The Yellow Stones of Southwell Street

we have no idea what these new lumps of concrete embedded in Southwell Street are.

Presumably the hi-vis colour scheme is to stop anyone bumping in to them
 
even so: why?

Southwell Street: the consequences

What do the Southwell Street changes mean? It'll be hard to tell until next term. Already, though, it seems to create the (false) impression that people on foot are welcome, and the zebra crossings appear to act as traffic calming too.

The restored pavement is in use. This will reduce car/pedestrian conflict, so actually be beneficial

That said, it also reduces bicycle/pedestrian conflict, while increasing bicycle/car conflict. This puts the blame on us, not them. Of course, put a van in front of these bollards "Only 15 minutes, guv", with another van on the pavement, and the old regime will be restored.

You can also see that the bollards are set up for a hard right turn into the pay and display car park. This makes it important to keep people off that pavement. It also makes us suspicious that the bollard placement was explicitly designed to remove the short-stay parking option on that side of the bollards. You can't park there without blocking the car park. Yes, you may be able to park the other side, but it's a ten minute journey round the block to get there.

Overall then, the bollards, the pavement and that deviously moved row of bollard don't appear to help us much. It's interesting to compare this with the original proposal, which was very much van-friendlier. Drive-in/back out parking spaces instead of pavement, room to park for delivery on both sides of the bollards. Assuming they dont' actually enforce parking in front of the bollards in the spaces currently in use, the physical parking capacity has been reduced by four. That's going to create tension, and making the bollards "opaque" to people on foot or pedals will create more. Now they will be upset if we park there, whereas before we could do it and not feel bad.

The key tactic here will be to set everyone's expectations up now. During the university holiday. We can take over the bollard area for parking, nobody will get used to cycling through it, and when term time begins, it will stay that way.

We look forward to NHS support for this plan.

Southwell Street: the changes

As discussed, the changes are happening.

The gate has been removed and replaced by bollards.

Yes, you can still park a van against them, but as they are the people doing the roadworks, that may change.

More shockingly, the "ex-pavement" that was to still have NHS vans echelon-parked over it, has been reinstated as public pavement! This goes against the whole "shared space" theory, or, as we van drivers call it, the "our space" road design. It's all ours, see.

The car exit is as before, except the signs blocking off that pavement have been replaced with less bent ones, and anyone walking down that road gets to get in the way of cars pulling out -as you can just make out here through the windscreen of the beetle.

We think that zebra crossing is new. It's hard to see why they bothered.

Southwell Street #1: I've seen your plan and it sucks

The tax-dodgers are complaining about Shared Streets this week -that they really mean "streets mostly for cars and vans". Exactly. Given a choice between a pedestrian area and a shared street, we'd go for the shared street. Once you get a hang of the chicanes they can be quite fun.

Southwell Street, our unofficial logo, is being "improved". We know that, as the vans to do it are parked there this week. Expect photos soon. But before that, the plans.

As people will recall, the concerns by the non-drivers about this area were

• uphill pavement turned into NHS parking, possibly illegally.
• no way for bicycles to get through except on the pavement
• the pavement was blocked to give priority to staff cars
• both dead ends were used as short stay parking for vans

Overall then a van-and-staff friendly area, with pedestrians as an afterthought, and one of those deliberately created bike/walker conflict zones to divide the opposition, all on the premier walking route from Gloucester Road to Bristol University, and hence full of students. By creating such conflict we could discourage people from trying to do this.

We were initially worried, then, when this draft plan hit our inbox, "a shared space".

Then we saw some emails from Ben Hamilton-Baillie, who we thought would approve of this fusion of walking and driving. Yet he seemed unimpressed

Most residents in Kingsdown feel, as I do, pretty insulted to be presented with a sketch of such pathetically poor quality for Southwell Street.

If the UHB really believes that Southwell Street and other streets in and around Kingsdown can be treated with such contempt, we should not give them any support. I have seen work experience students aged 16 produce more intelligent work than AECOM’s output for UHB. I only hope the hospital trust is not having to pay them fees as well....

