Tesco's plans to Walthamize the cycling city in the back.

We are impressed. Every day that one of the team members has been down to Cheltenham Road this week, there's been a vehicle or two outside Tesco. What was once one of the showcase "cycle city" and "Greater Bristol Bus Network" routes has been returned to the tax paying driver -and as vans and lorries pay more road tax, they deserve to use it first.

"Slug" sends a couple of Pics from 09:15 on Friday 17 June showing a security van outside tesco,

And right outside the credit union, another lorry, MX07GJV

As slug says " It can be very dangerous for a cyclist to cycle in the cycle lane because it is to the left of traffic turning left. So the lorry driver out of concern for the potential danger that inexperienced cyclists are putting themselves in, decided to park on the double yellow lines ... ignoring the no unloading sign.

Behind the vehicle you can see all the way to the security van that is also parked on the cycle lane -and in between the lane is completely empty! Mission accomplished! no cyclists Left Hooked at Ashley junction this morning.

Interestingly, we have a different video of the same stretch of road from someone else taken about ten minutes later. This video is interesting because it is from the perspective of one of the tax-dodgers, someone who is trying to get across the city "after 9am because the roads are quieter." See that? These people have deliberately chosen to commute outside "the rush hour" because they prefer it. But that reduction in road traffic creates an illusion of safety -and encourages more of such behaviour.

At 0:03 there's another cyclist on Freemantle Road -heading towards the university or Clifton, then our underemployed camera-enabled tax-avoider descends Nugent Hill, an option forbidden to cars, especially since they put that island in at the bottom to stop right turns, a feature few motorists have managed to deal with. Our troublemaker negotiates that island by abusing the contraflow bike lane on Arley Hill, then flips into the left lane to undertake the stationary traffic to wait for a green light.

While waiting we see important people in cars and taxis, some public transport users, and unimportant pedestrians, and another cyclist at 1:58 crossing over to the contraflow. Because The A38 here, it could unify or divide the city. The council wanted to make it a showcase for the cycle city program, encouraging people from Bishopston (out of town; to the left) to head into the city centre, down this very road!

That is something we need to stop, which is why we are grateful for Tesco and its support. Because as well as unifying the cyclists, it could divide them. It and Muller road are the two roads that anyone cycling around north Bristol has to encounter, and if we can only roll back any pro-cycling "enhancements" there, then we can discourage anyone not just from cycling on these main roads, but even get across them.

That is why it is so essential to fight them on the streets, and why the Tesco delivery process is helping transform this road, and hence the whole of north Bristol.

At 2:14 you can see the bicycle head in to town. Although they think they have a lane to themselves, at 2:22 you can see their mistake -the security van has moved on since 09:15, but another delivery van has taken its place. Then at 2:34, a car half on the pavement, half on the bike lane. That bike lane is considered unsafe anyway, which is why they and the next lorry are blocking it. What's changed since the photos earlier is that the lorry seems to be deciding to pull out now; it's flipped its indicators on. The tax dodger goes past, and at 2:47 you can see another paveparked van; a 2:49 a similar car. All it takes is one or two vehicles doing this, all the time, every day, and people will be discouraged not just from commuting along this road by bicycle, but across it.

At 3:04 our troublemaker does a U-turn and heads out of town, showing that the bike lane there is in its usual state: short stay parking for shop customers and staff. This bike lane has been reclaimed!

At 3:36, they are now waiting to turn right towards montpelier, where you can see that the row of vehicles blocking the left lane do actually turn it into a bikes-only lane, albeit because nobody actually wants to turn left. Anyone turning left will have to swing over from the right hand lane, which might be a surprise to anyone cycling down it, of which we can see a couple at 3:50.

Then, finally, at 3:54, our errant tax dodger turns right, and then left into Montpelier, where they can feel slightly safer.

You see that? How the quiet bits of the city, Cotham and Montpelier, can be made cycling unfriendly not by adding any anti-cycling infrastructure, but by making it unpleasant to cross the roads between them. We don't need to ask the council for special anti-bicycle features, the way they do in Waltham Forest, all we need to do is park our delivery vans where we want on the roads the cyclist have to cross. It only takes a couple of HGVs to set an example, and once it's begun, every else will copy. What was a bike lane has become a parking area, not just to achieve the tactical goal: park outside our destination, but to achieve a strategic one: to knife the cycling city dream in the back.

