't trust the organisation. It's not that we don't agree with their political objectives: the imprisonment of subversives, the stance they take against lycra-criminals, 20 mph speed limits and other potential criminals. It's just that we don't see why they need to go behind our backs and build up a graph of everyone who comments on the paper to achieve those goals. It's the people who don't read the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Evening Post, and their other regional counterparts that we need to worry about.

This is what Bristol Traffic is: a police state run by volunteers! There is no need for the DM sites to spy on us -not when we report the anti-motoring activities that the city is up to.

Subversives infiltrate the B.E.P web site

Only last week, did our hero, Bob Bull, self-proclaimed prophet of the Association of British Drivers, spell out the truth about who pays for our roads.

MANY cyclists claim incorrectly that they contribute to road costs. The maths is simple: motorists' contribution more than £40 billion, road expenditure £10 billion per year.
The claim that they are zero rated along with electric cars is naive.
Do they really think the government will give up the £40 billion?
They will probably introduce road pricing which cyclists should pay. With regard to laws many cyclists remove bell and lights and those with them don't use them, it is also the law to stop at red lights but many don't obey that either.
They also ride on the pavement which is also illegal.
Bob Bull

Yet what do we see now, a response by one "Katy Boundary" of Stokes Croft:

THE Post's anti-cyclist letter writer, Bob Bull, again denounces cyclists for not being taxed. I await his denunciation of all class-A VED cars again for taking up a lane despite the fact that they pay no car tax a year.
Does he fume at being stuck behind a Toyota Prius? Does he resent having his right to park taken away by a Fiat 500 occupying a space that would otherwise be free? He should try cycling and learn to be more relaxed.
Every one of us who pays council tax in the city has paid for the roads. Given Mr Bull appears to be a resident of Portishead, it is he who has not paid to use the streets of our city.
Katy Boundary
Stokes Croft

Curiously, we have the original of the letter, which has a slightly different final paragraph:

All roads in Bristol that aren't managed by the Highways Agency are funded by Bristol City Council: every one of us who pays council tax in the city has payed for them. Given the Bob Bull appears to be a resident of Portishead, it is he who has not paid to use the streets of our city. 

Either way, this letter writer is wrong

Not the "moment of madness" defence again

The Former Bristol Evening Post has an article about someone disqualified from driving, caught by the police's ANPR camera in an unmarked car and then going for a sprint round Hanham, nearly hitting an oncoming cyclist and then crashing into bollards.

IT "was a moment of madness"

Some observations

1. There's nothing wrong with nearly hitting an oncoming cyclist, in fact is a common and necessary operation in our cities.
2. Bollards are the cause of many of the accidents in our cities.
3. ANPR camera recognition hooked up to insurance and registration checkers are another example of the surveillance and nanny state at work. That's a bit like those in house baby-intercoms, for anyone  wondering what a "surveillance nanny state is".

Our key observation is this though: that moment of madness defence is getting ever  more boring. 

If you look at its origin, being caught in engaging in consensual sex in a public place -and who doesn't do that from time to time?- what it really means is "it is unfortunate that this particular time  I was caught by a police force who consider what I was doing to be illegal". The probability of being caught with your kit off in public is surprisingly low, based on our experiments, so the M-o-M defence is pretty weak there. We say:  own up and say 'so what?'.

Which is precisely what the driver should have done here. Disqualified, no insurance, unregistered car, driving badly: so what?

As it is the judged has recognised the "moment of madness" defence is wearing thin:

 "This was more than a moment of madness. It was six or seven minutes of extremely bad driving. It's pure luck you didn't injure or kill someone."

Again, six to seven minutes of extremely bad driving where it pure luck you didn't injure or kill someone? That's the school run summarised in a single sentence.

Evening Post bingo: the phrases

The next step in our Evening Post Bingo project is determining which phrases are the most frequent phrases that appear in the sentences.

Here they are, all phrases of three or more words that appear more than once in our set of articles. Abbreviations such as "I'm" have been expanded to I am.

With these results the bingo card generation is trivial -just strip out some duplicates -lots of "I am sure" and then turn the rest into cards for people to play with. Rather than do that ourselves, the readers are instructed to pick five of these, and, when they see the next Evening Post article on cycling, play Bingo!

The first person to win all of their chosen phrases and declare this in the article's comments gets fifteen minutes free parking in the Stokes Croft cycle lane! Outside Ritas!

"on the pavement", 12
"in the city", 7
"the number of", 7
"a lot of", 6
"i am sure", 5
"the pavement and", 5
"number of cyclists", 5
"needs to be", 5
"cyclists in the", 5
"cyclists and pedestrians", 5
"the fact that", 4
"it's illegal to ride", 4
"it is about", 4
"cyclists in the city", 4
"the cycling city", 4
"of the road", 4
"it's illegal to", 4
"of cyclists in", 4
"to be a", 4
"the way of", 4
"through red lights", 4
"in the way", 4
"bristol city council", 4
"it is illegal", 4
"illegal to ride", 4
"the highway code", 3
"has been a", 3
"said it was", 3
"i have been", 3
"with no lights", 3
"all the time", 3
"break the law", 3
"cycling city project", 3
"i have seen", 3
"the rules of the", 3
"the rules of", 3
"first cycling city", 3
"and i am sure", 3
"said: it is", 3
"to cycle on", 3
"part of the", 3
"blind and partially sighted", 3
"even if it", 3
"to have a", 3
"on the pavement and", 3
"the city centre", 3
"between cyclists and", 3
"out of the", 3
"cyclists in bristol", 3
"a good thing", 3
"the number of cyclists", 3
"cyclists should be", 3
"the city council", 3
"on the pavement -", 3
"8 million pounds", 3
"rules of the", 3
"and partially sighted", 3
"cycle on the", 3
"red lights and", 3
"the pavement -", 3
"in the way of", 3
"on the road", 3
"one of these", 3
"blind and partially", 3
"and i am", 3
"to cycle on the", 3

