Secret Whiteladies road GBBN parking

We are happy to declare the whiteladies road showcase bus route a success.

Before, parking here on whiteladies road was forbidden, because it had zig-zags. Now it is somewhere you can park during rush hour.

This is because the parking restrictions are not live until the signs go up-until then buses and cyclists get to go down the single lane, while we can park there all day.
 
Apparently this enlightened state of affairs will last another month or two.

Hold the Road 2

Last Friday, we reported on the 50 plus new parking spaces available on Whiteladies Road. We featured Audi YL06DYP taking advantage of the new spaces.

It appears that, whilst owners of lesser quality German vehicles have yet to take advantage of these new parking spaces, word has spread within the Audi driving community.

Here we see another Audi - WV60EZL - taking advantage of the same space.

As a civic service, we're thinking of writing to all car manufacturers to let them know of the scheme provided by Bristol City Council as part of the Greater Bristol Bus Network.

H/T Dru Marland for the photo

Hold the Road

As regular readers will know, we have covered the GBBN (Greater Bristol Bus Network) before.

We were sceptical at first, thinking that it might reduce parking opportunities in favour of the most profound losers in society: those that don't own a car.

Well, there are still cyclists, pedestrians and buses using Whiteladies Road, but it turns out that the revised road layout carefully concealed at least fifty new parking spots.

Here we see YL06DYP taking advantage of one of these new parking spaces. 

This is genius: we look forward to more use of Bristol's roads for static vehicles.

RTC on WLR

Showing we are more timely than the Evening Post with a publishing process that involves shipping paper in from outside Bristol -and so getting stuck on the M4- here are some pics of a collision between a BMW and a Toyota (Auris?) on Whiteladies Road from 08:10; twenty minutes ago.
 
The front of the Toyota looks toast, the airbags haven't deployed so it looks like a low-kinetic energy event.

The BMW bodywork has come out a lot more unscathed, though we suspect that if the driver took it to the BMW dealer in St Philips it would be the one coming out costing the most. The driver (belt and white shirt) was holding something up to the top of his head, implying he'd bashed it on the wheel or windscreen. That reg of BMW may not have airbags, and the driver may not have had a seatbelt or helmet. Yet as this is clearly a below-12mph crash, a cycling helmet would have reduce injuries.

 
The two people with rucksacks are a cyclist on the left and possibly a pedestrian on the right. It'd be tempting to blame the cyclist, but that's not the case, he pulled over after the event and was either being a witness or offering medical support.


What happened? The BMW RJ52AEM was crossing Whiteladies from Oakfield Road. At this point you need to pull across the road to get to West Park if you are heading across Bristol; this is a nice little west-east rat-run option from Clifton to Cotham that avoids the St Pauls Road/Tyndall's Park Road junction, where the traffic lights manufacture congestion.
 

You do need to pull out fairly aggressively as the gaps are quite tight. The main provider of gaps is actually the zebra crossing -whenever a pedestrian uses it the outbound traffic halts in a queue and there's an empty space on the other side of the road; once you get over that outbound lane you can go quite fast over the road, down west park and you are in Cotham Hill in a flash.
Today it went wrong. Looks like either the BMW pulled out expecting the Toyota to give way, and it didn't. Perhaps one or other weren't looking, perhaps the right-of-way negotiation process failed.

Either way, hope all is uninjured and that both are insured. Photos available to either party on request.

Bike parking steals valuable retail space

The high streets are in trouble, and there is little that can be done.

The government has proposed making it easier to change retail outlets from one use to another without so much paperwork -something the Costa Coffee outlet in Whiteladies road has done pre-emptively.

Another area was improved parking, which the whiteladies showcase bus route promises -by converting whiteladies road to 1h short stay parking during the day. Which shows how naive the government high street survey was -where do they expect the staff to park now that there is no long stay parking in front of the shop?

What Whiteladies road does have is an overflowing bike parking area, which gets in the way of pedestrians.

It also fails to recognise the benefit to the high street were it converted into retail advertising space

Warning Signs

The Showcase Bus Route is being rolled out on Whiteladies Road, bringing chaos to motorists, buses and even cash4cars vans.

