Bristol (Old Market Street) crazy new road scheme
Docsavage
Posts: 58
OK this is quite specific to Bristol, but I work in Old Market where the council have just spent a cool £5 Million (advertised figure) building a new bus 'island' in the middle of the street.
(designed to speed up the access of FirstBus vehicles)
The buses now have to move across traffic and park up in the centre of the road whilst traffic is funnelled into two incredibly tight lanes around the outside to the kerbs.
There is NO provision for bikes, none, zilch. and the narrowness means that cyclists are in very real danger.
I have written to the council (during planning procedures and after)and had a stock 'yeah, whatever' response and just today had a long conversation with a postie who said the Royal Mail depot up the road had also written in as every day, 50 or so posties have to cycle up and down this route into town and they feel it to be incredibly dangerous too. (the council sent them a 'yeah whatever' too!)
The lane has yet to be opened properly as the council worker I spoke to recently admitted they had to put down 'anti skid paint' to try to avoid the inevitable collisions they anticipate (this is entirely true - you couldn't make it up)
Frankly the only option is to ride on the pavement - an option which as the postie agreed, leaves you demonised as a cyclist.
The point to this post is this - how can Bristol City Council be allowed to create something so fundamentally dangerous to cyclists as this road scheme without opposition.
Why can't SUSTRANS or CTC highlight such stupid ill conceived planning mistakes and exert some real pressure. I don't want to be campaigning when cyclists or pedestrians are knocked down.
At what point can a council be held legally responsible for bad planning if objections pointing out potentially fatal defects in design are found to be made real.
(designed to speed up the access of FirstBus vehicles)
The buses now have to move across traffic and park up in the centre of the road whilst traffic is funnelled into two incredibly tight lanes around the outside to the kerbs.
There is NO provision for bikes, none, zilch. and the narrowness means that cyclists are in very real danger.
I have written to the council (during planning procedures and after)and had a stock 'yeah, whatever' response and just today had a long conversation with a postie who said the Royal Mail depot up the road had also written in as every day, 50 or so posties have to cycle up and down this route into town and they feel it to be incredibly dangerous too. (the council sent them a 'yeah whatever' too!)
The lane has yet to be opened properly as the council worker I spoke to recently admitted they had to put down 'anti skid paint' to try to avoid the inevitable collisions they anticipate (this is entirely true - you couldn't make it up)
Frankly the only option is to ride on the pavement - an option which as the postie agreed, leaves you demonised as a cyclist.
The point to this post is this - how can Bristol City Council be allowed to create something so fundamentally dangerous to cyclists as this road scheme without opposition.
Why can't SUSTRANS or CTC highlight such stupid ill conceived planning mistakes and exert some real pressure. I don't want to be campaigning when cyclists or pedestrians are knocked down.
At what point can a council be held legally responsible for bad planning if objections pointing out potentially fatal defects in design are found to be made real.
better downhill
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Comments
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Do the Evening Post know about this? It might be worth contacting them about it and see what they can do in the paper.0
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Makes you sick!!!0
