Love Bristol Go Brent #3

As we said, the pavement provides extra parking options. First, note the bollards, They aren't designed to stop vehicles getting on to the pavement so much as to make it clear to pedestrians that turning vehicles can cut over that corner. Vans that want to park can just get up onto the pavement past the bollards


Some viewers may think "this road is four lanes wide in every direction, and the pavement is perfectly wide enough to have a good, segregated bike lane". Those people are missing the point.

  
The four-lane-wide road provides enough space for an HGV to do a U-turn.
 d
So letting it get up and park on the pavement in the direction it's going.

You couldn't do that if there was a cycle path here.

The sheer provision of a vast off-road "pavement" here is a fantastic facility for motorists. It's wide enough that street furniture can be kept far enough back to make parking along here easy -regardless of the length of your vehicle.

Bristol just lacks the imagination. Even that "let them park on the pavements" mayoral candidate explicitly mentioned Gloucester road as an example place where paveparking shouldn't be permitted.

Yet Gloucester Road is a shopping street -like this one in London- the provisioning of more pavement parking area is what is critical to keep it alive. Look at the one here -even with all this excellent paveparking it's barely surviving.

THINK BIKE - DO CAR

Something is not right. The council are trying to brainwash our faithful Bristol driving masses. "THINK BIKE" messages on electronic boards on our commuter route from our country residences to our city waged jobs. Not local neighbourhoods that we are passing through. This is definitely first and foremost our commuter route.

 

So it's good to see Summerhill Motors sticking up for us, the intrepid commuters, and fighting the walking and cycling message that the City Council are trying so hard to push on us.

 

They've gone to the trouble to park not one, but two cars, successfully totally blocking the pavement and another third car in the bus / cycle lane. A double score! Giving a strong message to not only pedestrians that walking is just not acceptable, but also to those trying to use public transport or cycle too that their behaviour will not be tolerated.

To make it even better this is on the "Wesley Way" route that the council have created to encourage people by telling them that this is a safe walking and cycling route! It is also close to a local school, hopefully showing those that choose to walk or cycle to that school that such behaviour is just not right. They should be driving the school run, preferably in a car bought from Summerhill Motors.

 

It's good to see the local businesses sticking up for us, the not local people and helping us to remember to "Think Bike" but then to "Do Car".

Empty Threats

A sign on Colston Street, in the secret off-road parking bays

Please do not park here on the pavement

Building Maintenance work is in progress and access is required at all times.

Please be aware

your vehicle may be removed by the police for illegally parking on the pavement.

We, the people of Bristol, will resist such war-on-motorist threats to remove our right to park on a pavement.
 
We, N685LRT and DF09DVP do not fear!

Persecution

Someone has put a letter on the car TOB773Y saying "Please Park less Selfishly"
 
Does anyone denounce the dustbin for taking up its bit of the pavement? Or that bicycle at the bottom? So what's wrong with that car's actions?

New BRI Parking Opportunities

there's a new area to park at the BRI -they've taken away a stretch of pavement to create this expanded parking zone

In theory it's for the free bus and some "drop off only" spaces. In theory

We know that the pavement space is now a new short-term parking area for vehicles such as office team KMIIUAL

while alongside that is a new "secret" disabled parking space
 

Y726HYD  is showing us the secrets of the BRI

Cyclists take up too much space

Pesky cyclists. As you can see from the picture, these bicycles are taking up far too much space from an important Pavedrive & Paveparking facility. We could easily squeeze another hatchback in there.

Cherry Picked Catering: cherry picking the parking

Nice to see the new residents of this Hotwells restaurant, Cherry Picked Catering, have managed to find a good buildout for their van

We are concerned that the pedestrian needing two walking sticks to walk past it may inadvertently scrape the paintwork, but as they selflessly went onto the road, this risk was transferred to oncoming traffic instead.

G4S: keeping the pavements safe

"P" sends us a pic of a G4S van KJ05MZP in Cardigan Road Henleaze, neatly paveparked by double yellow lines.:

G4S have been receiving a lot of bad press these days about security and safety at the olympics. It is nice to see that here they are making sure that no pedestrians on this pavement will be hit by fast moving cyclists -as all cyclists will be on the road here.

Free BRI parking

A letter hits our inbox, sharing one of the secret parking places of the city -this time by the Bristol Royal Infirmary:

In previous correspondence I mentioned that I had found a great place to park on Colston Street.

