Normally this road on a Saturday is pretty chaotic: through traffic, shoppers trying to park outside their shops, either in the designated areas, or in the bus stops, the buses trying to get through, pedestrians trying to get across without walking 200m to the lights and back again; then there are the cyclists.
Today: silence.
Police to keep things calm, close the road and keep people on foot out the way.
One conclusion you can draw from the emptiness of the parking area is that the area really is only used by shoppers and shop staff. Today there's just a Paul Roberts car and a fireman -who does walk around with helmet and hi-viz clothes with identification details, the way we think everyone should dress.
There's also a command unit with a CCTV camera to the top and a satellite uplink pointing towards something in geostationary orbit above Africa.
The odd thing is everyone assumes at first that the troubles have come up from Stokes Croft -an eviction, another bank wrecked. But not today. It's worth visiting though, just see what Gloucester Road is really like when closed to traffic.
Some breaking news here: Gloucester Road is closed on account of the Thai Nail BarCorrections Nail Studio near the co-op and just round from Franco's Hairdresser's blew up at 10:00 today; Gloucester Road is closed.
1. The good news: no serious injuries.
2. People are free to re-use these photos with accreditation, though they would be better off contacting Franco and team -last seen outside the Blue Lagoon having early beers, as they have better photos, on account of being at work three doors away at the time. No haircuts are on offer today.
Gloucester Road is closed off even to foot traffic from the Breadstore to the Hobgoblin pub.
You can just make out on the pavement some burned out bits of shop.
Apparently they have chemicals on site; the owner was upstairs.
The road is closed to cars from Zetland Road; people are being directed to Elton Road or right onto Cheltenham Road and Cromwell Road.
There was some concern by outsiders looking to get to the cricket match that they didn't know where to go. Turn onto Cromwell Road, head up to the first left-turn that isn't no entry, head along that road all the way and you end up at the cricket ground. For us locals, that's faster than the A38 anyway.
Wishing anyone injured a fast recovery.
Update: Allotmentqueen says: "Creations Nail Studio, actually, next door to Simply Thai. But then, as a van driver, I don't expect you get your nails done that often. "
A quick trip in our van at 09:59 shows the delivery van YR59YUD happily ensconced in the bus lane, waiting to deliver to tesco.
We say waiting, because apparently as long as they don't start unloading until 10:00, it's OK. This actually makes sense. Anyone who is trying to use public transport or cycle at that time of day are clearly low-income people whose time is effectively worthless, according to the D of Motoring spreadsheets.
What is more interesting is later the same day, now at 18:37, we spot the "Mighty Banana" van of Stokes Croft, now parked outside Tesco. Has someone driven up from the Croft to get their weekly shop in?
Possibly, but they would have found their way blocked by a large group of strangely dressed people. That said, anyone driving up from the croft wouldn't find this unusual, or interfere with their daily shop.
What could, however, would be the police enforcement of parking rules. And here is where we saw something so shocking we almost dropped the mobile phone from our steering wheel hand (the other hand is for gear changes and the horn). Yes, a policeman actually went up to the van to note its registration number. We were in shock. This could destroy Bristol as we know it. Watch the video.
You see that? Panic over. It turns out that the "Mighty Banana" Van, W878MDC, is actually Chris Chalkey's van, and the police are only doing it for a laugh. In the voiceover you can hear Cllr Jon Rogers -whom we suspect of not being in the Waltham Forest Faction of the LibDem council- explaining this and why it's all a setup. Chris see's what's happening, starts waving his masonic hand-waves at the police and all is well. Masonic Handwaves, incidentally, are the van drivers' version of the Masonic Handshake -make the secret wave to any traffic police and they'll let you past.
False alarm: panic over. There's no problem with parking in the mornings, no problem in the evenings either. We were worried there, but at least everyone has come to their senses and realised that if there's one group of people in the city not to mess with, it's us van drivers. Those videos of people shouting "whose streets? Our streets?" wouldn't stand a chance against a roadblock of us going "whose short-stay parking areas? your bike lanes!"
You won't be seeing our white van today, as the team is all at home watching TV. Well, watching adult videos while drinking red bull and vodka, but it fits in with the day. However we do welcome contributions, as usual to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com.