Generated EP article of the day

Fresh from our article factory, comes another one

"It got to the point where we were too afraid to go out. Also, they will congregate in groups to have a natter and in doing so, they take up half or more of the path. THERE has been a lot of banter on these pages between cyclists and drivers. The young, the old, the infirm, the family and pets must all be socially cleansed so that cycling hobbyists can come first. Great emphasis on safety there chaps. Only 15 were caught today, as opposed to the 44 who were spoken to at the same time last week. They stick their fingers up and adopt such a bullying manner with people who challenge them. 8 million pounds was spent on cycling infrastructure, such as 13 miles of off-road cycle tracks including the Festival Way to Ashton Court and a route from the centre to Bristol's northern fringe through St Werburgh's and Lockleaze. I only wish this was the case but it happens on a daily basis. Just as a start, when can we have registration plates on bicycles, so these morons can be identified and prosecuted. "

If there's one fault of the system it is that we need more hand-written articles. We've only got 500 sentences right now, and they tend to get a bit repetitive. Given the Evening Post suffers from the same problem -repetitiveness- we are starting to suspect something even more profound.

1. Has the Daily Mail Group, at some point in the recent past, replaced all their journalists in the Bristol Evening Post with a hundred lines of Python code that can generate new articles based on the entire past archives of the paper?

2. How can we determine if this is or is not the case? The standard "turing test" does not apply, because the BEP article portfolio has always been so limited. What else can we do to determine the secret of how Evening Post articles get generated?

Introducing the Evening Post Article Factory!

When introducing our automated bingo card generator, we mentioned that an ultimate goal was to generate whole articles. This actually turns out easier than expected. Rather than use stochastic Markov Chain modelling to predict the follow-on words from an initially n-tuple of corpus-extracted words, we can just use the sentences extracted from the evening post articles and pick some in a random order, initially making sure not to repeat any. This works so well that we cannot even believe it ourselves:

"There are more motorists than cyclists, it makes perfect sense to just ban them. Dark clothing, no lights and certainly no sense but, incredibly, he shouted at me as if I was at fault for not wearing my night vision goggles. As soon as I moved here I started having issues with cyclists, she told the Evening Post. We all aspire to live in attractive, liveable cities where it is safe to get around by foot and by bike, and so we need to encourage people to take up these modes of transport. There were also a couple of pedestrian crossings where cyclists just didn't stop. How about spending some money on the poor down-trodden motorist. But a bit of tolerance might help matters a little. I don't think there are any particular blackspots in the city for riding on the pavement - the whole city is a blackspot. Motorists don't pay enough attention towards cyclists and they seem to forget that we are very vulnerable. If Bristol is the first cycling city then there needs to be more education out there. "

Even though there's been no attempt at finding some coherence between individual sentences, it turns out not to matter. Look at this one. You could get this as a letter in the evening post without even bothering to do any proof-reading:

"Do all this and we can all be friends. Cyclists going on the pavement is really quite dangerous. ). Cyclists shouldn't expect respect from motorists if they can't even be bothered to wait for the lights to go green before launching themselves forward. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. The lad was without lights or reflective clothing, and clearly also a responsible adult to look after him. Not so much hug a hoodie but cuddle a cyclist perhaps. And what would have ensued had he collided with me. Whatever happened to the old 'Be safe, be seen' advertising campaign. "

And again.

'Cyclists should observe the highway code just as motorists do. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. If a driver hit him off his bike they would no doubt get charged with driving with undue care and attention. Concerned residents made their points to MPs from across the region at a meeting of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). Cyclists need to realise that the road is for motorists and cyclists and the pavement is for pedestrians. I realise not all cyclists behave like this, just the vast majority, especially the Lycra ones who think they are as wide as cars. There desperately needs to be something shown on TV perhaps to illustrate these dangers. Bristol cyclists still running red lights. I personally think a Cyclist free week would be far more beneficial. We are working with the police to try and overcome this problem. '

This is transformational. We can use the past works of the Evening Post article and letter writers to actually render themselves obsolete. It takes 17 milliseconds to generate one of these articles on a four year old laptop, which means that five million articles can be pushed out every single day. The evening post web site could be set up to generate one every time a visitor hit "reload" on the anti-cycling page. Then, once the comment generator was hooked up to generate comments from the collected comment articles, we could go on to simulate an entire Evening Post comment argument. Finally, the same code could be hooked up the Ashton Value stadium dataset and the whole town green/football stadium battle could be fought to the death between two competing servers. Like skynet only more provincial.

To close, then, with a fifteen sentence article:

"That is very dangerous because you expect to be able to cross safely without watching out. 20 billion pounds of damage to business is caused by traffic jams and cyclists are the main cause. The old Bristol to Bath railway track, Leigh Woods, the Avon Walkway and Ashton Court estate have all been badly scarred by cycling louts as they trash pedestrian paths making them fit only for cyclists, or gouge cycle tracks through the woodland for their hobby. Sometimes this has been where small children are present or when people are walking their dogs. Bodywork repair costs a lot these days. Every single one I see cuts through red lights like a knife through butter. They give me the impression that it is only them on the track and seem blissfully unaware of the fact that there are other 'freelance' cyclists and pedestrians who have just as much right as they have. Mr Drummond said the police seemed to turn a blind eye to cyclists on the pavements, too. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. Then, as I reached my destination another cyclist ignored the rules of the roundabout and pulled out straight in front of me. If something isn't done soon, I am afraid there is going to be a terrible, terrible accident. I do think that I will get hit at some point, especially if the number of cyclists in the city keeps increasing. We won't be coming again. I have nothing against cyclists and if I could see properly I would be one, but I would like to think I would be a considerate cyclist. "

Bristol will never be the same again

Evening Post bingo: the keywords

Last week we introduced Evening Post Bingo.