Whose streets? Ours! For parking in whenever we want!

Tesco Walthamises Cheltenham Road

As we stated many months ago, a new Tesco mini-mart would finally give us a reason to park along Cheltenham Road.

What we hadn't expected was how rapidly it would transit from a boring, functional bus lane and bike lane into a short stay shopping street. Tesco have brought the high street back again!

Notice here, on Thursday June 17, 10:18 am how the delivery staff have placed some warning signs out. At first we thought they were to warn cyclists not to go straight into the back of the lorry, and were a bit worried that Tesco may be starting to care.

A closer look reveals the real isse. Because the lorry has a loader that drops to ground level, they don't want any shopper to park their car on the double yellow lines too close to the back of the lorry. They are concerned about the customers, not the passing underpeople.

Here's a video of the same scene

Notice how you can just make out the bike lane underneath the lorry as it raises the floor.

Many of the troublemakers have complained that Tesco moved in to the area to profit from a road going upmarket. Untrue. Tesco moved in there because it wasn't upmarket enough, because people walked and cycled round, even though it was a main road with plenty of room for lorries and parking.

Tesco moved in to the area to save Stokes Croft from itself!

YA55VDY does the 'croft

This is lovely, a coming together of our favourite subjects

The Medina Dairies delivery van, YA55VDY, parked over the stokes croft "cycle lane", just up from the post office van and another white van. Keeping the croft free of tax-dodgers, and bringing Yoghurt-related produce to paying customers

Equal penalties, see

One amusing consequence of the RPZ is that as the fine for parking without a resident permit in the "permitted parking" area is the as for parking on double yellow lines, if you aren't resident, you may as well park where it is most convenient to you.

Nice, though S826TAW could have pulled forward a bit more. We would have.

Monty regains its van friendly reputation

What with the 20 mph zone and all, some people may think that Monty no longer welcomes vans.

Not so!

First, we are pleased to show the first ever double parking event recorded in Montpelier.

We didn't know it was technically possible, but with the BMW in the yellow line area and the van FH02EKZ up on the pavement, we have reclaimed Picton Street!

Round the corner, Picton Square.

Can you see that? A missing bollard. Finally it can be used again for short stay parking, instead of a wasteland for pedestrians. Today HY08UOK is celebrating this shared space.

Meanwhile, over in Montpelier St Werbughs, the council van RF58NRZ is showing others how to park on a corner with double yellow lines. The chosen parking option allows for excellent visibility and does not hinder the progress of other large vehicles.

Bad timing

The van BK58CNV chose a bad day to park on the double yellow lines on the ASL on Bath Buildings, hence the ticket on the windscreen.

The road was closed while a 30T load got delivered by HGV, and PCSOs were manning the junctions to make sure nobody tried to turn into the road. With the police by the van for a number of hours, eventually one of them was bound to notice it and ticket it.

Unlucky!

Porsches and supermarkets

Number 2 in an occasional series of pictures of Porsches with personalised numberplates parking outside supermarkets. Once again, there is nobody else parked in the vicinity, and we can only assume that this is out of respect for the Porsche's paintwork.


Our previous example was outside Waitrose (naturally) on the Triangle, but here we see T5OOC has parked outside TESCO in Clifton village - they obviously didn't realise that Waitrose is only 2 minutes drive away. It's good to see them following the advice given in the Porsche owner's handbook of not parking too close to the kerb to avoid scuffing the tyres.

Adien visit Abbeywood

After last week's shocking photographs of militant cyclists trying to reclaim their cycle paths, it was reassuring to see some of the city's van drivers striking back

Who is up on the bike paths of Abbeywood Today, making it clear what the North Fringe cycle paths are for? The white van FY04UYB

On the back, Adien, whose web site states their sustainability goals:

• We will ensure that procedures and attitudes are in place to deliver an incident free working environment for our employees and those who come into contact with our operations.
• We will endeavour to minimise the impact we have on the environment by use of sustainable material and processes.

Well, parking this far in ensures no driver-side wing mirrors will get clipped, so they pull that off, though the risk that a cyclist or push chair may try to get past on the other side -5 or 10 cm further in would have sorted that out. 

As mentioned before, we are conducting an experiment to make sure that this area remains van friendly. "Trust, but verify", as they say.