At least they provide some warning, "temporary road service", or "road closed from 20:00 to 06:00"

As usual, the tax-dodger and pedestrian groups will be complaining that the roadworks and signs only care about the needs of motorists.

We say, yes, because we need to be warned of dangers ahead that they will not, because of their lack of money, encounter

This sign on Aberdeen Road for example, brings fear to many motorists, yet the cyclists and the walkers will go past unawares:

KWIK FIT OPEN AS USUAL

Fuel Costs and motorbiking

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?

FirstBus joins our campaign against Zebra Crossings!

The zebra crossing wars on whiteladies road are hotting up. The bus companies had put together a proposal to make it harder to walk over the road -replacing some zebra crossings with pelican crossings, and here, by Oakfield Road, moving the crossing away from "the line of desire" and zig-zagging it so as to stop anyone with bicycle from using them. By discouraging walking and cycling, those people who don't have cars now have no reason not to use FirstBus, so will be a revenue stream.

Sadly, the troublemakers -and we know who they are- pushed back, and this crossing will remain as is. What can we do? Well, FirstBus knows what to do, it's pretend the crossing isn't there. The more people realise that buses will go straight through it, the less tempted they will be to use the routes.

Congratulations, then to WX06OMO, for showing strength of will and not even bothering to slow down for the person standing by their bicycle waiting to cross this junction.

Bus lanes: not even buses use them

Disappointing scenes here of not even a bus using the bus lane on Whiteladies Road

The video shows this is not a one off event, as taxis drive down our lane, the taxpayers lane, too.

If it wasn't for the Mercedes M88RKW parking there, this lane would be completely wasted.

Welcome to Bristol, Kayla Maratty!

We are pleased to welcome Bristol 24-7's correspondent, Kayla Maratty, who provides a well argued explanation of why cyclists deserve to be run over in her article "My homicidal tendencies towards cyclists".

Kayla manages to completely summarise how it is bicycles on Whiteladies Road and Blackboy hill that bring the city to a halt, as we have discussed previously. She says

"Part of me would take great pleasure in mowing them down when they choose to cycle in the middle of the road or are determined to peddle all the wayup Black Boy Hill. But obviously I would never do that; I can get by just on the thought of it to restrain my road rage."

We find driving really close behind them intimidating enough. Sadly, it is actually legal for them to cycle down the middle of a single lane road, which Whiteladies is. And when they are going over the Downs, they do need to pull to the right of the left turn only lane, so sounding your horn doesn't help.

Still, we are glad to see your fight against university tuition fees continue. Obviously this isn't an issue for you, as not only will the fee rise kick in after you have finished your course, if you can afford to drive and  park anywhere near the university, then you are clearly part of that set of students known as "well-funded", and we expect your parents to pay for all your living expenses. We look forward to your complaints about how the rollout of the RPZ is forcing you park and walk further. If you do not write such an article, we shall assume that the fact that Woodland Road and St Michael's Park now offer more short stay paid parking than ever before actually benefits you, as it makes it easier for you drive down to the university for a lecture and latte before heading home again, albeit held up by all the cyclists.

Can we take this opportunity to remind our readers that Bristol Traffic is not some satire or spoof. If it were, you'd have to conclude that the whole of the UK printed and online press is also some kind of spoof. The Daily Mail has been going on for over a hundred years now, so its time to own up to being a wind-up, if it really is.


Update 24-Jan: the original article has been pulled, the editor apologises and denounces the bullying by cyclists.

Quality Streets

Now that Christmas is over, and most of the left-overs eaten, only the least appealing of the Quality Streets are left in the packet here at Bristol Traffic (we've got some Celebrations, but we're hanging on the them for the New Year).

It was the thought of Quality Streets which reminded us of our favourite Bristol example, Gloucester Road. This was the first 'Showcase Bus Route' in the city, and has apparently been a great success - to such an extent that one of the bus-stops near the Prom Club is no longer in service.

Here's a view of this Quality Street, just up from the Prom Club. Note the quality.

