Can't handle his cobbles!

King Street. Lost to cars, full of bike racks. Nearly no traffic.

Yet what do we see this afternoon but someone cycling along the pavement.

They can't use the "I'm scared of the traffic" gambit here, which leaves just one other: they don't like cycling on cobblestones.

There'll be no entrance form for the Paris-Roubaix race arriving in their postbox this year, we suspect.

Southwell Street: the ongoing crisis

Our secret instrumentation of cyclists, with some followup chat, shows us how these people endanger pedestrians and patients on Southwell Street.

Look how they

1. Cycle along the "pedestrianized" bit of road on Southwell Street, so endangering anyone forced to walk along this bit of road by the no-pedestrian barriers around the car-park entrance.
2. Pop up on the real pavement to get around the gate completely blocking the road.
3. Stay on the pavement to get past the van V722LAE parked in the no parking area by the gate.
4. Leap onto the road and endanger pedestrians crossing the road, the delivery vans, and the cars dropping staff off.
5. Swerves into the oncoming lane to get past the Ginsters cornish pastry lorry.

In the past, someone suggested to us that we should make Southwell Street the official logo of Bristol traffic, as a combination of a gate to block bicycles and a pavement closed to pedestrians represented our city. Well, it does -these cyclists ignoring the hints that the NHS gives them -that cycling to school, work or the nearby university is wrong- show us the problems we face in our city. What else can we do to ban them?

Keeping the Abbey Wood shared use paths in good condition

Drainage Services are busy up by the MOD Abbey Wood area in the North Fringe, keeping the drainage in a bit of S. Gloucs well drained.

Some people might think that it is somewhat antisocial blocking an entire bike/foot path when the dual carriageway alongside has almost no traffic, at least not until the tailspin housing estate sells some more houses.

But think about it. Badly drained bike paths force cyclists into the road, where they could interfere with us.

Furthermore, this particular path enables a combined bicycle and supermarket journey, in which the shopper cycles to the A4174 Sainsbury's and pushes both the bicycle and the shopping trolley home. This is not possible on on-road, vehicular cycling routes. These people should be grateful for getting such an open bit of pavement to share with pedestrians, even if we hate them on the other pavements.

Trouble on Happy Lane

We've covered the Happy Lane buildout before, a nice place for a car with a lampost to protect your wing mirrors from passing traffic on Ashley Down Road. Not so happy today though.

Something has gone into the Fiesta FD03LLW hard enough to damage the front and trigger the airbags. What could do such damage to a car safely parked on the pavement?

Further up the road, we get a hint of the probable culprit: the ever present lycra-menace on our pavements

Warning

this means

NO CYCLING

on the pavement

It is only through enforcing such rules that our parked cars will be safe.