In a comment, someone called Downfader announced that they had the same idea -presumably from our initial proposal the week before- and had produced some cards.

Well, we appreciate the artwork, but note that Downfader's effort shows both selection bias in the form of the writer, and doesn't scale to working with other newspapers or article types.

Being a data-centric company, along with strategic partners like Google and Facebook, we have designed a system that will scale. The process is straightforward -use the articles on the evening post web site which we have already covered as the source of our content -and have machines to the heavy lifting for us.This will not only aid other regions, but apply just as well to the Ashton Gate and Bristol Mayor discussions.

While the sentence/phrase extraction process is underway, here is the initial output -the entire list of words in the Evening Post cycling article corpus, sorted by frequency. Everything is in lower case, so the 124 instances of "i" really translate to "I", and presumably indicate that an opinion is about to appear.

Cleanup is incomplete, apostrophes aren't being stripped of the ends of works, singular and plurals aren't being merged. Keeping the apostrophes in provides extra information, as it usually implies some kind of wittiness from the writer, like 'sui-cyclists' and 'supervision'. This actually makes us feel sorry for these letter writers, as their humour is clearly limited. Once our automated-evening-post-article-generator is completed they can entertain their friends with their humour, rather than inflict it on the rest of us.

For the reader's enjoyment then, the initial output of the Bristol Traffic mine-the-evening post Bingo card and Letter Generating system:-