We like:

- The Tree. Street trees are good, reflecting proper civic pride.
- The Signage. Important information for motorists is essential.
- The Litter Bin. Vital, with facilities for smokers, too, which is very inclusive.
- The Wheelie Bin. Vital if traders along the road are to survive.
- The Telephone Box. Not everyone has an iPhone, after all.
- The Street Light. Keeps us safe at night.
- The Street Paint. Good for helping us spot the traffic lights, which we also like.

Unfortunately, all this quality is let down by the useless cycle stands, installed as part of the cycling city fiasco. Surely that space could have been used for a decent advertisement display board?

A similar 'Quality Street' scheme is currently proposed for Whiteladies Road. We look forward to it.

Wouldn't hang around the student quarter in a car like that

Dru Marland emails us to say she spotted this important car parked outside Clifton Down shopping centre at Whteladies Gate on Friday, less than 24 hours after an uncontrolled mob of students attacked a Royal Family RR in London.

Given this car is parked in the no parking area directly adjacent to the bus shelter where we recently saw tens of students waiting for a bus, that's a pretty risky place for 6CWB to park while nipping into the supermarket. This is why we like our van better -it blends in with the rest of the city, including the Out of Hand van parked over the zig-zags by the pedestrian crossing to the left of the camera.

Interestingly, that RR's registration number, is open to offers. Perhaps the economy isn't recovering quite as well as were are told, not if important people are willing to sell their car's registration plates.

Making Echelon Parking Safer

A lot of cyclists complain about "Echelon parking" as the cars and vans reversing out can hit cyclists. Our solution: ban cyclists, isn't being taken up, here on Whiteladies Road, so alternative solutions are being investigated.

We are pleased to see that the Saab KC03TKN and the Range-Rover behind it are doing their best to reduce risk here by double parking alongside the echelon-parked vehicles. Any bicycle that can get past them will be confident that no vehicles will reverse into them during the operation.

Such cyclists may be pleased to know that some extra echelon parking will be provided behind the camera, so ensuring that the roll-out of a bus lane doesn't remove any parking spaces from the urban realm. Indeed, when combined with the double parking option seen above, there may actually be more short-stay parking than ever before.

Friday Quiz

Tesco's in Lower Redland Road re-opened a while ago now.

But it may just be causing a few local problems.

The Bloomsbury Problem

Another issue we had with the Russel Square area is that this marked a clear attempt to bring cycle-friendly infrastructure into the inner city, rather than, as in Bristol, leave it places where we hope it doesn't get in the way of anyone important.

First, signs, encouraging cyclists to find their way round

Full green bike paths, with raised kerbs to make it slightly harder to accidentally park in them.

Junctions for the bicycles themselves, with no cyclists dismount signs

And here, worst of all, an "except cycles" get-out clause on a one way street. Not "except cycles, taxis and van drivers", but cycles only.

What is really depressing here is that the Camden council staff behind such schemese visited the proposed GBBN Whiteladies Road development, the one that will help motorists driving in to town by removing the zebra crossings in our way and making cycling more dangerous. We know this as we infiltrated the event, keeping track of what people were saying, and whether complaints were being dismissed -as expected- or actually listened to, and tried to slip our own ideas in to distract them.

On the topic of that camden council cycle team visit, can we extend our apologies to the woman driving the green nissan micra down WL road who was held up for fifteen seconds by the funny bicycle people. Yes, you were right to beep your horn at us for not being in the bike lane, even though cyclists don't have to cycle in them, they can cycle two abreast legally, and the traffic jam ahead meant you weren't losing any time. Yes, you were right to complain that eight people on bicycles at 08:50 on a weekday were causing utter chaos, which is why the local council had arranged the cyclist visit to during the quiet period mid-morning.  Sadly, some of the cycle troublemakers had spotted the flaw there and pressured for a rush hour visit, which is why you were held up by three people cycling two-abreast down whiteladies road.

Because we were trying to blend in with these subversives we did have to come up and argue with you while you were stopped at the traffic lights, as anything else would have aroused the suspicions of the rest of the group.

Sorry!

We didn't really mean to call you a selfish idiot who would clearly benefit from getting out of their car and trying to do some exercise! It's your right to get fat and stay unfit by driving to work and back, stopping only in the supermarket to buy ready-to-fry fast foods.

