[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

slc wrote:

Fair enough. She doesn’t strike me as someone easy to please. I wondered if the article was just a bit poorly edited (elsewhere it has MT talking about traffic *arming* ) and it was the long reverse rather than driving per se that was painful.

That makes more sense as I imagine reversing would be tricky if you have reduced mobility. Byron St doesn’t look that narrow in my opinion though – it’s certainly got more space than my road and we get vans and large vehicles navigating through.

[hawkinspeter]

brooksby wrote:

brooksby wrote:

In order to access Victoria Avenue in her van, Melissa now drives around to Church Road, passes through Cobden Street and then reverses into her parking space. Melissa says this longer route means she has to endure extra pain due to her disabilities.

But she can drive long distances to go on holiday in this thing just fine? Alrighty then 

I’m starting to have less sympathy for her

[hawkinspeter]

brooksby wrote:

But IIRC her van is the size of a Sprinter or a small bus, so completely inappropriate for an urban environment anyway. She’s just been lucky so far.  Not too much sympathy, I’m afraid (although she seems to have become the poster child for “liveable neighbourhoods negatively impact upon the disabled “).

I think she should continue having access for her van though. Is the problem actually the size of the roads or is it the pavement parkers? Without having looked at the details, I would have thought that it shouldn’t be too difficult to amend the scheme so that blue card holders can gain access to Victoria Ave.

[hawkinspeter]

Disabled woman left in tears

Disabled woman left in tears over Liveable Neighbourhood as residents demand apology:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/disabled-woman-left-tears-over-10045126

Melanie Topping’s disability accessible camper van was in for repairs when Bristol City Council’s contractors created a ‘modal filter’ near her home in Redfield, so Thursday lunchtime was the first time she had attempted to reach her home and the designated parking spot outside it in the vehicle.

There has long been a one-way and no entry system near her home at the end of Victoria Avenue, and previously she has been able to drive her large, specially-adapted camper van down other streets further to the east to get onto Victoria Avenue.

But the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood scheme has now closed off those routes to her and the one access road connecting Church Road to Victoria Avenue is too narrow for her large vehicle to fit.

She attempted it and failed on Thursday, so had to reverse through the no-entry sign to reach her home. The experience left her shaken and angry. When asked how she was feeling after finally pulling up, she said: “I don’t have any other words for it, unfortunately, other than rude ones, I’m afraid.

“I shouldn’t have to do this to get to my home, this isn’t right – not when we’ve been pointing this out since July 2023. I shouldn’t be left in this situation at all.”

[hawkinspeter]

I hadn’t read Rob Bryher’s

I hadn’t read Rob Bryher’s response:

Green councillor Rob Bryher said: “Water and traffic are not the same thing. Traffic doesn’t work like water. Roads aren’t pipes.

“If you block a pipe, obviously the water will go a different way because of physics. If you block traffic, that isn’t the way that it works because it engages people’s travel behaviour. It’s a fundamental transport planning principle.

“There’s been lots of literature that shows if you restrict through-traffic, then traffic just evaporates. It’s part of transport planning that everyone understands if you’ve done a little bit of research into it.

“People behave differently if you change the priorities of a street. It’s just as simple as that. You have to get your head around that a bit more.”

[hawkinspeter]

Also on BBC: https://www.bbc

Also on BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2jg18j122o

[hawkinspeter]

Park Street improvement plans

Park Street improvement plans approved despite some traders’ fears: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/park-street-improvement-plans-approved/

Conservative councillors on the transport policy committee warned the traffic could instead be displaced onto Park Row and past the BRI.

Mark Weston, leader of Bristol’s Conservative group, said: “Traffic flows like water. Once you start stopping it up, it then moves into random directions.

“We’re creating a problem. We’re not solving it, we’re just moving it.

“We need to have a resilient road network where traffic can flow, not constantly keep limiting the roads that are available to use.”

So, if traffic flows like water, we need to be building aqueducts. Also, how can traffic flow uphill up Park Street?