the, 420
to, 267
and, 228
a, 222
of, 166
cyclists, 135
in, 127
i, 124
on, 107
is, 89
for, 78
they, 77
that, 75
it, 74
as, 71
are, 68
have, 64
cycling, 61
be, 60
was, 53
with, 53
we, 51
not, 50
who, 49
bristol, 49
but, 48
this, 47
city, 46
by, 46
at, 42
all, 42
road, 40
or, 38
lights, 36
there, 35
people, 34
pedestrians, 34
he, 34
has, 32
from, 32
their, 31
do, 29
cycle, 29
were, 29
would, 28
cyclist, 28
been, 27
one, 27
more, 27
if, 26
out, 26
should, 26
them, 25
about, 25
-, 24
so, 24
you, 24
me, 23
just, 23
pavement, 23
way, 22
my, 20
said, 20
an, 20
some, 19
time, 19
car, 18
council, 18
motorists, 18
police, 18
said:, 18
get, 18
these, 18
no, 17
when, 17
can, 17
ride, 17
will, 17
had, 16
bike, 15
think, 15
pounds, 15
very, 15
see, 15
illegal, 15
could, 15
how, 14
law, 14
say, 14
where, 14
many, 14
number, 14
also, 14
need, 14
dangerous, 14
like, 14
every, 13
pavements, 13
down, 13
than, 13
only, 13
traffic, 13
through, 13
up, 13
red, 13
other, 13
new, 12
same, 12
week, 12
last, 12
our, 12
it's, 12
mr, 11
project, 11
make, 11
right, 11
going, 11
being, 11
his, 11
use, 11
which, 11
even, 10
then, 10
good, 10
seen, 10
cars, 10
any, 10
pay, 10
without, 10
am, 10
us, 10
another, 9
years, 9
million, 9
take, 9
sure, 9
between, 9
around, 9
children, 9
what, 9
don't, 9
safety, 9
money, 9
dark, 9
having, 9
go, 9
tax, 9
must, 8
over, 8
drummond, 8
bikes, 8
still, 8
blind, 8
come, 8
using, 8
feel, 8
him, 8
towards, 8
hit, 8
centre, 8
group, 8
made, 8
i'm, 7
old, 7
clothing, 7
routes, 7
first, 7
laws, 7
walking, 7
before, 7
helmet, 7
your, 7
her, 7
lot, 7
everyone, 7
pedestrian, 7
spent, 7
run, 7
safer, 7
something, 7
she, 7
off, 7
street, 6
campaign, 6
travel, 6
safe, 6
too, 6
target, 6
against, 6
yet, 6
post, 6
says, 6
change, 6
may, 6
year, 6
enough, 6
across, 6
those, 6
drivers, 6
past, 6
needs, 6
that's, 6
done, 6
fine, 6
bristol's, 6
often, 6
users, 6
ago, 6
young, 6
few, 6
high, 6
light, 6
doing, 6
fact, 6
riding, 6
respect, 6
because, 6
transport, 6
under, 5
give, 5
want, 5
after, 5
break, 5
each, 5
gloucester, 5
rogers, 5
despite, 5
much, 5
couple, 5
night, 5
along, 5
making, 5
st, 5
half, 5
now, 5
killed, 5
thing, 5
11, 5
track, 5
nearly, 5
lanes, 5
city's, 5
public, 5
family, 5
eye, 5
two, 5
coming, 5
signs, 5
its, 5
evening, 5
since, 5
issue, 5
part, 5
paths, 5
8, 5
please, 5
rules, 5
used, 5
back, 5
into, 5
day, 5
why, 5
problem, 5
know, 5
does, 5
stay, 5
own, 5
three, 5
partially, 5
whether, 5
education, 5
accidents, 5
told, 4
path, 4
work, 4
keep, 4
turn, 4
fit, 4
little, 4
manner, 4
stop, 4
considerate, 4
bad, 4
protect, 4
near, 4
left, 4
possible, 4
cooper, 4
sighted, 4
such, 4
maybe, 4
realise, 4
crossings, 4
anyone, 4
black, 4
morning, 4
outside, 4
period, 4
dangers, 4
myself, 4
driver, 4
seems, 4
start, 4
trying, 4
again, 4
small, 4
pass, 4
attitudes, 4
taken, 4
22, 4
might, 4
someone, 4
insurance, 4
really, 4
officers, 4
chairman, 4
idiots, 4
both, 4
point, 4
else, 4
themselves, 4
once, 4
others, 4
danger, 4
majority, 4
move, 4
junction, 4
south, 4
gear, 4
let's, 4
wear, 4
well, 4
add, 4
avoid, 4
pressure, 4
getting, 4
roads, 4
authority, 4
dressed, 4
friends, 4
understand, 4
child, 3
four, 3
consider, 3
school, 3
clothes, 3
above, 3
increasing, 3
ever, 3
met, 3
i'd, 3
until, 3
damage, 3
badly, 3
wrong, 3
regularly, 3
driving, 3
encourage, 3
got, 3
free, 3
dogs, 3
likely, 3
mind, 3
seem, 3
responsible, 3
regular, 3
dog, 3
wearing, 3
result, 3
seven, 3
months, 3
support, 3
head, 3
daily, 3
did, 3
groups, 3
live, 3
believes, 3
claim, 3
pulled, 3
seriously, 3
quite, 3
care, 3
training, 3
massive, 3
saving, 3
vote, 3
given, 3
15, 3
especially, 3
drive, 3
cannot, 3
wheels, 3
can't, 3
situation, 3
middle, 3
railway, 3
accountable, 3
foot, 3
legal, 3
rush, 3
wife, 3
rogue, 3
mps, 3
large, 3
streets, 3
further, 3
experience, 3
action, 3
sustrans, 3
near-misses, 3
sense, 3
breaking, 3
compulsory, 3
help, 3
attitude, 3
encouraging, 3
15am, 3
stopped, 3
expect, 3
funding, 3
7, 3
highway, 3
louts, 3
station, 3
behind, 3
double, 3
vulnerable, 3
most, 3
scooter, 3
rest, 3
sustainable, 3
set, 3
meeting, 3
straight, 3
user, 3
spend, 3
love, 3
projects, 3
continue, 3
behave, 3
long, 3
crackdown, 3
planet, 3
called, 3
bishopston, 3
lane, 3
gloucestershire, 3
menace, 3
code, 3
arrogance, 3
jump, 3
let, 3
great, 3
next, 3
doubling, 3
started, 3
visibility, 3
train, 3
plate, 3
counted, 3
including, 3
hands, 3
front, 3
cause, 3
priority, 3
clearly, 3
able, 3
areas, 3
progress, 3
avon, 3
taking, 3
walk, 3
perhaps, 3
injured, 3
effect, 3
government, 3
proper, 3
home, 3
obey, 3
count, 3
wish, 3
limited, 2
aim, 2
never, 2
ignoring, 2
hospital, 2
call, 2
aware, 2
adult, 2
hold, 2
room, 2
err, 2
route, 2
end, 2
jumping, 2
appreciate, 2
green, 2
keeps, 2
better, 2
tourist, 2
represents, 2
side, 2
schemes, 2
carry, 2
turning, 2
enlightened, 2
days, 2
caught, 2
unlit, 2
top, 2
took, 2
outlaw, 2
matter, 2
mine, 2
causing, 2
responsibility, 2
roundabout, 2
14, 2
ban, 2
fail, 2
best, 2
tolerance, 2
however, 2
here, 2
accident, 2
reported, 2
planned, 2
high-visibility, 2
rather, 2
catch, 2
rnib, 2
motorist, 2
launched, 2
suggest, 2
several, 2
published, 2
meads, 2
failing, 2
yes, 2
royal, 2
possibly, 2
officer, 2
pushbike, 2
footway, 2
efforts, 2
bath, 2
hear, 2
lorry, 2
evidence, 2
felt, 2
hurt, 2
assume, 2
certainly, 2
environment, 2
bicycles, 2
cool, 2
team, 2
cost, 2
stands, 2
shared, 2
address, 2
wait, 2
boy, 2
funded, 2
example, 2
law-abiding, 2
country's, 2
visit, 2
today, 2
riders, 2
following, 2
didn't, 2
winter, 2
guarantee, 2
spot, 2
designed, 2
man, 2
werburgh's, 2
remember, 2
course, 2
councillor, 2
main, 2
lycra, 2
tried, 2
living, 2
earlier, 2
remainder, 2
cycles, 2
place, 2
spoken, 2
message, 2
millions, 2
redland, 2
10, 2
sat, 2
paid, 2
later, 2
abraham, 2
spaces, 2
aggressive, 2
regarding, 2
reading, 2
miles, 2
vision, 2
seat, 2
encouraged, 2
blame, 2
cities, 2
among, 2
zetland, 2
3000, 2
couldn't, 2
sensible, 2
collided, 2
reflective, 2
observe, 2
case, 2
everyday, 2
running, 2
charged, 2
actions, 2
death, 2
thinking, 2
4, 2
read, 2
either, 2
always, 2
central, 2
act, 2
area, 2
sides, 2
condone, 2
certain, 2
important, 2
starting, 2
forget, 2
caused, 2
off-road, 2
acting, 2
sitting, 2
20mph, 2
hartas, 2
behaviour, 2
tracks, 2
advertising, 2
amenities, 2
knows, 2
excuse, 2
stick, 2
particular, 2
hour, 2
patrols, 2
749, 2
huge, 2
court, 2
plans, 2
rude, 2
soon, 2
disabled, 2
24, 2
style, 2
20, 2
travelling, 2
return, 2
propose, 2
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least, 2
costs, 2
park, 2
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meanwhile, 2
during, 2
attention, 2
incident, 2
invisible, 2
whole, 2
throughout, 2
weaving, 2
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look, 2
while, 2
obviously, 2
readers, 2
tell, 2
march, 2
big, 2
bid, 2
bit, 2
essential, 2
one-way, 2
per, 2
temple, 2
anything, 2
nothing, 2
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forward, 2
boys, 2
properly, 2
unsafe, 2
reflectors, 2
ashton, 2
2008, 2
issues, 2
concerned, 2
friendly, 2
sent, 2
try, 2
race, 2
giving, 2
access, 2
growing, 2
consideration, 2
involved, 2
opinion, 2
residents, 2
apply, 2
doubt, 2
charity, 2
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brian, 2
abuse, 2
whilst, 2
flout, 2
university, 2
identified, 2
crossing, 2
33000, 2
improvements, 2
nobody, 2
afraid, 2
funds, 2
eight, 2
face, 2
parked, 2
longer, 2
won't, 2
local, 2
meant, 2
jon, 2
etc, 2
figures, 2
safely, 2
wall, 2
cent, 2
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policy, 2
frustrating, 2
almost, 2
cross, 2
proficiency, 2
lobby, 2
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five, 2
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martin, 2
operation, 2
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biggest, 2
gain, 2
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incredibly, 2
rule, 2
raining, 1
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car-free, 1
vast, 1
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force, 1
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phones, 1
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spokesman, 1
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absolute, 1
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drew, 1
protection, 1
kids, 1
daughter, 1
jams, 1
oxford, 1
study, 1
credit, 1
suitable, 1
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julie, 1
feelings, 1
total, 1
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spoke, 1
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crossbar, 1
warm, 1
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hurl, 1
90, 1
ward, 1
94, 1
join, 1
cuddle, 1
ms, 1
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horfield, 1
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rise, 1
description, 1
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third, 1
maintain, 1
frequent, 1
uninsured, 1
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whizzing, 1
banged, 1
natter, 1
bombing, 1
somewhere, 1
highlights, 1
redfield, 1
writing, 1
fig, 1
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educating, 1
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downright, 1
structural, 1
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bedminster, 1
aspire, 1
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rant, 1
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tom, 1
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58, 1
54, 1