 

However, I am fed up of having to walk the 20 extra yards to the BRI so I've decided to start parking on the bit of pavement at the top of Christmas Steps instead. Imagine my outrage when I tried to park my Hummer there, only to discover that MM05BVB had got to *my* space first.

We sympathise with this person, but point they only have themselves to blame. Once you publish your secret parking spots  -everyone finds out about them.

Secret parking by the Arches

"RP" -our Gloucester Road correspondent, shows us some secret parking places:

FV55 PYO has been parking on the footpath round the back of the shops next to the disused toilets under the arches on the Gloucester road on a daily basis for well over a year. To be precise, the practice started at the same time that "Do 'Lil Coffee" opened next just next to the disused toilets next to the arches on the Gloucester Road. Not that anything should be read into this of course.

   


Now this is a great example of resourcefulness. The footpath here is wide and although bollards suggest that cars are not welcome on this pedestrian cut through onto Cromwell road the driver is often able
to leave plenty of room for both the car and those on foot. On other occasions, FV55PYO is joined by a second car (peculiarly this seems to coincide with times when Do 'Lil Coffee is doing a lot of business --
Saturday mornings for example).

Then it becomes a little more awkward for pedestrians who have to decide whether to risk damaging parked cars as they squeeze pushchairs, bikes and shopping past the cars or, probably more easily, abandon the footpath and take to the road instead. Anyway, we digress.


To reward this feat of ingenuity and long-standing service to resourceful parking, Bristol City Council now routinely fix yellow stickers to the windscreen FV55PYO. Here is one example from a little while ago. This recognition of success has obviously not gone unnoticed as are now many other luxury cars who feel they don't want to be missed out.

Films@59 making Cotham Hill a Shared Space

It's lovely to see a company -here Films at 59- taking on an idea like "shared space" and embracing it.

Here on a weekday we can see them doing it perfectly.

The white van X548DJR over the yellow lines and the buildout mark the entry to the zone

Further on, the paveparked car LD07NYF, the van KU59DLJ that's claimed the driveway  and the white vanRD04NXU  half up on the pavement rounds it off -this area is shared with pedestrians and cyclists -we hope they appreciate this sharing!
 
The cycle logo on the floor shows this is national cycle route 4 -introducing cyclists to the shared space concept -and the forced swerve makes them slow down for the shared zone

The way they've managed to remove all visibility acts as a lovely piece of traffic calming, as even cars have to slow down.
 
Congratulations, Films at 59, for this selfless action.

The last time we had some coverage of this shared space area, there was a blip in traffic with a referrer of some server in the films at 59 domain -as if someone saw the coverage, agreed that having one van block the pavement made it harder for other vans to drive up it, and raised the issues with their colleagues.

Clearly the "shared space" approach is the solution to this problem.

Let's go MAD in Manchester!

Introducing in the links section, a great blog from Manchester:

MAD: Manchester's Advanced Drivers

It has some great examples of en masse paveparking and pavedriving that put Bristol to shame. Come on Bristol drivers, try harder!.

Correct Parking Alignment

One of the ongoing debates in the country is "how far from the kerb can you park". Indeed, there is a (very abusive) web site dedicated to criticising drivers.

We are different, and strive to praise everyone for their efforts.


Here, for example we can clearly see that BX54FVC has managed to get their kerb-side wheels as close to the kerb as is possible without damaging them,  and both wheels are perfectly aligned.

This is skilled parking here on Brighton Mews, Clifton. Residents of Montpelier should consider themselves show up by such skill -except they have to fit into narrow gaps on the pavement, whereas this car probably didn't even need to reverse, just drive up on the dropped pavement.

Look at all the lonely cars....

Where do they all come from?. Look at all the lonely cars:
Where do they all belong? (with apologies to Lennon & McCartney).

Well, most likely not on a cycling city - funded cyclepath like this. With no hazard lights, note in the windscreen,warning triangle or RAC/AA in attendance, breakdown looks unlikely. It may have been dumped, a victim of the new austerity thrust upon us by greed and incompetence in the global financial markets thus forcing abandonment expensive of driving lifestyles. However, this is the UK, so it's probably just convenient to leave it here and wander off to do some shopping at the nearby Imperial Park which has some excellent paveparking facilities. The owner is also in the running for our considerate parking awards as they left a gap for some pedestrians. And if the local media are to be believed, it's good to see that the money wasted on pesky cyclists and their failed cycling city project, is being put to good use.

