Number 3 in an occasional series of Porsches parked outside supermarkets (parts 1 and 2). Double yellows? Check. Don't want anybody else parking too near. Well out from the kerb? Check. Don't want to scuff the tyres. Personalised plate? Check: K7KKY. And in a moment of compassion, they've gone to Tesco in order to help reduce the £4bn drop in profits, rather than Waitrose. Thoughtful.
Centre manager Andrew Lowrey said: "We have had several complaints that people are either riding or wheeling cycles through the centre and ignoring requests made by our security team not to do so
"The safety of our customers, visitors and staff is extremely important, therefore a decision has been made to ban cycles at Yate Shopping Centre with immediate effect.
"We encourage people to visit the centre and to travel by bicycle. However, we would kindly request that cyclists utilise the ample cycle racks located around the shopping centre. We expect a noticeable increase in footfall when the new Tesco Extra store opens on October 24, so hopefully these new measures will prevent future issues and make the shopping centre a safer place for all shoppers."
We expect this will rapidly improve the revenue in the shops and help it recover from the threat posed by the fact that Emerson's Green is five minutes drive away. Emerson's Green does welcome cyclists, so Yate should actually be able to market their Morrison's supermarche on this feature "Yate: nobody on a bicycle will be there".
Tesco Supermarkets would like us to remind our readers that their shop in Cheltenham Road is accessible by people on foot, public transport, bicycle and car -the bus/bike lane providing the parking area for the latter.
We've heard sob stories about people having to go without food to keep their cars fueled up, but nobody has looked at the impact on the tradition of motorbiking to your mates to a pub. Not only are road taxes and petrol taxes on the rise, but beer taxes have gone up too.
This is a group of pub goers have been forced to cycle to the Vittoria on Whiteladies road pub for their afternoon beers; a row of chopper style pedal cycles lined up as a forlorn statement of a lost dream. Still, it adds to the beer money.
That blocked up building, The Ranch, is not damaged by any riot. It's just shut down -people aren't going out and drinking enough, so the Vittoria must welcome all traffic, even these push-biker-gangs
Looking at the zebra crossing, we can see someone didn't quite manage to make the corner here. At least that's one good thing of the plastic keep-left signs: they bend out your way and don't damage the paintwork.
This is the zebra crossing that the WoEP wanted to move away from the road crossings as part of the showcase bus route. Whatever the claimed reason, the real reason is now becoming clear: Tesco are putting in a mini-mart where the Texaco garage used to be.
As we've seen elsewhere in the city, a zebra crossing provides excellent short-stay parking opportunities for anyone nipping in to buy one or two items. Not petrol bombs though, as that bit of the site will be going away. Anyway, who could afford them?
The elusive "Bristol Citizen" asked us why we forgot to mention anarchists as the cause behind the riots. Good question.
It's hard to see theft of LCD televisions as somehow aligned with the Anarchist cause. Indeed, it's hard to see a complicate blackberry-and-facebook based Command-Control-and Communication Infrastructure being operated to co-ordinate such thefts. Sitting in a pub like The Hare on the Hill cheering on rioters out on ninetree hill -that we can accept.
Planning a mass rising of the population in Croydon. Unlikely. Croydon? It's not exactly the Bastille or the Battleship Potemkin, is it. If you are going to plan a revolution, pick somewhere dramatic to be celebrated in cinema and art for centuries. Not Croydon.
Who then? Well, we also forgot to mention Rave Music. - music described in the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act as "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". A music so dangerous that they had to ban rave gatherings, out of fear of groups of people wearing lime green t-shirts dancing to A Guy Called Gerald threatened society -or at least the alcohol revenue of clubs, pubs and national supermarket chains.
There's another issue: where did all the balaclavas come from? There's only one group of people who go round the city with Balaclavas and facemasks, geared up for a mass uprising and already showing an affectation for consumer toys. Yes, the cyclists.
