Clifton: resisting cycling city

Even as we complain for the current and aspiring councillors for their lack of imagination over car parking -compared to the residents, we must praise the area for holding back the cycling in the area. If they didn't you could imagine families happy to cycle over the suspension bridge to get to Ashton Court, to pootle up to the downs, or even nip over to Clifton village for a bit of shopping.

They've managed -without anyone noticing- to get away without adding any bike lanes, contraflows on existing one-way streets, pass-throughs on dead-ended roads, or any of the cycle city innovations intended to make cycling a viable alternative to driving. They have invested in some no cycling signs, but they are discreet and in keeping with the area -while the Keep Clear paintwork is being allowed to fade.

Looking the other way, sadly, three bike stands. But as the area was bollarded off, no parking area is lost, so the car S215BPN can stay happily parked on some more fading keep clear paintwork.

In the village itself, it looks like three people have chosen to cycle in. The provisioning of nothing but bollards to park against does its best to discourage people from attempting this, but still they come and park here on Waterloo Street.

The problem is, despite what cycling city advocates, there isn't room in this narrow street to add any cycling lanes or bicycle parking. There's not enough room for cars to pass each other, and, unlike Montpelier, some of these people are in cars they value, so the road has been made one-way for the safety of the paintwork of expensive vehicles like the BMW HK60CZZ.

We know that people are pushing for the removal of the in-village yellow lines to add parking, but we don't see the point. The yellow lines act as a way of ensuring there is always space for somebody important. Without them, poor people from other parts of the city would take away all the parking spaces.

Breaking news: parking restrictions encourage higher vehicle speeds

The new "neighbourhood funding" schemes are great for us, the drivers, as we can use our money to get what we want: parking, without any city-wide initiative like public transport, sustainability or cycling getting in the way. This is why we are delighted to cover the "DEVOLVED TRANSPORT SCHEMES FOR 2011/12" for Clifton and Cliftonwood, which will be up for discussion on Tuesday at 19:00 above Jack's Brasserie behind the waterfront TSB building.

The important people in Clifton have been successful in adding one-way streets by Clifton-college, so making easier to do Range-Rover and Volvo XC60 dropoff, and held up the provisioning of bicycle parking on the grounds that it degrades the listed buildings. However there still aren't enough places to park our important cars. How to add more parking, without appearing blatantly selfish? The answer is obvious: push for it on road safety grounds.

This is the tactic planned for tomorrow, with the following proposals in the set.

• Lay-by at the bottom of Hope Chapel Hill: Existing parking restrictions encourage higher vehicle speeds
• Pembroke Road (St.Pauls Road end). More on-street parking would reduce vehicle speeds.

These claims are far better than the ones for Clifton Park and Princess Victoria Street, both of which just say "existing parking restrictions are too extensive", by which they mean "the bit by the side of the road where people cycle could be used by important people".

We hope all our local supporters turn up for this, and support the proposals and so make sure that we outnumber any cycling/living street troublemakers who sneak in and start calling us selfish gits who are more concerned about having somewhere to park our third car outside our houses than doing something to fundamentally improve Bristol's liveability. Those people don't realise that having somewhere to park our third Landrover -it's more than just a car- does improve Bristol's Liveability. Certainly it makes it easier to walk from the Landrover to our house, and by saving us driving around, reduces pollution and the CO2 emissions from our 3L V8 engines.

Futhermore, once that parking is in, it will be that much harder to put in bike lanes, so any ideas for adding some segregated route up Pembroke Road -our secret high speed alternative to Whiteladies Road- would be killed forever. It's important to do this now, before alternate transport plans progress.

Yes, those troublemakers will say "if we want parking we should have voted for the RPZ", but they miss the point: that would have restricted the number of vehicles we could own. Furthermore, by reducing the number of vehicles parked on the roads on a weekday, vehicle speeds have increased and Clifton is now a more dangerous place to walk. We have a spreadsheet we've just made up to prove it!

Note also that a large number of the other schemes (Ambrose Road, Cliftonwood Road, Alfred Hill, Westbourne Place and Redcliffe hill) are complaints by people about how parking is interfering with pedestrians. It is important to attend to stop this, otherwise the troublemakers will pick up on the complete hypocrisy of pushing for extra parking to calm roads in some parts of the area, while having to introduce bollards and dropped kerbs in other parts. We want parking everywhere, and no RPZ in our way.

Walthamize the planet, and have a nice day.