Physical Geography 101: Erosion

The following course notes are for the level 3 students taking the Urban Decay module of the Physical Geography:The Human/Car/Tax Dodging Cyclist Inter-Relationship in the Outside World (year 2) course.

New research by a team from Bristol Traffic has identified the mysterious cause of cars getting stuck in mud around Bristol. Apparently, the interaction of water falling from the atmosphere on stuff called soil weakens it to such an extent that it simply can't bear the weight of a car and so leads to lots of slipping and skidding. In extreme cases, shown in photograph 1 above of a well-used vergeparking facility in Staple Hill, the local council has stepped in and erected some soil stabilisation bollards to warn motorists of the risks involved.

Photograph 2 shows the formation of more soil instability zones and may lead to the closure of the vergeparking facility with more soil stabilisation bollards.

Current research suggests that an asphalt build-out to replace the green grass stuff might increase subsoil stability and avoid the closure of important parking space.

Cycle path parking awards

It's about time that we here at the Bristol Traffic Blog saluted the drivers who, in the act of parking, took a small amount of time to consider other pavement users, the law and how much impact that dumping their vehicle wherever is convenient for them might actually have, and so have adjusted their parking habits to take all this into account. The first award should go to the driver of this vehicle, YG07 EVL, who obviously didn't want to inconvenience any cyclist, pedestrian or disabled wheelchair user etc, so went the extra foot and drove slightly off the asphalt so as to leave some space at the rear.


After all, since parallel parking with the other vehicles on this stretch of free parking...sorry.., cyclepath, would be clearly impossible due to the anti-vehicle bollards, the driver in this case has no option but to come in at an angle. However, it does mean that you can reverse out right into a busy road from the shopping centre providing that there aren't any pedestrians, cyclists or disabled people walking behind you as you pull away. However, the dropped kerb should provide a smooth transition from cyclepath to road without too much bouncing over kerbs.

As for the bollards, unfortunately Bristol City Council, according to many correspondents with the Daily-Mail offspring The Bristol Evening Post, are so anti-motorist that they use taxpayers money to put up bollards like this everywhere and reduce parking space. We would suggest that drivers should moan to the Post about this.

In the meantime, well done to this driver who wins our considerate parking award 2012. Unfortunately, in these times of austerity, we can't afford a prize or a little engraved cup. However, we do have a choccy bar left over from the Traffic Blog Christmas party that we found in the bottom of the desk drawer.

Effective Cornering

FE61TLK shows a lovely little bit of corner work on Lower Cheltenham Place.

Its not very obvious from this direction

Looking from the other side, the effort this driver went to becomes clear.

There isn't enough space between the wall and the car door to actually get out, so they had to climb out the passenger side.

Parking this way won't inconvenience anyone turning left as this is a one way street: nobody turns left.

The Trees have stolen Happy Lane

Happy Lane, off Ashley Down Road. A nice little buildout, ideal for parking - a fact we have celebrated in the past.

And what do we see today? A tree. With a fence round it. Where we park.

We know the evening post -rightfully- denounces the council for wasting taxpayers money on providing cycle parking and routes, because they take away the space we have paid for. Yet this, tree-planting frenzy does not get covered at all.

Why are they keeping it a secret. Only we, the Bristol Traffic site, remember and warn of this outrage

All over the city

the buildout parking spots are being taken out



We shall not see them free again  


in our time

Grenville Road pavement work

Contributor RP sends us a photo taken on Grenville Road, running from St Andrews Park towards the back of the Co-op on the Gloucester Road.

 "Parking on the pavement is de rigueur along this stretch of road but DS09LXX has provided us with a particularly good example of how to do it properly and make sure your wing mirror isn't clipped by a passing car. Shame then that the passenger side wing mirror appears to have suffered instead."

While this area is being covered, know that Belmont Road -the one way road right in front of the car, and its south-heading counterpart, North Road, form a good high speed rat-run alternative to Gloucester Road for anyone important who doesn't want to be held up by buses, bicycles or pedestrian crossings. Enter/Exit onto Cromwell Road.

High Kingsdown Shared Space Proposals

There are proposals afoot to turn Kingsdown by (the excellent) Highbury Vaults into a shared space. We somewhat support this.

Looking at the Lockleaze shared space, they've completey managed to eliminate the pavement area.

This avoid the problem of not being able to park right next to your front door, being forced to leave a small gap just for the sake of politeness, as the AA driving school car GD11ETF has had to do.

It also avoids the conflict between people cycling on the pavement

Where they are risk of damaging our vans