Today we have received some lovely photos of what's happening down in Stokes Croft, showing that the police have finally stepped in and set a record for the number of vehicles that can park in a bike lane! We see you, Aberdeen Cars,
and raise you eight police vans!
We also have proof that Welsh vehicles are exempt from one way signs.
There, how you deal with that, friends of the north?
update: Gamu asked why we hadn't included the registration numbers. An error of omission, due to the rush to get this out. Here are the two from the photos: CN59DVO WX08DHE. As they say, Whose police state? Our police state!
We got a blip in web traffic last week with people searching online for "Stokes Croft" and "Stokes Croft Tesco".
We are Bristol's premier road-related news outlet --and given this road's role in both transportation and fast food, this extra traffic was not surprising.
To keep our out-of-town visitors informed, we drove the official Bristol Traffic White Van down to Cheltenham Road and 'the Croft to see what was happening.
The Tescos is boarded up, Fred Baker Cycles has a few hundred pounds worth of damage. All eight cyclists who read this site might want to consider visiting the shop and buying something there, to show your support for a local shop in the area that never chose to be alongside a new supermarket.
The outbound bike lane has a car in it, this time a police car.
The inbound bike lane also has a car in it.
Up on the now infamous Telepathic Heights, someone sits on the roof shouting at passers by.
Given the news about riots in Cheltenham Road, we are pleased to inform all all readers that despite what happens over the weekend Ritas and Slix will both continue serving Bristol's best takeaway chips to passing motorists, be they minicab drivers or police riot vehicles. The latter will qualify for bulk discount. We also welcome rioters, as the two establishments do consider themselves part of the Stokes Croft community, and not some national invader that do not recognise that garlic mayonnaise is a key part of Bristol's cuisine.
However, the two establishments have requested that all police car customers park in the bike lanes slightly closer to Cheltenham Road, rather than the bike lanes directly in front of the shops, as bricks and the like being thrown at vans does tend to turn away traffic. They can assure the police that parking restrictions will not be enforced (based on historical data), and that anyone cycling up to the (closed) Cheltenham Road is a troublemaker who deserved to be arrested -although only after spending their free cash at Rita's and Slix.
Slix's lawyers will also be in touch with everyone who reviewed their cafe, as they are all libellous apart from the one that praises it so much it is clearly fake.
The Hare on the Hill pub in Kingsdown would also like to point out that you can get a good view from there, along with a wide selection of Bath Ales beers, and as it is out of the "no drinking" exclusion zone, customers are welcome to sit outside and enjoy the "sporting fixtures" of the Easter Weekend -one in which the Royal Wedding Festivities appear to have started a week early.
Trivia: next week will be the 48th anniversary of the Bristol Bus Strike. Since that date nobody except poor people without cars have taken the bus, and FirstBus have done their best to discourage even these people from using the bus, by overcharging for a mediocre service.
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.
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!
Given the fact that the students and the schoolkids are now out protesting -often after dark- we need to think how to deal with more pedestrians on the road.
Here we see some of the students outside the Senate House, Tyndall's Avenue, which they have occupied part of.
Not one of them is wearing a hi-viz top!
Across the road, there is a minor police presence: one horse.
The police know how dangerous the city streets are -which is why both they and the horse are wearing hi-viz, though we are saddened to see that the rider isn't wearing a helmet.Do they not realise how dangerous horse-riding is? It is from the fort at the end of the path that Prince Rupert of the Rhine surrendered Bristol to the Parlimentarians -the people- and then rode off to wales for safety.
Fortunately, we are aware of such safety issues, and in conjuction with the local councils and the Evening Post, we are pleased to announce a new Christmas Gift: discounted high viz tops. These are available at discount rates, and different sizes. Imagine how your children's eyes will light up when they get their first hi-viz top! As for the students, well, if they are to get in the way of cars driven by important people, they need all the hi-viz they can afford!
OK, so we know Slix is good (and to avoid any press complaints of bias we'll probably cover the other eateries and massage parlours of Stoke Croft in future editions).
We know that, as a convenient and iconic food outlet, Slix has great parking facilities (courtesy of the bike lane which deters commuters, but welcomes the brave).
We know that Noel Edmunds may or may not have eaten there. In his taxi.
We are impressed, though, that it is being protected by the State.