Finally, we saw this video from a tax-dodging pavement cyclist who encounters the designers, and provides some feedback.

At 00:10 the Ginster delivery van does a U-turn without indicating, at which the troublemaker engages in discussion with the driver about, that and the fact that it isn't making any beeping noises. Well, the lorry pays more road tax, and isn't of a size where it needs the beeps. That shuts them. Remember that lorry though.

At 1:02 they execute the highly illegal "pavement bypass" option, so endangering pedestrians.

At 1:16 they meet the a hi-viz'd person planning the traffic calming area -and say to them the plan sucks, because painting a bit of pavement, whether it's in coloured paint or some cobbles down the middle of the road is utterly meaningless. They mutter on a bit, and we think their key point is that taking one pavement off for car parking and closing the other off for safe car park access is somehow wrong.

At 1:38 the cyclist, who is standing in the middle of the "person on the road" lane is actually forced to wheel their bike backwards to let a car out of the staff carpark. This shows to us how the "shared space" design will have no effect on our daily lives, so may as well be permitted. There is a risk of some benefit to people trying to cycle here -as they won't be quite so discouraged by having to hop on and off the pavement, but if we block the bollards with vans often enough, they'll be discouraged differently.

At 1:48 the troublemaker demands some of the pavement back. We'd hoped to have some good news there, but based on the building work it looks like these people have got their way. Somewhat. Wait until tomorrow for the specifics there.

At 2:02 they express concern that the dropoff area in front of the hospital is chaotic, and it will remain so. Well, that's why it's called a dropoff area, isn't it? If people were expected to do dropoffs and pickups on St Michael's hill, there'd be an area there instead.

at 2:20 their rant finishes and they finally head off, presumably to the relief of the site team. They then proceed down a road that clearly has room for parking all down one side, yet lacks it. And there are an oddly large number of pedestrians, given the effort the NHS has gone to here to discourage walking.

At 2:43 you can see some people trying to cross Horfield Road. Notice the wide five-junction crossing here. It's a dangerous exposed crossing and people shouldn't attempt it, not when there is a zebra crossing further up the road, as the video shows at 3:07. If people aren't prepared to cross the road where a crossing has been provided, well, it's like people on bicycles not using the bike lanes.

At the zebra crossing they do a U-turn, and at 3:08 show what is paveparked over yellow lines round the corner: Ginster delivery van HN58LVK. Purely because Southwell Street doesn't support through traffic, that van had to do a 180 degree turn in a narrow drop-off street, turn right up St Michael's Hill, right again on to Myrtle Road, then onto Alfred place. One U-turn and two right turns -not just a philosophy for the coalition government, it's costing the company money. The DfT puts a financial cost on critical business motoring, and its clear that closing this road has tangible costs to that key part of the economy: the white van.

Therefore, although the proposals don't take much away from us, they don't deliver what we need, either -the removal of the gate and the re-instatement of Southwell Street as a van-friendly rat-run!

BRI parking issues on Southwell Street

Someone cornered a team member a few weeks back and said "where are the secret plans for Southwell Street?". We forwarded them on, but are still waiting back for the note the police stuck through their door advising them on the rules for parking on pavements in Montpelier.

We are also trying to get permission to reprint one email from Ben Hamilton Baillie, Kingsdown resident and shared-space advocate, sent to the Bristol council denouncing the proposals. We need his permission, plus a review from the legal team, before printing. Legal? Well, it is somewhat critical of the plans.

In the meantime, here's what's happening as a video

and a photo of V984DNA

Why the increased number of vans on the co-opted pavement and over the pedestrian-in-middle-of-road paintwork? BRI parking changes. With the closure of most of the Horfield Road car park for building works, there's a deficit of patient parking. 75 spaces in the St Michael's Hill car park area (through the tunnel to the right, perhaps?) being opened to patients and their visitors. Hence less parking for staff -who have no choice but to park on the pavements or pretend pavements.

