[hawkinspeter]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/through-traffic-banned-parts-bristol-8295492

This should be introduced towards the end of this year as an experimental trial – I wish it could happen sooner as it covers where I live. We had questionnaires about it during lockdown, though I think that was just about making Beaufort Rd (by the cemetery) one way to motorised traffic.

Topic

[hawkinspeter]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/fury-bristol-residents-complain-gridlock-9794171

There is anger among residents of a Bristol suburb who claim that they are suffering ‘gridlock’ as a result of a multi-million-pound ‘liveable neighbourhood trial’. Campaigners are arguing the trial has caused emergency vehicles to get stuck, caused accessibility issues for disabled residents and harmed local businesses in East Bristol.

Residents claim that the trial has brought traffic to a standstill at busy times, created unsafe roads and increased pollution. Councillors have debated the project but there are so far no plans to scrap it.

Over 5000 people have signed a petition urging Bristol City Council to halt the ‘liveable neighbourhood’ trial that represents an investment of some £6m. It is taking place in the St George, Redfield and Barton Hill areas of the city.

It aims to promote active travel and has involved some road closures. Known as a Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) project, it involves adding bus lanes, cycle gates and other means of promoting sustainable travel.

However, some protesters claim the trial has caused issues for emergency vehicles. Resident Ben Staples, 32, said: “There’s multiple incidents where police, fire and ambulances are all just stuck in traffic because all of the traffic has been forced onto roads that can’t cope with that level of traffic which means people can’t pass. They physically cannot move out of the way for these vehicles.”

It’s news to me that emergency vehicles are getting stuck in traffic.

If that’s a real problem (I have my doubts), then one solution would be to change some of the big planters into bus/emergency vehicle gates.

Of course, what we actually need is for people to make fewer journeys by car and that’s the point of the EBLN trial – to see how we can shape people’s behaviour by making it slightly more awkward to travel by car.

[slc]

chrisonabike wrote:

a) there generally is some “elasticity” in the system – not every journey has to be made, or not by car, or not at the peak times.  b) Because cars are so space-inefficient at moving people it doesn’t necessarily take a large number of journeys being made or not to make a noticable change to the system.  c) Public transport is presumably largely “bus” there?  In which case … that’s going be degraded if there is a lot of traffic also (and see Downs-Thompson Paradox etc).  The flip side is if traffic can be reduced the buses might run on time.

All arguments I am hopeful to see validated, especially (a) and (b) combined.

Re (c): there are some local trains, some of which are useful, but most of Bristol is indeed just buses. The main bus services through the east do indeed spend a lot of time stuck in car traffic on the boundary road that the rat-runners were so keen to avoid. I don’t think this scheme is likely to reduce that traffic, but might in the long run make it no worse. 

 

[chrisonabike]

Echoing Bungle_52 – a good

Echoing Bungle_52 – a good thread here.  RE: traffic evaporation:

Ultimately the numbers are the numbers… but what is clear is that “pro-active traffic evaporation” doesn’t tend to occur.  It takes people “feeling the pain” (or hearing about it) to change behaviour.  And it will also take some time for the system to rebalance.

So I think it does have to get worse before it gets better.  Which is a problem!  After the controversy in getting a change to happen people are primed to react immediately with “We told you so!  This has made everything dreadful!  It’s a failure – stop this trial right now!”

The other points of note here are that a) there generally is some “elasticity” in the system – not every journey has to be made, or not by car, or not at the peak times.  b) Because cars are so space-inefficient at moving people it doesn’t necessarily take a large number of journeys being made or not to make a noticable change to the system.  c) Public transport is presumably largely “bus” there?  In which case … that’s going be degraded if there is a lot of traffic also (and see Downs-Thompson Paradox etc).  The flip side is if traffic can be reduced the buses might run on time.

As to whether that makes a difference to the arguments – that is itself a question.  The most common objection to the idea is that “Well people still have to drive – that traffic just goes somewhere else!” That is probably temporarily true at least, but again see “elasticity of demand”.  And if the issue is “now drivers are cutting through my residential street” I would suggest that’s an argument for creating another LTN…

[slc]

It is a very odd corner of

It is a very odd corner of the internet…

For my part, I have friends and indeed a (non-driving) partner who dislike the scheme, or at least its immediate results.  The objections (type and numbers) look very similar to the picture in Exeter, which resulted in the scheme ending

https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/documents/s48782/Active%20Streets%20Heavitree%20and%20Whipton%20Trial%20Scheme%20Update.pdf

One argument put forward by objectors that I find difficult to argue is around ‘traffic evaporation’, which is observed in London LTNs. Clearly this is not magic: drivers must be changing their behaviour. Objectors note that may not be relevant here because Bristol’s public transport is not in the same league as London’s – and in my experience is also much worse than in similar-sized cities e.g Newcastle, Sheffield. So we will see.

[Bungle_52]

Can I just say how refreshing

Can I just say how refreshing it is to read a reasoned and balanced discussion from people who have local knowledge.

I don’t cycle in Bristol but it’s good to hear that somewhere in Britain is starting to take active travel seriously. Unlikely they’ll get it right first time but it certainly sounds like they (you) are heading in the right direction.

[hawkinspeter]

I forgot to mention that I

I forgot to mention that I was surprised at mentions of people (presumably pro-EBLN) commenting that the anti-EBLN people should move to the countryside as that’s where cars are welcomed! I thought I held fairly strong views against the all-conquering motor car, but now I think I’m just a moderate as I can’t subscribe to that.