South Gloucester Council have denied responsibility for enforcing the double yellow lines on this, so we checked to make sure that Filton police are on message, that they know the war on motorists has been lost. I think we can conclude from the fact that the Filton police hotline has an answering machine at the end of it that yes, some government changes have made their way to that part of the system.

We have won the war! Nobody will stand in our way!

Adventures in the scaffolding trade

Cycling down from Kingsland Road bridge, one can often see two fully laden scaffold trucks skillfully parked on double-yellow lines close to the junction with Sussex Street providing passing cyclists and drivers with an interesting and fun hazard to negotiate as they start the working day. In fact, this newly-assimilated length of pavement..er, sorry..truck stop... is becoming somewhat of a mecca to the scaffolding trade often attracting various species of scaffolder to the cafe across the street. Here we can see King Scaffolding occupying their traditional spot and they are often joined by Northgate Scaffolding for a bacon butty and a cuppa. Oddly enough, they don't seem to be using the rest of the road and pavement leading up to the brow of the hill, which could provide extra parking for the rest of the fleet.

Now, the scaffolding trade is a high risk occupation and health & safety are paramount. After all, you don't want your scaffolding to collapse due to a faulty joint, maybe in high winds, or anyone to fall off it. Scaffolders have to be focused, dedicated and follow those method statements and risk assessments to the letter. But when it comes to road safety, it's Bristol, so the couldn't-give-a-damn rule applies as usual. After all, there's a cuppa waiting across the street....

Secret Gloucester Road parking

At the end of Cromwell Road, just under the arches, there's a lovely wide bit of pavement by the double yellow lines.

It's a safe place to park even a nice car, such as the BMW LX06UXU thought the presence of bike racks on the roof worry us. Are these perhaps cyclists?

Whatever, we like to show that nobody is inconvenienced and unable to get past. Here we can see a pedestrian can easily get by with only one wheel of their child's pushchair in the road.

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.

Observability

Our complainer from the past, "Slug" says they went to the PACT meeting to complain about some car on the pavement. Apparently the Police actually need to see someone obstructed before the vehicle is causing an obstruction.

This is a useful fact to know. From now on, whenever we park our car on the pavement -such as here BS51VDX does on a build-out by Cotham Brow, we shall wait for some family to get a push-chair past, and get a photograph of them as they pass.

With such a photograph, we can demonstrate that our parking did not cause any obstruction, hence is ineligible for any penalty.

Traffic Calming the corners

Here we see the junction of Aberdeen Road and Whiteladies Road, with the car VA08SVZ forced to park sideways on to the pavement up by the corner.

Despite the double yellow lines, they aren't blocking the dropped corner.

What they are doing is forcing turning traffic to slow down, and by narrowing the road they are providing a "build-out" like feature for passing pedestrians, even those pushing bicycles.

As such, we think even the pedestrians-rights groups should be supporting the driver for parking in a way that not only conveniences them, it helps improve pedestrian safety!

Proof that parking restrictions create traffic problems

We recently nipped over to Cotham Hill was to see if another rumour -parking restrictions removed- was true.

And yes, you can see, while they are resurfacing this road there are no limited waiting markings on the right-hand side of the photo, no double yellows on the other, even the zebra-crossing zig zags are gone.

And look! No vans forced to park on either pavement, leaving the approaching pedestrian to walk down the pavement without getting in our way on the road (merely the pavement, of course), no congestion caused by delivery vans forced to park half on the road, half on the pavement, no meandering cyclists in our way.

This provides clear proof that the cause of congestion is not traffic lights, the way our fellow travellers, the Drivers Alliance, or bus lanes, the way our-man-in-whitehall so believes. No, it is the restrictions on drivers parking where they need to that causes traffic problems in British cities!

British School of Motoring: teaching you how to shop

It's not enough to learn how to drive, you need to know the lifestyle -how to sprint round the city, which signs to ignore, where best to buy some discounted vodka. This is why we are please to get a photo from cyclista, showing the Bristol School of Motoring car WR59OJY on the double yellow lines outside the Tesco Express on Bedminster North Street.

Some people are surprised that Tesco Expresses -which target passing motorists- are always on main roads with double yellow lines outside. Those people miss the point. Those double yellow lines ensure short-stay parking for passing customers. They put the shops on main roads as that is where the passing customers are.

Returning to the car, look how perfectly it is aligned with the pavement, the wheels perfectly straight. That is skilled parking!