With the face gear, the fingerprint-protecting gloves and the riot-ready helmets, along with the nimble wheeled subversion-mobiles, these are the real criminals in our society.
What to do? The obvious answer is to show that we aren't intimidated, to place our range rovers firmly in the cycle paths and say "we will not be intimidated!"
Praise L008YXR for being the first of the true citizens of our streets to drive over to the bike paths of Montpelier and show they are not afraid. Already you can see how the passing cyclists look threatened and unhappy!
Tesco would like to us to remind you that they are still open.
It became clear during the week that even Boris Johnson was out of his depth. After some final words of advice from Sarkozy -whose strategy of containment doesn't actually work when we have to drive through the areas of unrest, we finally jetted home. And then drove down to Stokes Croft
Tesco is boarded up. It's not clear whether this was due to attacks on it, or the supermarket chain accepting the inevitable and adopting this as their decor. It is still open, providing a reason to park in the bike lane, as KT04TWZ has done.
In the distance there's a woman pushing a fixie along the pavement. Given the abuse of bicycles in the English Riots (to separate them from the Ulster Riots and the regular Scottish "fixtures"), she and the cyclist heading into the city on the road should be pre-emptively arrested.
Further down, the windows of the Croft and Rodak Polish Food at the bottom of ninetree are broken -you can see them behind the bike lane/paveparking van Properbread HK07UKR. If one were to view the riots as either a popular uprising against The Man or a mass looting by consumer-hungry troublemakers, it's hard to say why either establishment was targeted. These establishments are not The Establishment.
There are other places boarded up, but the presence of quality art by Petro, Epok, Sepr and others shows that this is not recent. Overall then, for the area that is now associated in Bristol and the country's mind as "the first 2011 riot" is quiet and back its normal life.
On that topic, can we point out that the graffiti covering Annabel's at No 9 actually predates the sex-shop art we covered previously. We apologise to the Annabel staff for this accidental neglect.
People have asked us who, given all the people like Max Hastings are writing bollocks, and David Starkey saying "it is because they is all black", why aren't we being paid to appear on television and spout some random bullshit about the causes of the riots and the measures that need to be taken?
Most of the shallow bollocks has already been written. You can blame thirty years of liberal thought, two years of government cuts, and then make up some opinions on what needs to be done next. When the Evening Post did ask for some opinions we provided some defensible data showing how civil unrest is strongly correlated with economic downturns -at which point they hung up the phone.
It seems that to get the TV and press coverage we deserve, and the appearance money- we need to have an agenda more outrageous, which blames the recent events to some downfall in society. The obvious events are, in no particular order
Legalising same sex marriages.
Banning slavery.
The creation of the NHS.
Making it legal for two men to hold hands in public.
Allowing people of different racial groups to settle in the country (ignoring Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Romans, and all other pre-20th migrations except those from Ireland)
Banning schools from being able to beat children.
The end of capital punishment.
The end of internment in Northern Ireland, rather than its rollout across the rest of the country.
The end of National Service.
Rap Music.
Jazz Music.
Rock and Roll Music.
Punk Rock.
The rollout of 3G networks and the addition of TCP/IP protocol stacks to mobile telephones.
The World Wide Web.
Twitter and Facebook.
Television.
The publishing press.
Widespread literacy.
The Human Rights Act
The ending of the death penalty.
The ending of deportation.
Many of these have been covered by other commentators. Even so, these are mostly symptoms. The root cause hasn't been addressed, namely that we aren't able to execute people based on verbal evidence from a single witness. If we had that, all the criminals would have been dealt with a long time ago.
That's right: since we stopped executing people for alleged witchcraft, Britain hasn't been the same.
Bring back Burning Witches based on hearsay! It's the only way to save the country!
But before we look at the councillors actions, let's look at the opposing team, which in Clifton means the Conservative Party, leader one R. Murdoch. The losing candidate the May Election says "we need more imaginative thought to solve the problem" of parking. In particular, this ambitious politician is "undertaking a survey of the entire community, finding out where yellow lines are needed and where they can be taken away" and by doing so, he has found 100 metres of double yellow lines that aren't needed.