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50, 1
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25000, 1
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22m, 1
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bert, 1
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1, 1
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edinburgh, 1
144, 1
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cascade, 1
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13, 1
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17, 1
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corner, 1
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leigh, 1
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illingworth, 1
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prime, 1
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elected, 1
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no-one, 1
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26, 1
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region, 1
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pot, 1
68, 1
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corduroys, 1
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cheltenham, 1
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ross, 1
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mot, 1
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confirm, 1
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throw, 1
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obeys, 1
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hey, 1
low, 1
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happening, 1
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annes, 1
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month, 1
commute, 1
carpet, 1
tv, 1
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infirmary, 1
paying, 1
scout, 1
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worst, 1
difference, 1
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colossal, 1
zero, 1
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section, 1
racing, 1
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healthier, 1
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caravan, 1
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6, 1
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nine, 1
dem, 1
history, 1
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speeding, 1
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short, 1
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privileges, 1
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fined, 1
late, 1
attended, 1
stephen, 1
haven't, 1
socially, 1
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perkin, 1
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holroyd, 1
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story, 1
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rogues, 1
major, 1
upper, 1
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armitage, 1
mist, 1
£30, 1
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together, 1
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paint, 1
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scheme, 1
relationship, 1
mentality, 1
immediate, 1
ashley, 1
believe, 1
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vocal, 1
stall, 1
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gloucestershire's, 1
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aged, 1
lib, 1
self, 1
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liz, 1
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electric, 1
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tpr, 1
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richmond, 1
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penalty, 1
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wayne, 1
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publicity, 1
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activity, 1
bars, 1
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close, 1
visiting, 1
pictures, 1
various, 1
probably, 1
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creating, 1
missing, 1
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8am, 1
context, 1
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community, 1
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church, 1
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finally, 1
pc, 1
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what's, 1
whatever, 1
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budget, 1
institute, 1
fun, 1
use', 1
wherever, 1
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vanish, 1
grant, 1
widely, 1
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banter, 1
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holidays, 1
moving, 1
southport, 1
older, 1
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person, 1
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gripe, 1
stunt, 1
alternative, 1
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tables, 1
shouting, 1
oldland, 1
deliberately, 1
build, 1
'shared, 1
matters, 1
knock, 1
imposed, 1
d, 1
obliged, 1
magnificent, 1
litter, 1
mighty, 1
examples, 1
sight, 1
trendy, 1
delivered, 1
decision, 1
prosecuted, 1
anna, 1
blackspots, 1
lose, 1
confidence, 1
relating, 1
cigarette, 1
classics, 1
seeing, 1
well-organised, 1
contributor, 1
alison, 1
gouge, 1
habitat, 1
spending, 1
syllabus, 1
himself, 1
invite, 1
uk's, 1
registered, 1
hail, 1
upright, 1
liveable, 1
2mph, 1
uk, 1
similar, 1
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single, 1
warning, 1
amounts, 1
fears, 1
excuses, 1
points, 1
recognition, 1
organise, 1
nice, 1
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visits, 1
helping, 1
garbed, 1
age, 1
'humble', 1
stephen's, 1
far, 1
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kate, 1
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chaps, 1
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shock, 1
michael, 1
they've, 1
fewer, 1
challenge, 1
slogan:, 1
odd, 1
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body, 1
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33, 1
gent, 1
30, 1
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jonathan, 1
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account, 1
f, 1
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arches, 1
anywhere, 1
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tar, 1
rode, 1
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30cm, 1
sit, 1
six, 1
animal, 1
instead, 1
tension, 1
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cycle-free, 1
by-law, 1
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they/we, 1
1885, 1
9am, 1
crazed, 1
'be, 1
mentioned, 1
wife's, 1
perfect, 1
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hobby, 1
2011, 1
dad, 1
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stunts, 1
masters, 1
undertaking, 1
lawful, 1
staying, 1
matt, 1
playground, 1
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ipod, 1
surely, 1
collection, 1
steering, 1
'supervision', 1
2009/10, 1
times, 1
adrian, 1
mad, 1
scene, 1
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quality, 1
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management, 1
sadly, 1
festival, 1
enforcement, 1
regards, 1
colleagues, 1
holland, 1
bother, 1
car-park, 1
providing, 1
coronation, 1
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false, 1
westbury, 1
parks, 1
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unless, 1
so-called, 1
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upset, 1
astonishing, 1
occasion, 1
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fear, 1
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decade, 1
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pigmentosa, 1
hope, 1
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lucky, 1
scott:, 1
99%, 1
ones, 1
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magistrate, 1
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affluent, 1
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fixed, 1
national, 1
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kingswood, 1
closer, 1
written, 1
email, 1
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deliver, 1
david, 1
45am, 1
admit, 1
hi-viz, 1
comment, 1
co, 1
tuesday, 1
commend, 1
allocated, 1
waste, 1
mike, 1
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dodge, 1
harder, 1
nobody's, 1
workplaces, 1
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pauls, 1
member, 1
party, 1
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less, 1
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executive, 1
rooms, 1
protecting, 1
blackspot, 1
ill-educated, 1
smith, 1
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vent/put, 1
attractive, 1
wet, 1
match, 1
tests, 1
increased, 1
supervise, 1
whopping, 1
necessary, 1
taxpayers, 1
become, 1
page, 1
motorcyclists, 1
grids, 1
scared, 1
library, 1
redress, 1
peter, 1
happens, 1
pedestrianised, 1
reaching, 1
carried, 1
introduces, 1
beige, 1
outset, 1
congregate, 1
brush, 1
van, 1
noticed, 1
invisibility, 1
north, 1
i've, 1
bus, 1
brand, 1
lowered, 1
plague, 1
signed, 1
volvo, 1
below, 1
this;, 1
bpa2011@live, 1
minutes, 1
urging, 1
goodness, 1
commentators, 1
eric, 1
compared, 1
49, 1
44, 1
monday, 1
frustrate, 1
gap, 1
baker, 1
britain's, 1