Cotham Hill update: Fredwood Forestry takes our side

We went back to Cotham Hill to see if the bike racks had been taken away, or whether we, the citizens of the city, were forced to discourage walking or cycling ourselves.

A van with the Del Monte man hat was out this morning, but the camera was playing up, so no photo.

What we do have is Monday's van, AG07DVK. Together with VF55GYX and another van with the Del-Monte hat in it, it ensures the uphill bike lane is unusable every weekday morning, and even pedestrians have a hard time getting down here.

What you can't appreciate from these photos is the van is parked just up on the rise of the east-facing hill, so all cars coming up the hill will be forced to swerve into the oncoming bicycle lane precisely when the sun is directly in their eyes. This ensures that when they run over a cyclist they can say "The sun was in my eyes", so downgrading the event to an accident. We like it.

Subtle.

Congratulations, then, to Fredwood Forestry, for their contribution to our city.

Cotham Hill: the front line

Cotham Hill is one of the front line roads in the war on motorists. An important route on the weekday school run for parents, it also tries to make bicyclists and pedestrians feel welcome. Hence the conflict.

Some people are trying to stop this, and here we must praise VF55GYX, who has parked on the uphill bike lane/dotted yellow lines three days in the past week between 08:00 and 08:30.

That shows dedication to discouraging cyclists not just cycling up the hill -where it is much harder to get round them, but also heading downhill, as now they need to worry about important motor vehicles swerving into their lane.

Together, this may make these people realise they are are not welcome here.

But will it be enough?

This why were are pleased to see these signs warning that the bike parking at the bottom of Cotham Hill is being removed. Here you can see the signs on the bike stands which are forcing the white van WP55NNM to park on double yellow lines, rather than this lovely buildout.

Looking the other way, you can see how this popular shopping street with 1h parking suffers from a lack of parking opportunities, but note that we will have to have the bollards removed to in order for shoppers cars to use the buildout, rather than the double yellow lines, which WN07WWE is forced to do.

Question is, if the bollards and the bike stands get removed, where do the signs trying to attract passing motorist traffic go?

Secret Castle Park Paveparking

If Cabot Circus super car-park is a bit full, you can always opt for Castle Park any Saturday afternoon. Hide it under any nearby tree and your vehicle will become invisible.

Stokes Croft World record attempt?

Someone better call those nice folks at Guinness World Records and ask them if six cars blocking the cycle lane and parking on double yellow lines is some kind of record. As the late Roy Castle used to sing about at the end of the 70's show, Record Breakers, you need dedication. Well, here's every Bristol cyclists favourite cycle lane in Stokes Croft going for gold by having the most vehicles blocking the cycle lane at once. Must be some kind of record. Unless, of course, you know better:)...

Yellow Cab Taxis: transport for South Bristol

Over the bicycle blogs, there's a lot of anti-taxi rhetoric. Well, that probably goes back centuries, since the first important people -our ancestors- rode horses and so differentiated themselves from you, the little people.

But if you spend time talking to anyone who worked as a taxi driver, you realise life is hard. One of their big fears is will the passengers do a runner, and if they do, will they just run or try and rob you in the process. Nobody likes picking up passengers to some parts of the city at night. It's the Bristol equivalent of London's "I aint goin souf of the river".

Except for one company. Yellow Cab of Bedminster aren't scared of South Bristol; they will take you wherever they want to go.

Even better they will pick you up from where you want to be picked up from. And on a Saturday, that means Bedminster.

Here DN05KFD is awaiting any passengers on the corner of Boot Lane and East Street.

For those people who can't cross the Boot Lane, their colleague in BD53MYX will pick you up.

Now, some people worry who is not capable of crossing the road, but Boot Lane is the home to the local RNIB branch, whose issues with Pavement Cycling have been covered by both us and the Evening Post before.

Down Boot Lane itself, KR08YJK not only helps keep the pavements clear of bicycles, they ensure that those people whose eyesight problems prevent them from driving their own cars, will be able to enjoy the convenience of having their own vehicle on the pavement just where they need it.

(One of the taxi people was a bit upset about the cars being photographed, but to respect their privacy we didn't include photos of them. We would encourage others to keep an eye on this area to see that Yellow Cabs are providing taxis for shoppers and visitors to the RNIB offices on a regular basis, so they get more used to such activities).