Well, Clifton certainly needs help if it is not to become like Montpelier, as LY52RKV and S899ANW are forced to do. Yet these are nice cars, with wingmirrors -and Montpelier parking doesn't suit them.
We asked one of the tax dodgers what they thought of the proposals, and got this reply, which we quote unedited:
Those yellow lines aren't just wasted parking, they probably stop roads being blocked, helping through traffic, and make it easier to pass bicycles. Replace that with unrestricted parking and what do you get? 25 more cars.
That's not imaginative.
That's about as imaginative as a goldfish.
Imagination would be pushing for even one car club car bay in Clifton.
Imagination would be to put in bike parking in the village so that people don't need a car to drive from their house to the shops.
Imagination would be to discourage parents from driving their kids to school by enforcing rules about keep-clear and parking on pavements.
Imagination would be to use a resident permit scheme to limit car ownership, eliminate commuter parking and ensure that "sustainable" housing has an even harder limit on the number of cars per household.
This shows no imagination whatsoever and is painful to read. Are you sure the Clifton Conservatives web site isn't some kind of spoof?
Obviously, we don't agree with any of the actions, but we have to agree with their comments about imagination. It is the lack of action from the authorities that are forcing the residents to act for themselves. Such as here, where DV60XJL is forced to park on the yellow lines and pavements outside Tesco Express.
But even that is fiddling around the edges. As the tax-dodger notes, 100m of yellow lines only transfers into 25 spaces for important vehicles. Noise. And more to the point, we are already using a lot of that space already. It's not "unused parking", it's parking areas reserved for important people in a hurry -such as the Mercedes N445CRP.
Even if we don't want people thinking outside the box, we do want our councillors to think of a much bigger box than adding 25 more cars to Clifton. Or maybe thirty if you force the cars in hard enough.
We want much, much more. Here's what we propose
Making the downs all year round car parking, rather than a pay-to-use luxury on summer weekends
Removing zebra crossings, school keep clear zones, and that bit outside the church, as they all take up space.
Adding a multi-storey car park somewhere within the area. Yes, it's full of old listed buildings, but that didn't stop a large car park going up on the edge of St Pauls, did it?
Faffing around with 100m of yellow lines isn't going to solve the problems the area has. At least the locals are already imagining more than this so-called-contender has to offer. This is important, as the councillors in charge share the same limited imagination; it is down to us citizens to act.
For the next few days, we're going to cover Clifton!
Do you remember those riot things in Stokes Croft in April?
It seems the Police and the Main Stream Media do...
We don't care about the non-existant petrol bombs, of course, as we bought the real, value Banksy posters instead and made a killing on eBay.
However... we are hoping Tesco will still be able to supply us with fresh milk next Sunday morning, after the St Paul's Carnival, before we drive around Bristol looking for Gorillas.*
*Bristol Traffic is not affiliated in any way with Bristol Zoo, but we do like Gorillas.
We're reproducing a message sent out today, in order to prevent any misunderstandings if our email became public through other channels, just like that recent incident involving "Quercus", twitter and a naked man on a unicycle. First, we need to make clear that we do not in any way support the use of bicycles or public transport in the city. We are, however, concerned that the delivery and shopping processes of the Cheltenham Road Tesco Mini-mart are making it impossible for us to drive down the bus lane then swing left into Ashley Road, so avoiding the bearpit roundabout while heading out of town on the M32. Furthermore, the congestion caused by buses trying to swing back into the single-lane traffic is creating tailbacks as far as the Gloucester Road/Zetland Road junction, which makes nipping into Booze express harder. We couldn't come out and say this as it would make us appear shallow and self centred, so instead we pretended to have unified interests with the people that Jeremy Clarkson only this week denounced as anti-capitalist subversives.