There's a notice up on a lamppost on Marlborough Hill discussing this. It also lets slip that staff parking permits cost £4/day. Not bad for the city centre, not bad at all. Given that once the NHS gets privatised in the next 6-12 months, the annual "consultancy fee" with our GP for getting a disabled sticker will probably go up to £200/van, this rate starts to look appealing for city-centre commuters, although it's not quite as flexible as the magic blue sticker.

The "improved" Southwell Street Shared Space

There have -apparently- been complaints about this shared space. We don't know who, we don't see anything wrong with it except sometimes people get in the way of where we want to drive or park.

Whoever is complaining clearly must be walking or cycling, so not contributing to the national economy,

Yet they want things "improved". What improvements will help us? None.

Southwell street represents all that is inner Bristol. A road on a hill, old houses, the pavements turned into parking and barrier in the way to discourage people from walking and cycling. To attempt to change this is not just an attack on the hospital, it is attack on modern British society!

Southwell Street: Bristol's Shared Space

Just a few photos here to celebrate Southwell St, by the St Michael's Hill hospital. What was once a road has been successfully turned by the BRI into a useful hospital facility, with lots of staff parking.

The presence of paving stones under the cars above has created some tension with the residents association, especially as no evidence has been found proving the pavement was "given" to the hospital. We say there's nowhere else to park.

We also understand why blocking the pavement and forcing pedestrians onto the road was the right thing to do. It is for their own safety.

Furthermore, painting a little sign of someone walking along what was once a pavement makes them feel grateful -and ensures that if they do get hit by a car and were walking anywhere else, well, they didn't follow the signs.

Like we said, we have heard rumours of change here. We now have the documents and some of the emails -and very interesting they are too.

But before publishing them, consider this: this road will be the first sight of the city for all children born in this hospital. To try and make it friendly to pedestrians and cyclists would be an attempt to redefine our city, not just for the adults, but for these newborn. Therefore we want to be the first to say that we are glad that the hospital is attempting to do the least it can get away with, namely painting the bits where pedestrians are meant to walk in more solid colours. We could call them "walking superhighways".

Changes on Woodland Road

It's been a few weeks since the RPZ rolled out, a year since Chris Hutt last commented on it. Time start looking at the impact of the RPZ on the city.

The RPZ has devastated Woodland Road and the rest of the university quarter. With some of the staff having parking in the (former) front gardens of the buildings, these roads used to be a lovely commuter spot, just before the pay to park area. Students got up too late to get look in.

But now, well, completely empty at 08:30. That not only makes it bad for commuters, it makes it a more pleasant place to walk and cycle. At least on those days when some Big Society volunteers act as community lollipop people.

The sign of cyclists just makes things more painful, as we know that not only do they not pay to be in traffic jams, they don't have to pay to park.

Fortunately, we managed to get our white van to the BRI-managed "shared space" area that is Southwell Street, which had a little bit of pavement left for us.

Important: we have heard rumours of changes planned for that road/NHS parking area.

Any anonymous documents or emails are welcomed at the usual email address. We like them to remain consistent with our mission statement "be 12-18 months ahead of any breaking news covered by the Evening Post". If we don't get anything in the next few days, we will have to make something up.

Southwell Street: the ongoing crisis

Our secret instrumentation of cyclists, with some followup chat, shows us how these people endanger pedestrians and patients on Southwell Street.

Look how they

1. Cycle along the "pedestrianized" bit of road on Southwell Street, so endangering anyone forced to walk along this bit of road by the no-pedestrian barriers around the car-park entrance.
2. Pop up on the real pavement to get around the gate completely blocking the road.
3. Stay on the pavement to get past the van V722LAE parked in the no parking area by the gate.
4. Leap onto the road and endanger pedestrians crossing the road, the delivery vans, and the cars dropping staff off.
5. Swerves into the oncoming lane to get past the Ginsters cornish pastry lorry.

In the past, someone suggested to us that we should make Southwell Street the official logo of Bristol traffic, as a combination of a gate to block bicycles and a pavement closed to pedestrians represented our city. Well, it does -these cyclists ignoring the hints that the NHS gives them -that cycling to school, work or the nearby university is wrong- show us the problems we face in our city. What else can we do to ban them?