It’s a tricky problem with the scheme causing problems for disabled people – ideally they would benefit greatly from reduced traffic through their roads. Maybe a road or two could be converted from using planters to some kind of blue-badge gate?

[slc]

Agreed, I think it was a

Agreed, I think it was a reasonable response by councillors. At least part of the objection to the scheme seems to be cherry-picking. For example, there have always been long queues on the Chalks Road side of the Church/Chalk/Blackswarth junction, yet that was apparently not a big issue. 

Many of the problems could be addressed without ditching the scheme. Crews Hole Road does seem worse (from terrible to dreadful?): this could be perhaps be improved by a modal filter west of Troopers Hill Road.

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

The council debate is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbSPFs4-XI&t=2s. Starting at 42.00 ish. 

Thanks.

I made the effort to listen to that section and there were some valid points raised such as the problems with Crews Hole Rd and the Blackswarth/Church Rd junction that both pre-date the EBLN scheme. Also, the acknowledgement that our (privatised) public transport options are shit.

I think the important point is that this kind of change is going to have negative and positive effects, so we really should let it run for the months trial to see what actually happens. I’m not convinced by the argument that the local shops will be killed by this due to less foot-fall, but time will tell.

I agree that they should update the various EBLN scheme literature to reflect the issues that some people are facing and provide the proposed date for the trial to be evaluated (i.e. 6 months time) along with the criteria for failure/success. I don’t agree that the trial needs to be halted immediately which was the main point of the petition.

[slc]

The council debate is at

The council debate is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbSPFs4-XI&t=2s. Starting at 42.00 ish. 

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

4000 strong petition leads to council debate

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j1gzxwqp5o

Tweaks ahead apparently. 10p on just leaving it as it is, with Avonvale Rd still open to all traffic.

The change.org petition is at > 5000, maybe the 4000 have BS postcodes.

You could well be right. Personally, I think Avonvale Rd is just a disaster for having two way traffic. So many drivers think the traffic calming chicanes are basically a game of chicken and then there’s all the side roads with poor visibility for vehicles joining Avonvale from them.

[slc]

4000 strong petition leads to

4000 strong petition leads to council debate

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j1gzxwqp5o

Tweaks ahead apparently. 10p on just leaving it as it is, with Avonvale Rd still open to all traffic.

The change.org petition is at > 5000, maybe the 4000 have BS postcodes.

 

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

slc wrote:

Agreed, largely. I have a bit (not too much) of sympathy for the ‘not consulted’ claim. I replied to the original consultation as did many others and the top items were improved crossings and junctions. These were ruled out as impossible for a trial – too expensive – but they are needed. Working on those and a smaller LTN might have been less contentious and increased the chances of acceptance across Bristol. Or maybe drivers would moan about even the loss of the odd parking space.

I definitely agree that we could do with better crossings and junctions.

Obviously I’m very firmly on the pedestrian/cyclist side as I don’t drive, but I do think that drivers will complain about any changes as they’ve currently allocated the maximum possible amount of space, so changes are bound to have a negative impact on them. Ultimately, we have to make driving more difficult as there’s far too many cars/drivers on our roads and it’s ruining people’s health.

[slc]

Agreed, largely.
Agreed, largely.

I have a bit (not too much) of sympathy for the ‘not consulted’ claim. I replied to the original consultation as did many others and the top items were improved crossings and junctions. These were ruled out as impossible for a trial – too expensive – but they are needed. Working on those and a smaller LTN might have been less contentious and increased the chances of acceptance across Bristol.

Or maybe drivers would moan about even the loss of the odd parking space.

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

[quote=slc]How about this one in the cable? I have not really paid attention to the cable before (not enough cycling clatch, I guess) but it seems to include both balance and some information. https://thebristolcable.org/2024/11/traffic-jams-on-roads-around-east-bristol-liveable-neighbourhood-spark-opposition-as-council-calls-for-patience/?pk_campaign=feed&pk_kwd=traffic-jams-on-roads-around-east-bristol-liveable-neighbourhood-spark-opposition-as-council-calls-for-patience%5B/quote%5D

That’s a better article, though it is quite long.

I was thinking about the LTN opposition and maybe we should come to some kind of compromise. We’ve had the traffic and rat-running for multiple decades now, so how about we just give the LTNs 5-10 years to see how they fare?

I do think the long traffic queues along Blackswarth Road are not what we want when there’s a school along there, but the LTN opponents don’t seem to realise that it’s all the drivers that are causing it – not the LTNs. I do think it’ll take a few weeks for behaviours to change and the traffic to reduce a bit, but I certainly notice the poor air quality along Church Road.

I don’t have any sympathy for the people complaining about there not being enough discussion of the LTNs – the scheme was delayed for years whilst talks and responses were gathered. New roads don’t seem to have any consultations and they usually bring bad air and a much increased chance of injury or death. LTNs have an obviously positive effect on the small roads in the areas and people are foaming at the mouth because their journey takes a bit longer? So the choice is between widespread lung disease or they get from A to B a bit quicker?

(In an article on there about trans-majority drag spaces, there’s an excellent name for a performer: Bellend Lugosi.)

[slc]

How about this one in the
How about this one in the cable? I have not really paid attention to the cable before (not enough cycling clatch, I guess) but it seems to include both balance and some information.

Traffic jams around East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood fuel anger, as council calls for patience

[Author]

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