Here is the letter
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bristol Traffic Date: 21 June 2011 15:17 Subject: Express Cheltenham Road, Bristol To: expressqueries@uk.tesco.com
It appears that you are looking for feedback w.r.t the Tesco Express, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, the one that recently became nationally famous due its unfortunate history of catching fire late at night.
The Bristol Traffic Project wishes to provide some feedback about the newly re-opened mini-mart.
In case you are unaware, we are a web-based community project to build a defensible dataset on who drives, parks, cycles and walks badly round Bristol. Our stokes croft coverage dates back to 2008, and so forms one of the largest dataset on road usage in the area. As a result, the search terms "Tesco Stokes Croft" invariably lists one of our articles in the first page of responses, despite the recent national and international media coverage.
One conclusion of our three year dataset is that the number of people cycling along Cheltenham Road is increasing. This is something which the council believes is a good thing, which is why the Cycling City program deliberately set out to encourage people in Bishopston, further up the A38, to cycle to work -down Cheltenham Road. For this reason, the Greater Bristol Bus Network offers a mandatory bus lane during some parts of the day; this ends outside Tesco Cheltenham Road, where a non-mandatory cycle path begins. While historically the bus lane only ever existed on those rare days that Bristol Parking Services enforced the rule, the roll-out of in-bus camera and CCTV enforcement of lane-blocking legislation means that compliance is now higher, except amongst those entities that are prepared to view the penalty as an operational expense.
Within the last ten weekdays of the supermarket being "live", community contributions show that
There is invariably a large HGV blocking the end of the bus lane and the beginning of the bus lane between 10:00 and 10:30
The official Tesco deliveries, while scheduled for 10:00-10:30, render the bike lane inoperable for a minimum of 30 minutes out of every working day. This bike lane being, as mentioned, the primary cycle route into the city from north Bristol.
This official blocking of the bus lane impacts bus schedules, inconveniences passengers across the city, and may even lead to financial penalties to FirstBus.
Other organisations with an apparent relationship with Tesco (e.g. G4S) are prepared to block the bus lane during its operational hours, and therefore presumably view parking tickets as an OPEX. This reduces the availability of the bus and bike lane even further.
Customers engaged in a park-and-shop process are prepared to short-stay park in the bus/bike lane through out the day, so rendering it unusable to buses, cyclists, and anyone coming down of Arley Hill who wants to nip down the bus lane before turning left on Ashley Road towards the M32.
Customers engaged in a park-and-shop process are prepared to short-stay park outside the shop during the evening bus-lane hour, so creating congestion that runs as far back as Zetland Road and so has a negative impact on all road journeys.
Overall, then, the combination of scheduled Tesco deliveries, possibly scheduled visits by partner organisations, and short-stay parking by customers has effectively rendered this bus and bike lane unusable to anyone in a bus, bicycle, motorcycle or taxi, or anyone simply prepared to nip up the left lane to get to St Pauls, an action to which a blind eye has historically been turned.
Given the role of the road and the fact that the loss of this lane is leading to congestion morning and evening, we consider this outcome unacceptable.
We would recommend some actions to mitigate this. Sadly very few actions spring to mind other than the closure of the mini-mart.
Your cost model is built around an optimised supply chain that uses the same vehicles for delivering to Tesco Express outlets as other Tesco sites, so the HGVs could only be eliminated by the adoption of a new city-friendly supply chain.
Your cost model does not include the external costs of the impact on the journey times of non-customers, or other externalies such as the increases in their fuel use and pollution.
Passing motorists popping in to shop may have been explicitly or implicitly included in the business model of the shop. It may be possible to enforce a "do not sell to people who park in the bus/bike lane" policy by refusing them entry, however this will not help customer loyalty.
It is hard for you to enforce policy on how your strategic partners such as G4S arrive and park outside your premises.
What is possible is for the local council to act in such a way as to mitigate such issues, independent of any of your actions:
Use the CCTV camera at the junction of Cheltenham Road and Arley Hill to enforce the existing bus lane parking rules. This does not require any legal process and could be rolled out almost immediately.
