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Better Cycle infrastructure in Bristol (CC licenced by tejvanphotos:Flickr)Update: Bristol to remove parking bays that replaced National Cycle Network bike lane
Bristol City Council has replaced a bike lane that’s part of the National Cycle Network with five car parking spaces that are expected to earn the council £20,000 per year in charges. And then changed its mind - see the update at the foot of this story.
Blogger ‘wheelsonthebike’ reports that at a recent meeting of the Bristol Cycle Forum, Terry Bullock, Bristol City Council’s traffic manager said that a section of lane on Colston Street had been replaced with the five parking spaces in August.
Mr Bullock was speaking as part of a discussion of Bristol Cycling Campaigns ‘Stop Pinching Bikes’ campaign which is attempting to get the council to implement proper quality assurance on road schemes so they do not create pinch points that endanger cyclists.
The new parking spaces on Colston Street are opposite a bus stop and the combination of parked cars and a stopped bus creates a pinch point that forces cyclists riding uphill out into the traffic.
Mr Bullock said that mistakes had been made before the quality assurance process had been fully implemented but said that things were improving.
Wheelsonthebike claims that the council’s actions are not matching its words.
Responding to Bristol Cycling Campaign's concern about pinch points in the city, Alistair Cox, Bristol’s city transport service manager wrote to Martin McDonnell of the campaign in July to say:
“It is of course not council policy to narrow a road to the extent that it disadvantages cycling, neither to expect cycling to share roads with heavy and fast traffic nor to build facilities that are obstructed by parked vehicles. It is completely understood that such conditions are a serious barrier to cycling by all except the few swift and brave enough to ‘take the lane’. These features can never form part of a comprehensive network suitable for all 8-80 years and it is our intention to build such a network.”
Update: Bristol backtracks
In response to a reader drawing this story to his attention, Bristol deputy mayor Mark Bradshaw this afternoon tweeted "we got this wrong re Colston St & I've asked for the pay & display bays to be removed."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- ktache 3 hours 28 min ago
The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
- mctrials23 4 hours 24 min ago
As i've said before, the police should be sued for a lot of money when someone they have knowingly ignored has gone on to commit a serious crime....
- David9694 4 hours 31 min ago
'Bad parking' blocks firefighters multiple times on same emergency call-out...
- David9694 4 hours 35 min ago
Cambridgeshire boy, 13, crashes Audi into garden wall after taking it from home...
- Adam Sutton 5 hours 21 min ago
Good stuff. Now do it on cycleway C9 through Hammersmith to Chiswick.
- mark1a 5 hours 30 min ago
It's technically allowed but it's not known as "London's Orbital Car Park" for nothing.
- Dogless 6 hours 38 min ago
You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
- mattw 9 hours 18 min ago
Used car salesman is a complete attention-seeking plank....
- tubasti 9 hours 35 min ago
I don't know if they're any better, but they's certainly become more boring.
- FionaJJ 10 hours 1 min ago
At risk of being cynical, and stereotyping the police, it's so they don't have to leave the comfort of their panda cars and pursue on foot when...
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19 comments
Regardless of your view on Sustrans, what does it say about this country that for years the need for and, often, implementation of a cycle network has been lead by a charity? Not the government who you'd think would have an interest in reducing congestion, environmental impact and a growing health problem for the NHS to deal with.
Every Sustrans person I've ever dealt with actually rides a bike. For all purposes, in all conditions. Unlike the local authority engineers who design highway schemes, local councillors who make the decisions and the embarrassing embodiment of modern life that is MP Eric Pickles.
At least Bristol have the ability to compare existing cycle facilities with parking. Most of us don't yet have that luxury.
Well done all those in Bristol for putting this right and, yes, that includes any councillor for admitting they were wrong as that is a rare quality in politics.
Presumably the NCN Route 4 continued and it's just the cycle lane that has been erased. NCN Routes go through all sorts of madness, as I'm sure Warrington Cycle Campaign has highlighted in their long-running Facility of the Month series. This (temporary?) loss just below Sustrans's HQ is particularly bad, though.
I was under the impression that NCN routes had some legal status and could not just be deleted willy nilly. Rather they must be rerouted. Has this happened in this case?
Check out @mark_bradshaw's Tweet: https://twitter.com/mark_bradshaw/status/387564639707348992
Actually I don't think it will cause too many problems on this part of Colston Street. The road is wide enough there and I have never needed to ride up it on the far left. As a cyclist you normally get a clear run up the middle of it with no cars ahead of or behind you.
It's really more of a political issue than a practical one. Replacing cycle infrastructure with car parking sends a certain message about the political priorities of the local authority. In reality, most people reading this will be confident road cyclists (ie confident on the roads, not necesarily roadies) and riding on the road, taking the lane etc. is not much of a problem and these changes won't affect them much.
It's all about perception and this sort of cycle infrastructure serves to make many people feel safer. I always say it but think about the school run mum with the bike trailer and 5 year old riding along side and consider if the infrastructure is suitable for them.
The addition of parking spaces means that one now has to move out into the flow of traffic to get around the cars leaving car-door space as you go. Not always an easy manoeuvre especially on what is not a quiet road (at least it isn't when I've used it) and local authorities should be aiming to make life easier for cyclists not harder.
I'm with you on this. I don't see what the fuss is about. Colston Street has never been a problem to cycle up or down regardless of these spaces.
Whiteladies Road on the other hand is a right mess now.
Does anybody take Sustrans seriously anymore?
Can anybody take Sustrans seriously anymore?
I never have, the NCN around Surrey is a joke.
My gast was well and truly flabbered when the man from the Council admitted this. His defence of the decision was dogged - apparently the income from the spaces is very useful and it could even be used to improve cycling elsewhere in the city
.
The lane was on a really popular route for cyclists and is in fact part of Sustrans route 4.
Easy, just cycle in the road and cause congestion. The more cyclist, the slower the traffic gets...better all round as driving folk will realise and get on their rusty Halford Apollo's and do the same.
Bristol Cycling Campaign is probably up there with Cambridge and Oxford for promoting cycling as transport. Sustrans started there, even if some of their recent officer outbursts seem more Suspicious of Transport cycling (=safely but at a reasonable speed) than Sustainable Transport! There's a bike-friendly mayor. Now if only the Councils that Used to Be Avon (CUBA) could get kicked into line and stop doing stupid contradictory things like this!
All too often cycling is seen as sport or leisure, but not as serious Transport, this is the fundamental problem. Cars are seen as transport, even though they are the most inefficient form of urban transport ever invented. Until we start to seriously promote the bicycle as transport, which can be used by everyone, this sort of thing will continue...
Very disapointing reading.
Facepalm
well now there's a surprise .... cycle lane or parking cash ...