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

Railwaypath Ghost Cyclist

We've been using the term Ghost Rider to describe someone who chooses to die on a bicycle, usually by RLJ-ing. The last video of someone on a bike crashing into a pedestrian causes us to look at the rest of taypet21's video collection. This person is a threat to the rest of the city. really.

Look at this video where he crashes into someone walking down the railway path. It's like he sees the women, and rather than try and slow down, he speeds up and runs into the screaming. If this was us, we'd destroy the evidence rather than put it up on youtube

Tax-dodgers: we knows who you are

Don't think we aren't building up a list of subversives. Here is "Adam Eff", on the railway path, sporting a Bristol Bike Project T-shirt and pushing one of his children in a fancy bullitt bicycle for a price at which he could have bought a car with a few years left in it.

And what's that at the front? One of those little bike-cams, if we aren't mistaken.

As George Osborne says of these people:we will find you and make you pay

Spring and the skippers are out

The Evening Post has missed it; the AA failed to issue any press releases. Yet now that spring is here, a new threat to the city has arrived: skipping.

This man is skipping along the road, no hi-viz, no helmet, and looking happy. We don't pay our taxes to be stuck behind someone on a skipping rope. Did he have to take a test for this? Is the rope licensed? The sooner every pedestrian is required to wear a hi-viz top with a registration number the better, as then we will be able to report these people for unlicensed use of skipping rope on a public highway.

Railway Path Signage

As the extended route through Wickham Glen goes on, signs are already up on Alcove Road pointing to Eastville Park

Similarly, there are signs off Fishponds road letting pedestrians and cyclists know that their reserved route is nearby

To help cyclists get to this oasis, Avon Home Carers of fishponds have graciously parked both cars WU10LLV and WU60MHN up on the pavement, so creating a wider road for the cyclists.

We hope the tax dodgers are grateful, for, as the logo says "we care"

Shocking scenes from the BB Railway Path

Central government have recently provided enough funding for the WoEP to look at some ongoing work, such as the BRT to Ashton Gate and the A38 to A370 road.

But not to what the city really needs: buses on the railway path. Because three years ago this month, the Campaign to Save the Railway path was founded.

We sent our van over there to see what was lost. Look at it. On a weekday morning, people are cycling along without helmets or hi viz.

The one person who is has a yellow top on has one that says "police", but even they said "hello" to us as they went past, instead of the usual greeting "are you the driver of this van, sir?"

We filmed the path for a few minutes, and noted nothing happening at all. One or two people trickling down.

At one person every 20 seconds, that's three people a minute, 45 people every fifteen minutes. Which, co-incidentally is the number of people a 60 seater BRT bus would have if running at 75% capacity on the fifteen minute schedule originally planned.

You could say, therefore, that these people cycling and walking here the same traffic capacity as the BRT system. But look at them. They are not important people, -they are people that live in the inner city, not the nice suburbs. They aren't revenue earners, they are people who either through lack of money or willingness have chosen to not live in a nice pleasant suburbs where pedestrians walking are something to complain to the council about.

The West of England Partnership weren't just thinking of people like themselves, who live in the suburbs, they were thinking of the environment, especially the newts. Look at this sign

PLEASE TAKE CARE
NEWTS CROSSING

Now 45 two wheeled bicycles every 15 minutes, that's 90 wheels, in an hour 360 wheels. But four buses an hour, what's that, 4x4=16 wheels? Newts would have been exposed to far less risk if this had been made a bus route.

These people who use this path, they talk about the environment and nature, but do they care about the wellbeing of the newts and the WoEP's plans to save them? We think not. Only South Gloucester and North Somerset do, by doing their best to discourage walking and cycling in their parts of the ex-Avon county.

But even there, we hear of opposition.