Use existing the CCTV camera to enforce the 15 minute loading/unload time limit. Again, no legislation necessary.
Uprate the cycle lane from "optional" to mandatory, so earning all vehicles which park there a £120 fine.
Enforce the then-extended cycle lane driving/parking rules using the same CCTV camera
Increase the physical presence of Bristol Parking Services staff, so offering more of a visual deterrent before 10:00 and after 16:30.
Being a data-gathering exercise we shall be using the FoI process to track the number of parking tickets issued in this area, so see if it correlates with the increase of delivery and customer parking which our data implies is happening. We shall also encouraging our existing community base to collect more photographs of the situation, which we shall then place online along with the vehicle registration numbers, and so help build up a better dataset of who chooses to block this invaluable facility, and when.
Please thank your staff, partners and customers for their participation in our experiment.
The Bristol Traffic Team.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
As stated, do not interpret this as some form of subversive activity. It is just that the tailbacks prevent us getting down and parking on the pavement outside Ritas or sprinting over to the M32. We are, as people should recall, a data gathering and analysis project, so we welcome documentary evidence from everyone on this issue, even people engaged in un-British activities like walking, cycling, and getting on a bus as opposed to standing there hoping that one will turn up. The threat of using FoI information to collect ticketing statistics is real, and we enjoy the irony of having the CCTV camera put in "for the mini-mart's own protection" being used to ticket people parking in the bus lane during its hours of liveness. Expect updates in future
We are impressed. Every day that one of the team members has been down to Cheltenham Road this week, there's been a vehicle or two outside Tesco. What was once one of the showcase "cycle city" and "Greater Bristol Bus Network" routes has been returned to the tax paying driver -and as vans and lorries pay more road tax, they deserve to use it first.
"Slug" sends a couple of Pics from 09:15 on Friday 17 June showing a security van outside tesco,
And right outside the credit union, another lorry, MX07GJV
As slug says " It can be very dangerous for a cyclist to cycle in the cycle lane because it is to the left of traffic turning left. So the lorry driver out of concern for the potential danger that inexperienced cyclists are putting themselves in, decided to park on the double yellow lines ... ignoring the no unloading sign.
Behind the vehicle you can see all the way to the security van that is also parked on the cycle lane -and in between the lane is completely empty! Mission accomplished! no cyclists Left Hooked at Ashley junction this morning.
Interestingly, we have a different video of the same stretch of road from someone else taken about ten minutes later. This video is interesting because it is from the perspective of one of the tax-dodgers, someone who is trying to get across the city "after 9am because the roads are quieter." See that? These people have deliberately chosen to commute outside "the rush hour" because they prefer it. But that reduction in road traffic creates an illusion of safety -and encourages more of such behaviour.
At 0:03 there's another cyclist on Freemantle Road -heading towards the university or Clifton, then our underemployed camera-enabled tax-avoider descends Nugent Hill, an option forbidden to cars, especially since they put that island in at the bottom to stop right turns, a feature few motorists have managed to deal with. Our troublemaker negotiates that island by abusing the contraflow bike lane on Arley Hill, then flips into the left lane to undertake the stationary traffic to wait for a green light.
While waiting we see important people in cars and taxis, some public transport users, and unimportant pedestrians, and another cyclist at 1:58 crossing over to the contraflow. Because The A38 here, it could unify or divide the city. The council wanted to make it a showcase for the cycle city program, encouraging people from Bishopston (out of town; to the left) to head into the city centre, down this very road!
That is something we need to stop, which is why we are grateful for Tesco and its support. Because as well as unifying the cyclists, it could divide them. It and Muller road are the two roads that anyone cycling around north Bristol has to encounter, and if we can only roll back any pro-cycling "enhancements" there, then we can discourage anyone not just from cycling on these main roads, but even get across them.