We didn't really want to dispute the niceties of the highway code and the fact that nowhere in it does it say "bicycles should be banned from our roads"  -because like you, we think it ought to! It was just something we had to do to blend in!

Today's the day

Last chance heads up.

If we don't get out and complain now about the Greater Bristol Bus Network (GBBN) proposals for Whiteladies Road, we could end up with this:



How, exactly, do we get our White Van from Cribbs Causeway to Baldwin Street if we allow something like this this to happen?

Pedestrians with priority over cars? Just plain wrong.

Intermission

Whilst we all get hot under the collar about the problems that putting Bus Lanes up Whiteladies Road are going to cause, and the onerous parking restrictions that will be put on us as a result, here's something to think about:

Tax dodgers, parked for free, making their own entertainment.



We can't do that, the best we've got in the X5 is sat-nav and Jack fm.

Here at Bristol Traffic, we like leaving the 4x4 outside Somerfield all day, whilst walking into Clifton, pretending to be pedestrians. Unless we complain by 12th November, that'll all be over and they'll give our parking spaces to bicycles and buses, at least in rush hours.

If you want to keep the free, 24 hour, inner city parking in Whiteladies Road you'd better get over here and make some comments. Quick.

Whiteladies Road: a weekday dataset

Our last trip down Whiteladies road shows that on a weekend, yes, pedestrian shoppers did hold up through traffic. This implied that yes, the FirstBus/Showcase bus route plans to reduce pedestrian crossing options may benefit their schedules, but we were worried about the impact on us cars getting out from side roads.

This video is different as it's a visit by our expendable cyclist on a weekday morning, down the bus lane from Oakfield Road, and through the Triangle as far as University Road, where they head off. Commentary first, analysis later.

At 0:24 FH56CVV switches lanes early, but as everyone else in the RH lane who isn't turning right also goes left, they are forced to give way to the vehicles in front of them anyway.

From 0:29 to 0:40, a bike lane that even waltham forest would be proud of. Its worn-out nature hints that it's popular with larger vehicles, while the trees keep it bumpy.

At 04:40 A9VNG is in the ASL, but we suspect that it was in there when the lights change. Why the suspicion? One car in the pedestrian area and one in front in the yellow hatched "only enter when clear to exit" area stopping cross traffic from St Pauls Road and Tyndall's Park Road getting across. Incidentally, Tyndall's Park road (on the left) here is no left turn, St Paul's (on the right, into Clifton) is no right turn, so all congestion coming up from the Triangle is Whiteladies Road traffic. Note also this junction provides no time for pedestrians to cross when the traffic isn't actually allowed to drive -if only all major junctions in the city were like this, congestion would be much improved. The BBC offices are on the left, incidentally.

Following the cyclist who is commuting without helmet, body-armour or hi-viz clothing, we eventually discover what is holding up WL-road traffic, it's the "triangle" gyratory system, which our tax-dodger hits at 1:43. The underlying problem is that Whiteladies Road traffic is forced to give way to traffic coming from the right, which initially means traffic from Clifton. Further on, at 2:17 we get held up by traffic all coming into the city from the A4 or the Hotwells's Bridges and then up Jacob's Wells road.

There are four lanes here, one for parking, one turning right at the next junction, and two straight on, but that leftmost one is lost even to vans ignoring bus-lane signs, not just by the police car at 2:41 but by the taxi-rank at 2:53.

WN59UDP is held up by these taxis forcing them to wait with all the in-town traffic, so as soon as they can they cut left in front of the bicycle, through the pedestrians and up University Road -only to find that the Biffa refuse collection lorry is in the way and ignoring the important traffic being held up. Finally passing that, they can sprint up to Woodland Road, where as you recall the Evening Post was campaigning against two paid parking spaces going away, which we felt was overreacting as nobody parks their except arts students, and their tuition fee increases will eliminate that luxury.

However, today we can see that the paid parking area is also popular for parental dropoff outside Bristol Grammar School -and it actually makes for a nice, low-chaos dropoff area. Admittedly, there isn't enough of this short-stay parking right in front of the school, forcing some parents to stop in the double yellow lined areas, but the alternative would be parking on the other side of this (one-way) street, forcing the children to cross the road. Would you want your children to cross a busy road like this? Exactly. Parking on the double yellow lines outside the school entrance is the only safe place to drop your kids off and be sure they get to school alive.

