There's some paint on the road at the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road junction
The Bristolian Cafe is offering special "Riot Fry-Ups"
Claims were made in the press that people had been digging up cobbles and throwing them, but the only cobbled street we know of nearby -Picton Lane (good secret parking, BTW), is unchanged, except there is now a security person sitting in the sun at the back of the mini-Tescos (not photographed).
The local stores have a police car blocking the usual staff range-rover parking
but as there is still some spare yellow line space, this is not an issue.
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.
Look at this shocking footage of a cyclist making their way into Montpelier
There it is, just near the end of the sequence. A big 20 mph sign on the road. And it's not just here, on Picton Street. The zone begins here, but spreads all the way to Easton. Even Ashley Vale is 20 mph in the bottom half. The high speed rat-runs like St Andrews Road will never be the same again, now that some sanctimonious cyclist or smug prius driver can pootle along in front and not feel guilty about holding our van up.
We are secretly recording cyclists through the city, then buying them beers and finding out how their day was -as a result, we are starting to understand their (invalid) reasoning better.
Here is Stokes Croft of a morning, the cyclist is waiting to turn right, and watching the two incoming lanes.
Note how two cars get their lane choice wrong and decide to go straight on in defiance of left-turn signs for that lane. Yet still some tax-dodger decides to RLJ their left turn onto Stokes Croft.
At 1:00, the cyclist gets their turn in, skids left onto picton street, passing a van on the pavement to their left. Some people think parking blocking the pavement is wrong, but in this part of the city it is that or block the road entirely. At 1:14 you see someone doing that, and you see the bicycle proceeding to the left of the van, despite the fact that in our post-mortem we can see the door opening, and the passenger forced to retreat by the passing bicycle.
We understand why you wouldn't wait for the van; in monty that could be a few hours waiting. But why not go up on the pavement, the way most tax-dodgers would do.
The answer to that becomes clear on a later video. You can be sure that a van isn't going to veer into the parked cars, but you can't be sure that they aren't going to swerve up onto the pavement and drive along for a bit. We see this hear on the "Richmond Road shared space", an area to the side of roads that would elsewhere be called by its old name, "the pavement"
The van graciously waits for the parent and pushchair blocking this pavement, and once gone gets up on it and carries on, before eventually parking. The cyclist then passes them, continues down to Bath Buildings and Cheltenham Road, where we can watch the chaos with bemusement. The first cyclist, the BMX-er dodging a turning car probably just ran orange, or was past on red but, well, slow. The second one, the one that nearly takes our our tax-dodger as they ride across the road, he has had 10 seconds of red before he goes. That's three cyclists and three vans in our camera. All three vans are trying to find somewhere safe to park, which anti-car montpelier makes excessively hard. Of the three cyclists in the video, two of them seem blatantly oblivious to red.
Mid life crises. What do do? Sports cars? Mamils? Fixies. No: stalking. It's under-respected, and what the Internet, from Google to Facebook was made for.
We in the B.T. Project have taken up stalking one vehicle, and are pursuing it round the city. YA55VDY: the van that we are proud to have never ever seen parked even vaguely legally.
It's more than just a protest against anti-car, anti-van features, this takes dedication. Here, for example, you could park parallel to the double yellow lines, unload safely and pull out without having to back up blind into Picton Street first. But no, the driver has chosen to park 1m away from the kerb, echelon style, to make a statement. Deliveries matter.
We also have some footage from one of our secretly-instrumented cyclists going down Cotham Hill -you can see the distinctive shape of the van enables our tax-dodger to recognise the vehicle from a distance. This van is now famous!
Now, what's inside the van? We couldn't be bothered to drive over and look, but one of the cycle activists we were haranging here in Monty did -Captain Bikebeard says "yoghurt". Now we know.
In fact, this van is now so famous it deserves its own Facebook fan page. One van, one driver, prepared to stand up against an oppressive state by refusing to park where they make him, instead always -even if it means going out of his way- parking "illegally", as if the state gets to decide where is and isn't legal to park your van.