That is why it is so essential to fight them on the streets, and why the Tesco delivery process is helping transform this road, and hence the whole of north Bristol.
At 2:14 you can see the bicycle head in to town. Although they think they have a lane to themselves, at 2:22 you can see their mistake -the security van has moved on since 09:15, but another delivery van has taken its place. Then at 2:34, a car half on the pavement, half on the bike lane. That bike lane is considered unsafe anyway, which is why they and the next lorry are blocking it. What's changed since the photos earlier is that the lorry seems to be deciding to pull out now; it's flipped its indicators on. The tax dodger goes past, and at 2:47 you can see another paveparked van; a 2:49 a similar car. All it takes is one or two vehicles doing this, all the time, every day, and people will be discouraged not just from commuting along this road by bicycle, but across it.
At 3:04 our troublemaker does a U-turn and heads out of town, showing that the bike lane there is in its usual state: short stay parking for shop customers and staff. This bike lane has been reclaimed!
At 3:36, they are now waiting to turn right towards montpelier, where you can see that the row of vehicles blocking the left lane do actually turn it into a bikes-only lane, albeit because nobody actually wants to turn left. Anyone turning left will have to swing over from the right hand lane, which might be a surprise to anyone cycling down it, of which we can see a couple at 3:50.
Then, finally, at 3:54, our errant tax dodger turns right, and then left into Montpelier, where they can feel slightly safer.
You see that? How the quiet bits of the city, Cotham and Montpelier, can be made cycling unfriendly not by adding any anti-cycling infrastructure, but by making it unpleasant to cross the roads between them. We don't need to ask the council for special anti-bicycle features, the way they do in Waltham Forest, all we need to do is park our delivery vans where we want on the roads the cyclist have to cross. It only takes a couple of HGVs to set an example, and once it's begun, every else will copy. What was a bike lane has become a parking area, not just to achieve the tactical goal: park outside our destination, but to achieve a strategic one: to knife the cycling city dream in the back.
Whose streets? Ours! For parking in whenever we want!
What we hadn't expected was how rapidly it would transit from a boring, functional bus lane and bike lane into a short stay shopping street. Tesco have brought the high street back again!
Notice here, on Thursday June 17, 10:18 am how the delivery staff have placed some warning signs out. At first we thought they were to warn cyclists not to go straight into the back of the lorry, and were a bit worried that Tesco may be starting to care.
A closer look reveals the real isse. Because the lorry has a loader that drops to ground level, they don't want any shopper to park their car on the double yellow lines too close to the back of the lorry. They are concerned about the customers, not the passing underpeople.
Here's a video of the same scene
Notice how you can just make out the bike lane underneath the lorry as it raises the floor.
Many of the troublemakers have complained that Tesco moved in to the area to profit from a road going upmarket. Untrue. Tesco moved in there because it wasn't upmarket enough, because people walked and cycled round, even though it was a main road with plenty of room for lorries and parking.
Tesco moved in to the area to save Stokes Croft from itself!
A quick trip in our van at 09:59 shows the delivery van YR59YUD happily ensconced in the bus lane, waiting to deliver to tesco.
We say waiting, because apparently as long as they don't start unloading until 10:00, it's OK. This actually makes sense. Anyone who is trying to use public transport or cycle at that time of day are clearly low-income people whose time is effectively worthless, according to the D of Motoring spreadsheets.
What is more interesting is later the same day, now at 18:37, we spot the "Mighty Banana" van of Stokes Croft, now parked outside Tesco. Has someone driven up from the Croft to get their weekly shop in?
Possibly, but they would have found their way blocked by a large group of strangely dressed people. That said, anyone driving up from the croft wouldn't find this unusual, or interfere with their daily shop.
What could, however, would be the police enforcement of parking rules. And here is where we saw something so shocking we almost dropped the mobile phone from our steering wheel hand (the other hand is for gear changes and the horn). Yes, a policeman actually went up to the van to note its registration number. We were in shock. This could destroy Bristol as we know it. Watch the video.