We found it reassuring that Police vehicle WX09EKU had parked-up in the cycle lane to ensure Stokes Croft was safe from errant taxi drivers, mini-cab deliveries and cyclists. We were just disappointed that it hadn't pulled up on the pavement, as that would have allowed us to complain, in true Daily Mail style, about the sort of low-life that populate this part of Bristol scratching the paintwork as they squeezed by.
Of course, it may be that they're there to arrest Mrs Lovett, but her pie shop (and others) still seem to exist on the Croft, so we doubt it.
Luckily, as can be seen from the photo, Stokes Croft is perfect for a new road widening scheme. Here at Bristol Traffic we reckon we could get at least five lanes of traffic in here, probably six if we narrowed the pavements. We will be lobbying our MPs.
By way of the Legacy Printed Press, we see this video of a car being forced to push a Ford Ka out onto the road by the school entrance to Cabot Primary School.
The comments on the E.P. Article are pretty polarised.
On the one hand, this is someone exerting their right to get their car out of the garage despite the selfish actions by lazy parents who themselves park on the keep clear zones just to drop the kids off faster. On the other, this is someone potentially endangering children who if not walking to school, are being dropped off by their parents outside it and expected to walk across a road. It's hard to say who is most wronged here.
Our last trip down Whiteladies road shows that on a weekend, yes, pedestrian shoppers did hold up through traffic. This implied that yes, the FirstBus/Showcase bus route plans to reduce pedestrian crossing options may benefit their schedules, but we were worried about the impact on us cars getting out from side roads.
This video is different as it's a visit by our expendable cyclist on a weekday morning, down the bus lane from Oakfield Road, and through the Triangle as far as University Road, where they head off. Commentary first, analysis later.
At 0:24 FH56CVV switches lanes early, but as everyone else in the RH lane who isn't turning right also goes left, they are forced to give way to the vehicles in front of them anyway.
From 0:29 to 0:40, a bike lane that even waltham forest would be proud of. Its worn-out nature hints that it's popular with larger vehicles, while the trees keep it bumpy.
At 04:40 A9VNG is in the ASL, but we suspect that it was in there when the lights change. Why the suspicion? One car in the pedestrian area and one in front in the yellow hatched "only enter when clear to exit" area stopping cross traffic from St Pauls Road and Tyndall's Park Road getting across. Incidentally, Tyndall's Park road (on the left) here is no left turn, St Paul's (on the right, into Clifton) is no right turn, so all congestion coming up from the Triangle is Whiteladies Road traffic. Note also this junction provides no time for pedestrians to cross when the traffic isn't actually allowed to drive -if only all major junctions in the city were like this, congestion would be much improved. The BBC offices are on the left, incidentally.
Following the cyclist who is commuting without helmet, body-armour or hi-viz clothing, we eventually discover what is holding up WL-road traffic, it's the "triangle" gyratory system, which our tax-dodger hits at 1:43. The underlying problem is that Whiteladies Road traffic is forced to give way to traffic coming from the right, which initially means traffic from Clifton. Further on, at 2:17 we get held up by traffic all coming into the city from the A4 or the Hotwells's Bridges and then up Jacob's Wells road.
There are four lanes here, one for parking, one turning right at the next junction, and two straight on, but that leftmost one is lost even to vans ignoring bus-lane signs, not just by the police car at 2:41 but by the taxi-rank at 2:53.
WN59UDP is held up by these taxis forcing them to wait with all the in-town traffic, so as soon as they can they cut left in front of the bicycle, through the pedestrians and up University Road -only to find that the Biffa refuse collection lorry is in the way and ignoring the important traffic being held up. Finally passing that, they can sprint up to Woodland Road, where as you recall the Evening Post was campaigning against two paid parking spaces going away, which we felt was overreacting as nobody parks their except arts students, and their tuition fee increases will eliminate that luxury.
However, today we can see that the paid parking area is also popular for parental dropoff outside Bristol Grammar School -and it actually makes for a nice, low-chaos dropoff area. Admittedly, there isn't enough of this short-stay parking right in front of the school, forcing some parents to stop in the double yellow lined areas, but the alternative would be parking on the other side of this (one-way) street, forcing the children to cross the road. Would you want your children to cross a busy road like this? Exactly. Parking on the double yellow lines outside the school entrance is the only safe place to drop your kids off and be sure they get to school alive.