Introducing : Evening Post Bingo!

We are excited to announce -in collaboration with our partners the Bristol Evening Post, a new form of entertainment: Evening Post Bingo!

The basic concept is simple, here is the outline

1. Every few days the Evening Post will print a fictional letter or article pretending to be an ill-informed rant against bicycles. They are clearly spoofs, but some people, motorists and tax-dodgers alike, fall for them and try to argue the details with each other in the comments.
2. This week, for example, we have made one up called "they should pay road tax!". 
3. Evening Post Bingo! players look in the article for the key phrases on their bingo sheets, then the comments
4. If all of them are found -either in the article or comments, enter your own comment, "Bingo!", and the list of phrases you were looking for.
5. Do not attempt to engage in any form of debate in the comments itself, as this is like trying to explain Quantitive Easing to a chimpanzee -or what a Pasty is to a member of the cabinet.
6. In our weekly round-up of the evening post articles, we will credit the first Bingo winner of every article.

Bingo card generation will be fully automated; the code will be open sourced on Github shortly.Participants will be able to generate their own bingo cards at home, and other regions will be able to provide their own keyword lists that don't refer to Gloucester, Stapleton, or Coronation Roads

For now, here are some example cards, each of which can be used by anyone. These have all been machine generated, and are free from any human bias.

mandatory insurance
lycra-lout
abusive
unlit
criminals

against the law
selfish
council conspiracy
pavement cyclist
injure pedestrians

pavement
cause congestion
selfish
persecuted motorists
spoiled by the council

government money wasted
free-loaders
mandatory insurance
tax-dodgers
lawless

20mph
smug
gloucester road
these cyclists
cause congestion

stay in the cycle lane
danger to others
persecuted motorists
time someone stood up to them
some of my best friends are cyclists

We'll be publishing the source and keyword list later -the keyword list is where we'd like some extra contributions.

We are also considering fully automating our Evening Post article writing process. This would be based on that work by our strategic partner, Google, as discussed in The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data [Norvig 2009]. The idea is that with enough of a collection of evening post, daily mail and other articles on cycling, it will be possible to generate valid sentences based purely on statistical knowledge of past sentences. The bingo cards are merely a first step in this process.

Evening Post; Why not a cycle free day?

In the Evening Post' singlehanded counterattack to the "cities fit for cycling" campaign coming out of London, another "Trusted Source", Roy, the disgruntled motorist!, who again wants bicycles banned from our streets, at least for a day a week.

Roy starts off with,

All too often Bristol boasts how cycle friendly it is. Is this really a good thing? Myself, and many colleagues and friends disagree strongly.

We often whine about them in the pubs too. Don't forget that drink-driving laws discriminate against us on the way home from those same pubs.