A few days later, we see it now on the double yellows on Whiteladies Road.
The showcase bus route proposes changes here, so where the van is parked to unload will become a dedicated left turn into Cotham Hill, with its own light sequence. The Cotham Hill zebra crossing will go away, be replaced by some lights which will allow us to drive through while pedestrians wait to cross (as if we didn't do that already), while the addition of a new lane and pedestrian refuge will make walking across the road harder -and well-nigh impossible for any parent with bike plus child trailer or tagalong, which our secretly instrumented report appears to be doing.
This is why we have mixed feelings about the showcase bus route proposal.
Against:
Removes commuter parking from Whiteladies Road.
Encourages bicyclists to cycle up and down the road
Pro
Increases short stay parking on Whiteladies Road.
Removes a zebra crossing used during the rush hour by slow-moving children and students.
Adds a dedicated feed-in lane to Cotham Hill.
The feed in lane will suddenly abandon the cyclists from the safety of a dedicated lane to a situation where they have to merge right into the Whiteladies Road lane just at the same time that all the Redland Mum traffic turning left is trying to swerve left to get into this lane, so putting off the cyclists from every trying to commute by bicycle ever again.
One of our concerns here is that, in the age of austerity, we don't see why any money needs to be spent so that cars can cut in from Whiteladies Road to Cotham Hill. We force our way through the zebra crossing anyway, so all it does is actually increase the likelihood that we get held up by a red light; removes the option of turning right from Cotham Hill to Whiteladies Road, and makes it harder to get a lorry through the corner.
We are great fans of the delivery van YA55VDY. It does an invaluable service -bringing short lifespan dairy products to the little shops in the city, helping them resist the overwhelming giants of (Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys). What we also like is the fact that we have never, ever, seen it park legally.
Some people may think this is a policy decision by the driver, but we think its a direct consequence of those corner shops being on corners, on popular roads (with bike lanes and double yellow lines), and on routes that pedestrians use. The driver has no choice!
Today we see how YA55VDY has been forced to park in the middle of Picton Street. Not on a pavement, not on double yellow lines. Not inconveniencing pedestrians, and by reducing through traffic, making Montpelier a nicer part of the city to live in.
Another weekday evening, and again, another cyclist endangering the paintwork of this important vehicle P334OWP parked on the newly-reopened Picton Square 4x4 parking area.
Round the corner, we see two unusual things. First, a space in Picton Street big enough for a small car.
Behind it, up on the lamppost, a 20 mph sign. Not so good.
But look at how this selfish cyclist endangers the paintwork of the parked 4x4 P334OWP. By trying to scrape between the remaining bollard and the vehicle, her child wagon may brush against the vehicle and so cause damage. And would any cyclist -who is no doubt uninsured- stop and leave their contact details were this to happen? We doubt it!
A first driving lesson. Sitting in the car, getting the mirrors right, adjusting the seat, getting ready to set off. Scary.
Along with our proposal of a separate Monty MOT test ("no wingmirrors"), we think a separate driving test, one that reflects the reality of these streets. Not parallel parking: paveparking.
Which is why we are delighted to see this British School of Motoring (BSM) car WR59WXZ showing one of their customers how to drive properly for this part of the city. By popping up far enough on the pavement to stop anyone getting past, less worries about accidentally clipping them as you turn onto the road.
We are so tempted to phone up the number on the back of the car or go to their web site and ask for a pavement parking lesson like this. Unfortunately, the terms of conditions of the DVLA's "please place your license in this prepaid envelope" letter appears to prevent such actions. Perhaps readers may wish to enquire themselves?
The Radford Mill Farm Shop of Picton Street provides a bike park for customers
We don't know whether to denounce it for taking a bit of the pavement away from us motorists, or praise it as a place for bicycles to get stripped, and then discarded.