Now, returning to the Whiteladies Road issue, what does the bus plan proposal change on this stretch? The Oakfield Road crossing will be moved further away from the road, so making it less useful to pedestrians trying to walk from Cotham to Clifton or bag. Plus one point. But, this makes it harder for cars to get out or over from these roads, so minus one point.

Heading in to town, the right hand turn to Clifton will be removed for all but buses. This will turn Oakfield road into the primary rat-run option, but as we've seen, the moving of the zebra crossing makes it trickier. What they aren't doing is extending the bus lane any further south, and they are leaving that toy bike lane in there. We say toy as its so half hearted that no rational cyclist will think they are welcome -what with the faded paint and tree roots, but its very presence implies that some people in the city do welcome cyclists. No, better to remove it and put a cyclists dismount sign up.

Entering the triangle is more informative. Congestion is caused here by traffic joining the road from other places (Clifton, Jacob's Wells Road), and whatever is slowing them down on their final journey. There are no pedestrian-only lights or zebra crossings to play with, so there's little that can be done to make pedestrians feel less welcome, no tricks to make the schedule more accurate.

And that's the key problem. The goals of the showcase route are faster bus journey times and a more predictable schedule. Removing and moving zebra crossings will only help with this out of hours, on weekends and midday, because on a weekday morning the problem is more fundamental: Erlang's Laws. Congestion is a result of the ingress rate of a queue being higher than the egress rate. The reason vehicles can't leave whiteladies road isn't that there are vast numbers of people struggling to turn up Cotham Hill (more on that another day), or any of the side roads, it is because the merging of multiple queues at the triangle creates a bottleneck which having one lane dedicated to bus stops and a taxi rank doesn't do much to help.

And do we care about mid-day firstbus schedules? No -and neither should anyone else. People using the bus at weekend and mid-day weekdays are either people who can't afford a car, people with bus passes, or people who have made some ideological decision to take a bus: passengers FirstBus can take for granted. If they want to make money, they need to get the commuter traffic, and quite frankly, changes to pedestrian crossings aren't going to do it. They may help us car commuters by reducing the number of pedestrians and cyclists, but given our dataset implies that the Whiteladies Road congestion is due to problems in the city centre, those crossing changes aren't going to help buses or our cars on whiteladies road at peak hours, which is when it matters to us as well as FirstBus.

Sorry FirstBus, but whatever datasets you have on congestion problems on Whiteladies Road, they were clearly collected by FirstBus or Council staff during their working hours, rather than during am or pm rush hours. This is the only explanation why your proposals don't just do nothing for us drivers while making pedestrians and cyclists suffer, they don't appear to help buses either.

That's the irony there. This proposal has already got the cycling campaign saying "oppose this it's anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist", it's also anti-car, but we think it manages to be bus-neutral at the same time. That takes skill, that does.

Whiteladies Road : offpeak issues

We sent our expendable cyclist on downhill run of Whiteladies Road on a Saturday afternoon. Note people with the orange bags. That means small-revenue-sainsburys shoppers, either locals or students. The supermarket relies on a high turnover of these poor pedestrian people to compensate for a lack of parking. However, these people then get in way of us who are driving to or from proper supermarkets.

Put differently: the pedestrians who walk and shop locally not only take up space in the supermarkets they go to, they slow down shoppers who shop elsewhere.

What this video does shows is that at off peak weekend times the congestion is caused by people walking around. Therefore, the GBBN proposal to remove the zebra crossing seen at 1:32 (and implicitly, crank back the crossing time allocated on the lights at 1:28, because now there will be a full sequence scheduling right and left turns as well as straight on) may benefit at this time of the week: the off peak times.

But rewind a bit. Note how all the cars pulling out from any side road rely on the goodwill of cars on Whiteladies Road to get out. Because you may as well while you are waiting -you would hope someone else was as generous back- and because it costs you nothing. If the pedestrian crossing options were cranked back, then not only does it make it harder for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the road -which clearly we are happy with- then it will also be harder for cars to cross the road, unless someone added more traffic lights at these side roads. And we don't want that, do we?