Now before I go any further, I must point out that I am a part-time cyclist, and when cycling I aim to stay out of the way of proper road users by sticking to cycle paths and lanes wherever possible

The classic "I used to cycle" opener is right up there with the "some of my best friends are cyclists" phrase, which the EP is normally most happy with. We don't say either as they are not true, and the phrases come over like the head of the UK catholic church saying "some my best friends are gay" before denouncing the right of two men to hold hands in public. We do say "some of our best customers come from the catholic clergy", but that's another topic.

Everyday I experience horrendous behaviour from cyclists. Considering they are vulnerable, they often risk their lives jumping red lights, undertaking at junctions, hopping on and off of pavements at their convenience and generally getting in the way of the legitimate road user. I realise not all cyclists behave like this, just the vast majority, especially the Lycra ones who think they are as wide as cars!

Red lights, Lycra, pavements, in the way. Check.  We are going to write some Evening Post bingo cards for these letters -or perhaps an automated evening post letter generator.

I also appreciate not all us car drivers are saints as the odd couple let us down.

Don't forget us van drivers here!

I lay part of the blame with Bristol City Council for trying too hard to please cyclists and look trendy. All these advanced starting grids at traffic lights is the dumbest idea yet. Encouraging the roads slowest users to blatantly sit right in the way of the cars before the lights change, then get in the way of our desire to get somewhere quick. That is, when the cyclist obeys the lights!!!

Now we are confused. Either the cyclists sit in your way in the ASL or they run the lights. You can't complain about both at the same time. It's like saying "50% tax rate for me is too high" and "HRMC keep trying to make us pay tax"

Another gripe is the fact that despite all the cycle lanes on pavements, cyclists still use our road.

Pavements. In or out?

Coronation Road is a prime example. A few months back I was following a lorry along there, who was struggling to get past a dad and two young boys cycling along the road. The lorry eventually passed, narrowly missing the boys. I tried to tell the father this fact, but was met with typical cyclist arrogance.

Ah, Coronation Road. We've covered that before, especially how the mature trees do not make this a cycle path. Because of those trees, it's hard to to say "They should cycle on the pavement there", especially when you shout out the window. Just sound your horn a bit instead.

It should be law to stick to a cycle lane where provided, to protect the cyclist, and more importantly, improve the car drivers progress.

Exactly. There are more people on cycles than ever before -and have you noticed congestion gets worse? Congestion costs our country twenty billion pounds a year -and it's all the cyclists fault.

I feel there needs to be more legislation to protect the proper road user from the menace cyclist. To start with, cyclists should have insurance. Can you imagine the damage they could do to a cars paintwork if they were to get in the way?

Don't use the "get in the way" phrase, as it's one of those "I may need to run them over" claims that the police get back to later. We prefer "crash into our parked car". Actually, this gives an idea. Why not advocate strict liability -whenever a cyclist hits a car, it's their fault!

Bodywork repair costs a lot these days. I find it harder by the day to avoid cyclists who flout the highway code. They should also be made to pay a small tax, and have a registration plate of some description. This would help to hold them accountable for the accidents they cause. The tax could pay for cycle wardens to fine them every time they break the law.

Registration, license, tax. Three more bingo items ticked off. And a new one; cycle wardens. Nice idea. But how to stop them ticketing cars for things too?

I would also like to add, cyclists are also a menace on the pavement.

Again, inconsistent arguments. Either they are on the road when you are driving or they are on the pavement when you are walking. You have to pick your point of view and argue with it: speeding on-road criminals, slow moving families, pavement cyclists or lycra louts. Pick one, not criticise them for: stopping at ASLs, running red lights, being on the road, not being on the road, wearing lycra, not wearing hi-viz. Right now the letter just comes over as an ill-informed rant, not an attempt to communicate your issues to people outside your two mates in a pub.

I'm sure many readers would agree. Trying to walk near Temple Meads station is a gamble. If you think I am anti-cyclist you would be right.

An anti-cyclist part-time cyclist. Now this does make our brain explode. This we would like to see. Someone cycling on the pavement shouting "get off the pavement" at himself, going onto the road and then shouting "get on the pavement!". Please send videos of Roy to the usual address.

Years of trying to avoid their antics have made me this way. I am all for saving the environment, but please do it in a lawful, polite manner, and stay off the road where possible. Do not undertake where its dangerous, obey road signs and traffic lights and respect the car driver who funds the cycle lanes you fail to use!!! Do all this and we can all be friends!

Roy, the disgruntled motorist!

We're not actually sure that people cycle to save the environment, though it makes a nice outgroup to explain why they cycle and we, the important people, don't. We prefer to say "we are not against unimportant people, but why do they have to hold us up"


Summary: badly argued, not that entertaining. The Evening Post is losing its edge. Must try harder.

Let's have a vote to outlaw them

There's a letter in the BEP today, that warmed our hearts. While the city-folk in London are trying to organise a "save the cyclists" campaign, we in Bristol are doing what everyone really wants -trying to make cycling a crime.

I THOUGHT we were living in a democracy? A place where majority decision rules? So let us consider cyclists. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. Every single one I see cuts through red lights like a knife through butter. It is almost as if they do this to target pedestrians deliberately, as they then switch straight on to the pavement, and then back and forth to the road.
Let's consider the law? It's illegal to ride without lights. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. It's illegal to ride more than 30cm from the kerb. It's illegal to ride the wrong way down one-way streets, to squeeze past standing traffic, pavement ride and run the lights. Rule 169 of the Highway Code also insists that cyclists must give way to motorists as they are faster. £20 billion of damage to business is caused by traffic jams and cyclists are the main cause.
The government has said that it plans to throw a whopping £26 million at these rogues "to make them safer." How about spending some money on the poor down-trodden motorist?
I propose a vote, since we're living in a democracy. I propose we have a referendum on cycling (even if it is just a local one that results in a by-law) and we vote to outlaw bicycles for good. No good can come of them. Why bother to complain about road tax and insurance? They won't pay it even if it gets made into law. Who knows how many pedestrians they have killed and injured over the years? There are more motorists than cyclists, it makes perfect sense to just ban them!
TPR Henry

This is heartwarming. Ignoring the fact that he is completely ignorant of what is the law (distance from kerb, helmets, hi-viz filtering), what is he is saying is what should be the law.