You see that? Panic over. It turns out that the "Mighty Banana" Van, W878MDC, is actually Chris Chalkey's van, and the police are only doing it for a laugh. In the voiceover you can hear Cllr Jon Rogers -whom we suspect of not being in the Waltham Forest Faction of the LibDem council- explaining this and why it's all a setup. Chris see's what's happening, starts waving his masonic hand-waves at the police and all is well. Masonic Handwaves, incidentally, are the van drivers' version of the Masonic Handshake -make the secret wave to any traffic police and they'll let you past.
False alarm: panic over. There's no problem with parking in the mornings, no problem in the evenings either. We were worried there, but at least everyone has come to their senses and realised that if there's one group of people in the city not to mess with, it's us van drivers. Those videos of people shouting "whose streets? Our streets?" wouldn't stand a chance against a roadblock of us going "whose short-stay parking areas? your bike lanes!"
You won't be seeing our white van today, as the team is all at home watching TV. Well, watching adult videos while drinking red bull and vodka, but it fits in with the day. However we do welcome contributions, as usual to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com.
Today we have received some lovely photos of what's happening down in Stokes Croft, showing that the police have finally stepped in and set a record for the number of vehicles that can park in a bike lane! We see you, Aberdeen Cars,
and raise you eight police vans!
We also have proof that Welsh vehicles are exempt from one way signs.
There, how you deal with that, friends of the north?
update: Gamu asked why we hadn't included the registration numbers. An error of omission, due to the rush to get this out. Here are the two from the photos: CN59DVO WX08DHE. As they say, Whose police state? Our police state!
We got a blip in web traffic last week with people searching online for "Stokes Croft" and "Stokes Croft Tesco".
We are Bristol's premier road-related news outlet --and given this road's role in both transportation and fast food, this extra traffic was not surprising.
To keep our out-of-town visitors informed, we drove the official Bristol Traffic White Van down to Cheltenham Road and 'the Croft to see what was happening.
The Tescos is boarded up, Fred Baker Cycles has a few hundred pounds worth of damage. All eight cyclists who read this site might want to consider visiting the shop and buying something there, to show your support for a local shop in the area that never chose to be alongside a new supermarket.
The outbound bike lane has a car in it, this time a police car.
The inbound bike lane also has a car in it.
Up on the now infamous Telepathic Heights, someone sits on the roof shouting at passers by.
Given the news about riots in Cheltenham Road, we are pleased to inform all all readers that despite what happens over the weekend Ritas and Slix will both continue serving Bristol's best takeaway chips to passing motorists, be they minicab drivers or police riot vehicles. The latter will qualify for bulk discount. We also welcome rioters, as the two establishments do consider themselves part of the Stokes Croft community, and not some national invader that do not recognise that garlic mayonnaise is a key part of Bristol's cuisine.
However, the two establishments have requested that all police car customers park in the bike lanes slightly closer to Cheltenham Road, rather than the bike lanes directly in front of the shops, as bricks and the like being thrown at vans does tend to turn away traffic. They can assure the police that parking restrictions will not be enforced (based on historical data), and that anyone cycling up to the (closed) Cheltenham Road is a troublemaker who deserved to be arrested -although only after spending their free cash at Rita's and Slix.
Slix's lawyers will also be in touch with everyone who reviewed their cafe, as they are all libellous apart from the one that praises it so much it is clearly fake.
The Hare on the Hill pub in Kingsdown would also like to point out that you can get a good view from there, along with a wide selection of Bath Ales beers, and as it is out of the "no drinking" exclusion zone, customers are welcome to sit outside and enjoy the "sporting fixtures" of the Easter Weekend -one in which the Royal Wedding Festivities appear to have started a week early.
Trivia: next week will be the 48th anniversary of the Bristol Bus Strike. Since that date nobody except poor people without cars have taken the bus, and FirstBus have done their best to discourage even these people from using the bus, by overcharging for a mediocre service.