This makes us think that part of the FirstBus GBBN schedule is not just to improve scheduling by removing pedestrian/cyclists holding up cars and buses, its secretly trying to stop cars getting across the road too, because we take advantage of the stopped traffic. There's a price see. And, because the parked cars will be removed, it's harder for you to edge out when making a turn. Instead of being safely protected from bicycles by the first row of parked cars, now you either need to hang back in the side road (as if) or pull out in front of the bus/bike lane and have people whine at you for being in their way.

Returning to the video, note at 1:40 the car double parked on Cotham Hill forcing the other cars past it. Sometimes you need to do that, park next to your destination, nothing wrong there. But if the proposal to remove the zebra crossing goes away, vehicles turning into Cotham Hill from Whiteladies Road, especially those coming down the hill, would pull in faster. The zebra crossing is a form of traffic calming. Without it, it would become more dangerous to double park your car in a popular shopping street, or to overtake such double parked cars.

Again, this is why we are in a moral dilemma regarding the Proposed Bus Route. The key benefit for us would be if it reduced the number of pedestrians in our way, but even we recognise that a limited number of pedestrians actually helps cross traffic.

The cult of YA55VDY and the impact of the Whiteladies Showcase Bus Route

Mid life crises. What do do? Sports cars? Mamils? Fixies. No: stalking. It's under-respected, and what the Internet, from Google to Facebook was made for.

We in the B.T. Project have taken up stalking one vehicle, and are pursuing it round the city. YA55VDY: the van that we are proud to have never ever seen parked even vaguely legally.

It's more than just a protest against anti-car, anti-van features, this takes dedication. Here, for example, you could park parallel to the double yellow lines, unload safely and pull out without having to back up blind into Picton Street first. But no, the driver has chosen to park 1m away from the kerb, echelon style, to make a statement. Deliveries matter.

We also have some footage from one of our secretly-instrumented cyclists going down Cotham Hill -you can see the distinctive shape of the van enables our tax-dodger to recognise the vehicle from a distance. This van is now famous!

Now, what's inside the van? We couldn't be bothered to drive over and look, but one of the cycle activists we were haranging here in Monty did -Captain Bikebeard says "yoghurt". Now we know.

In fact, this van is now so famous it deserves its own Facebook fan page. One van, one driver, prepared to stand up against an oppressive state by refusing to park where they make him, instead always -even if it means going out of his way- parking "illegally", as if the state gets to decide where is and isn't legal to park your van.

A few days later, we see it now on the double yellows on Whiteladies Road. 

The showcase bus route proposes changes here, so where the van is parked to unload will become a dedicated left turn into Cotham Hill, with its own light sequence. The Cotham Hill zebra crossing will go away, be replaced by some lights which will allow us to drive through while pedestrians wait to cross (as if we didn't do that already), while the addition of a new lane and pedestrian refuge will make walking across the road harder -and well-nigh impossible for any parent with bike plus child trailer or tagalong, which our secretly instrumented report appears to be doing.

This is why we have mixed feelings about the showcase bus route proposal.

Against:

• Removes commuter parking from Whiteladies Road.
• Encourages bicyclists to cycle up and down the road

Pro

• Increases short stay parking on Whiteladies Road.
• Removes a zebra crossing used during the rush hour by slow-moving children and students.
• Adds a dedicated feed-in lane to Cotham Hill.
• The feed in lane will suddenly abandon the cyclists from the safety of a dedicated lane to a situation where they have to merge right into the Whiteladies Road lane just at the same time that all the Redland Mum traffic turning left is trying to swerve left to get into this lane, so putting off the cyclists from every trying to commute by bicycle ever again.

One of our concerns here is that, in the age of austerity, we don't see why any money needs to be spent so that cars can cut in from Whiteladies Road to Cotham Hill. We force our way through the zebra crossing anyway, so all it does is actually increase the likelihood that we get held up by a red light; removes the option of turning right from Cotham Hill to Whiteladies Road, and makes it harder to get a lorry through the corner.