To us, TPR Henry's rant about legality only slightly touches the real issue: bicycles hold up cars. Cyclists are the main cause of traffic jams -that and the lights which are there fo those other tax-dodgers, the pedestrians.

We celebrate TPR Henry for daring to speak the truth. And Evening Post for having the strength to resist the populist campaigns in the Times, even the BBC is starting to join in. Only the BEP is strong enough to resist these criminals!

Dear ThisisBristol: It's not April 1st yet ....

Bristol's favourite tabloid website jumped the gun a bit tonight by letting their April Fools day 'joke' about a fake cycling story out of the bag a bit early:

Needless to say, in the digital world of the interweb, speed is everything and the offending boo-boo was quickly deleted. That's fast, but not as fast as this Bristol Traffic Blog correspondent's finger was in hitting Print Screen button for your enjoyment. Come to think of it, pretty unfunny 'joke' ?.

Brian Rogers of Kingswood: speaking the truth

We've been a bit quiet recently. The main problem: thinking of new things to say.

Everyone has this problem. Take this well thought out letter from Brian Rogers of Kingswood.

It certainly pushes our buttons:

1. affluent middle classes cycling
2. holding up important people on their way to work
3. tax-payer funded lycra clad louts
4. sanctimonious, car-hating people
5. fill up the car parks

That would be a good article: tax dodging affluent (actually, this is probably true), car hating, and driving to our favourite parking spaces. It would make a good article, and we have formally invited Brian to actually write for us. All he'd need is "in our lane", "red light jumping" and "speeding along too fast" and we'd win this week's Daily Mail "lycra lout" bingo.

Of course, the same day that George "coke" Osborne announces that air passenger duty won't be applied to people flying in and out of the city on private planes is particularly bad timing for the tax-payer funded text. Remember: those people who live in Monaco and fly in for three days a week may retain non-resident tax payer status, but they hold up the economy, and adding £30/week on the already outrageous cost of (tax free) jet fuel would force them stop flying in to the UK at all.

Brian needs to work on his timing a bit there.

Furthermore, a quick web search shows that he wrote pretty much the same letter  a year ago.

 irresponsible for the city council to pour tax payers' funds into a cycling track that is, well, just a hobby for a privileged and sanctimonious few?

See? The same problem we have. There's only so much orginality you can do from one point-of-vitriol. Brian is having trouble writing the same letter once a year -you can imagine how hard it us for us.

Maybe its time for the team to retire

Bristol Pedestrians Association: the Evening Post Party?

We are fully aligned with the Evening Post: progress is good for the city, progress means roads, roads mean progress, and people on bicycles threaten this. Whether its on the pavement or the road, there should be laws against them.

If you look at the commentators on any article, you can see that most of the newspaper's web site's readers share these opinions; you can see from the complaints. But complaining isn't enough: Actions speak louder than Words. Which is why, while the rest of press was distracted, the Evening Post launched what appears to be its own political movement, the Bristol Pedestrians Association. The focus on this will be to act as a counterweight to the organised cycling lobby, and fight back against people cycling on pavements, including those bits on the city centre and coronation road where they put a bit of white paint on to add a bicycle path and expect everyone to be grateful.

We have mixed feelings about this party. On on the one hand, they seem to mirror many of our own writings, but rather than just complain, intend to act.

On the other, we worry about them. Just as both Labour and the Conservative parties turned on their leader, Rupert Murdoch, and their parent corporation, News International, could the Bristol Pedestrians Association ever turn on the Evening Post?

It may happen, if they ever look round the city and realise there may be other causes of problems on the pavements of the city, problems that force pedestrians into the road, where again, they their children in push chairs and their pets are at risk from cyclists.

Or they look at the statistics, and realise that while pedestrians and cyclists have died since this project was founded, all such deaths were a result of collisions involving motor vehicles, that this may be statistically significant, and therefore that other issues may need to be addressed first.

This is why the Evening Post needs to keep the group under control, to stop them going off-message. It's one thing creating conflict to derive web site viewers and hence advertising revenue, it's another to create threats to the status-quo.

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!

Breaking news: Eric Pickles declares war on Montpelier

From the (sadly) militant pressure group of people to poor to afford cars comes this news: the government plans to give councils the power to restrict paveparking to occasions other than when mothers with kids are blocked.

We don't need to say anything other than repeat the quote this commenter on the Sun's article, who knows it is safer to park on the pavement than inconvenience fellow drivers.

i'd rather force a mother into the road, where she can stop, look, listen and navigate carefully than park my car obstructively in the road.

nonsense, total nonsense, will they make extra spaces in places where they have to enforce such rulings? like hell they will, they'll just coin it in whenever someone gets sick of the inconvenience of parking half a mile down the road

See that? The government makes us pay to drive, and they make us pay when we park too.

Meanwhile, here in Bristol, the Evening Post is horrified to discover that Bristol comes in the top ten cities in Britain for parking charges. We are not shocked as we know something else: Bristol comes in the top ten cities for Britain, and has a far higher percentage of motor vehicle commuters than central London. There may be some correlation there.

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.