[hawkinspeter]

Bmblbzzz wrote:

Good for the Scousers. But meanwhile back in Bristle… 

Yul Brynner was a lifelong liverpool fan who didn’t wear aftershave

<singing>

Yul never wore cologne

</singing>

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

Bristol’s low traffic bullies have gone too far (according to a spectator article)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bristols-low-traffic-bullies-have-gone-too-far/

Though not so far as Bristol’s high traffic bullies (screenshot)

I don’t remember this happening:

Almost two years ago, following a packed public meeting in which people voiced their concerns about longer journey times and the effect on local businesses, the council suspended its plans for the LTN. Subsequently, it ran a second consultation on the scheme which yielded 760 objections and 427 responses in support.

This bit strikes me as odd as surely those are all valid reasons to implement the Liverpool Neighbourhood:

Hearing councillors and officials talk, I also noticed how the reason for the scheme changed: sometimes it was to do with tackling ‘congestion’ and ‘pollution’; at other times, it was presented as a fix for ‘climate change’ and achieving ‘net zero’.

Sorry, but that opinion piece is a bunch of horse-shit.

 

[hawkinspeter]

Campaigners condemn Liveable

Campaigners condemn Liveable Neighbourhood vandalism:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/campaigners-condemn-liveable-neighbourhood-vandalism-10033178

After being one of a handful of women who came out at around 4.30am to protest against the installation, Fadumo Farah said she opposed anyone who damaged the planters now.

Fadumo, who is the tenants rep at Barton House for community union Acorn, said: “This is not the right way. We must stand together and take legal, peaceful action. Those responsible don’t represent Barton Hill – we respect the law and will fight the right way.”

 

[hawkinspeter]

David9694 wrote:

Weirdly interesting YouTube and didn’t know cars were using Lidar – except Tesla, of course, plain old camera there. 

It seemed a lot of trouble to go to to sneak a Lidar unit into Disneyworld just to map an enclosed roller-coaster and wouldn’t wearing a face mask just draw attention to you at the security desk? 

I think it’s just a handful of cars that use Lidar currently, but it’ll likely become the norm for autonomous vehicles as it has distinct advantages. What I like about Lidar is that it’ll detect pretty much any kind of object/person in more or less any conditions (e.g. heavy fog), so even if the software is a bit rubbish, it can at least figure out “there’s something directly in my path, better hit the brakes”.

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

slc wrote:

Haven’t you heard of the war on motorists? We are to be grateful they don’t righteously drive through our living rooms.

I think you need the “cars in buildings” thread for that

[hawkinspeter]

slc wrote:

Are you a bit further down? The difference is very noticeable from roughly beaconsfield rd to salisbury street, where there were three stages:

1. Until about 2 years ago, no pavement parking.

2. Then some pioneers decided to try it out and there would be a few car each day (excacerbating the rat-run quarrels).  Check it out on Streetview 🙂 https://maps.app.goo.gl/sNpRmGHerjxnGLnp8

3. The day after the bollards went in there was apparently an agreement that pavement parking was now OK and the whole pavement in that section is now blocked. In my opinion this was a major factor in last week’s collision (I witnessed and stopped to assist) – the photo in the article you linked shows not congestion but pavement parking (and the ambulance could not make the tunr because of a pavement parked van, right opposite the junction).

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/council-showing-utter-disregard-people-10004484

Yep, I’m further down and we’ve had pavement parking for years.

[hawkinspeter]

I haven’t noticed much

slc wrote:

The most visible outcome of modal filters in the road near hp and me is (drumroll) more antisocial parking.

I haven’t noticed much difference there to be honest. The most notable change has been how much quieter our road and Beaufort Rd are.

[hawkinspeter]

brooksby wrote:

What I’ve found so funny (funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar) about the Bristol Post coverage is how many of their BTL commenters think that Labour still runs the council…

And how many of the rest seem to be surprised that a Green Party leadership who won by a landslide took that as a mandate to push ahead with ostensibly Green policies.

Yeah, but the EBLN was conceived during Labour’s watch

[Author]

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