Now, returning to the Whiteladies Road issue, what does the bus plan proposal change on this stretch? The Oakfield Road crossing will be moved further away from the road, so making it less useful to pedestrians trying to walk from Cotham to Clifton or bag. Plus one point. But, this makes it harder for cars to get out or over from these roads, so minus one point.
Heading in to town, the right hand turn to Clifton will be removed for all but buses. This will turn Oakfield road into the primary rat-run option, but as we've seen, the moving of the zebra crossing makes it trickier. What they aren't doing is extending the bus lane any further south, and they are leaving that toy bike lane in there. We say toy as its so half hearted that no rational cyclist will think they are welcome -what with the faded paint and tree roots, but its very presence implies that some people in the city do welcome cyclists. No, better to remove it and put a cyclists dismount sign up.
Entering the triangle is more informative. Congestion is caused here by traffic joining the road from other places (Clifton, Jacob's Wells Road), and whatever is slowing them down on their final journey. There are no pedestrian-only lights or zebra crossings to play with, so there's little that can be done to make pedestrians feel less welcome, no tricks to make the schedule more accurate.
And that's the key problem. The goals of the showcase route are faster bus journey times and a more predictable schedule. Removing and moving zebra crossings will only help with this out of hours, on weekends and midday, because on a weekday morning the problem is more fundamental: Erlang's Laws. Congestion is a result of the ingress rate of a queue being higher than the egress rate. The reason vehicles can't leave whiteladies road isn't that there are vast numbers of people struggling to turn up Cotham Hill (more on that another day), or any of the side roads, it is because the merging of multiple queues at the triangle creates a bottleneck which having one lane dedicated to bus stops and a taxi rank doesn't do much to help.
And do we care about mid-day firstbus schedules? No -and neither should anyone else. People using the bus at weekend and mid-day weekdays are either people who can't afford a car, people with bus passes, or people who have made some ideological decision to take a bus: passengers FirstBus can take for granted. If they want to make money, they need to get the commuter traffic, and quite frankly, changes to pedestrian crossings aren't going to do it. They may help us car commuters by reducing the number of pedestrians and cyclists, but given our dataset implies that the Whiteladies Road congestion is due to problems in the city centre, those crossing changes aren't going to help buses or our cars on whiteladies road at peak hours, which is when it matters to us as well as FirstBus.
Sorry FirstBus, but whatever datasets you have on congestion problems on Whiteladies Road, they were clearly collected by FirstBus or Council staff during their working hours, rather than during am or pm rush hours. This is the only explanation why your proposals don't just do nothing for us drivers while making pedestrians and cyclists suffer, they don't appear to help buses either.
That's the irony there. This proposal has already got the cycling campaign saying "oppose this it's anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist", it's also anti-car, but we think it manages to be bus-neutral at the same time. That takes skill, that does.
A heartwarming letter from someone on the opposing team reaches our inbox, with photos.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Slug Date: Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 4:26 PM Subject: Police don't have a problem with pavement parking To: bristol.traffic
I hope you are pleased that you now have the police on your side with regards to pavement parking.
I reported this car V298FAN at 9 am this morning, and to my surprise found it was still in the same place with no sign of a ticket on 7 hours later, so I phoned up the police and found out they had been to Tilling Road and looked at the car during the day and decided that it wasn't blocking the road and that there was enough room for pedestrians to get by.
I have re-reported it as several parents found it difficult getting their children past this obstruction right on the inside of quite a blind bend. The policeman is obviously narrower than me (must find out what diet he is on), and because he has been provided with special work clothes he doesn't mind brushing up against the prickly beriberis plant (whereas I don't want to spoil my cashmere cycling jacket). The lady on a disabled scooter/wheelchair couldn't fit through either (maybe she could also go on the policeman's diet).
Slug
As usual, complaints from alternative transport enthusiast are a metric by both we and HMG's Minister for Cars, the Rt Hon Philip Hammond are measured: the more the better.
We must remind our supporters that this is why they must attend their local PACT meetings, here the one on October 11, to make our priorities known, and not those of people like this "slug" person, who is clearly wasting police time just when the country can afford it least.
Tilford road is handy for Southmead Hospital, incidentally.
We aren't quite sure why the police car up on the downs near the suspension bridge is in NYPD colours, but as CF05DFD is ensuring that no subversives dare to ignore the no cycling signs and ride on the paths here, so we support it.
