Bristol Living Streets

Is Cotham Road safe?

steve — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:20:51 +0000

As a background to our proposal of zebra crossing and bike parking up at the top of Cotham Road, here is the Bristol Traffic collection of collisions on Cotham Road. This site has only been running 18 months, it tries to cover the entire city, yet it has three recorded crashes on this road. That’s a sign of a dangerous road.

Drunk Driving on a Friday evening

Rear ended car

Something the police came out for

These are the hits, not the misses, and only those that B.T. get emailed. What else happens there, we don’t know. But we know this: if it’s not safe to drive down, it can’t be safe to cross.

Getting to school alive

steve — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:06:41 +0000

One goal of our campaign is making it safe to walk and cycle to and from school. That means you have to get across the roads on your way to school, and roads near schools need to put the needs of families walking or cycling to school ahead of through traffic and parents driving. Flashing 20 mph signs do not do this.

What roads are trouble here? Here are some, we welcome the suggestion of others, roads where speeding traffic makes walking to school dangerous:

Ashley Hill, linking St Werburgh’s with Montpelier
Tyndall’s Park Avenue, where students cross on their way to college
Cotham Road. It’s a through route, with a school on each side; two more nearby.

We have some good news on that last road. Some of the school parents, and some local residents, have got in touch with us and we’ve been working together on options for Zebra Crossings. And here is the good news: the school supports it, the councillor for half the street, Neil Harrison, may even have some money. We just need to push for it and for bicycle parking. Which is where everyone’s help is needed. We’re going to put up a petition on the council web site, and we want everyone who supports having a city that you can walk round to sign up.
More details soon.

2 pedestrian-orientated events

steve — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:06:17 +0000

May I draw your attention to 2 events.
The first is an interesting meeting in Westbury on Trym TOMORROW, Thursday 21st January:

“Re-claiming our village centre?”

SusWot invites you to come and hear some interesting ideas about how we could make the centre of our village more pedestrian-friendly. Good for the community, good for business, and good for shoppers.

Thursday 21 January, 7.30pm, at Westbury Primary School

More info (including initial sketches) are at www.suswot.org.uk

SusWot – using less, living more. Part of Transition Bristol.

The second event is hosted by Sustrans, to review their ‘DIY streets’ project on March 11th:

The organisation’s DIY Streets projects, in London, South Wales, Coventry, Manchester, Sheffield, Torquay and Oxford, have encouraged local people to re-design their own streets, making them safer, cleaner and more people-friendly.

The conference, to be held in Bristol on March 11, will review the evaluation results of the pilot projects carried out. Residents’ success in slowing down traffic and making streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists could see the scheme rolled out across the UK.

Members of the public are invited to attend the conference at Bristol’s Council House. Tickets are £55 each (£20 concessions) including lunch and are available through Sustrans. To make a booking, please contact Mira Ruskin on 0207 0172 364 or email mira.ruskin@sustrans.org.uk by 26 February.

January Update

steve — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:50:31 +0000

It’s been a very good first year for Living Streets in Bristol! Please read on for an update…..

Contents:
20mph zones
‘DIY’ streets – example from Montpelier
Pedestrian crossing light review
Stapleton Road Consultation
City Centre Consultation
Gating order and PROW
Meetings
Web/ Yahoogroup
Steering Group

20mph zones
Thanks to all those who made the effort to contact the council over the 20mph pilots. As you are probably aware, we won a resounding victory and almost all the roads the officers wanted excluded are now to be 20mph. In the East Bristol Zone there are no excluded roads northwest of the M32, and southeast of it only the Oldmarket one way system, Easton Way and the A420 are excluded, as far as Redfield. We owe thanks to Jon Rogers for his firmness on the issue.
I won’t dwell on this as it is now old news but the scale of the change compared to the original proposals is vast: we are now being promised quite a radical scheme by UK standards instead of the mousey Portsmouth ‘side roads only’ plan.
The Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) are being sought, with implementation planned for the spring. There are two important issues to consider: enforcement, and which areas should be next?

Realistically, although the police have agreed to the scheme, we know that police enforcement isn’t going to happen. It will be enforced by the actions of local people:

By those that drive at 20 forcing those behind to do likewise
By ‘taking over the street – the more people walk and cycle in the road, the more it will feel to drivers that they must drive slowly.
By street redesign: the council do not plan to make physical alterations to the roadspace – but we can! See below under ‘DIY streets’.
Community Speedwatch – local residents may be equipped with a radar speedgun courtesy of the police

Who’s next for 20mph? The pilot zones will undoubtedly be a success and it is possible the whole city could be included within a few years if we show the council it is popular. The LibDem administration want to identify the next areas and have funding earmarked so why not your area? Residents in Bishopston, St Andrews, Cotham and Kingsdown have already expressed an interest. Speak to your neighbours, resident groups such as ‘transition’ groups and – obviously – let us know.

DIY streets

Next time you’re in Montpelier have a look at the Thali Corner Improvements which have led to the rediscovery of a long lost pavement: Living Streets held a spoof ‘reopening’ ceremony recently to mark the occasion.

These two inspired pieces of street furniture arose out of discussions at ‘Transition Montpelier’ meetings and were constructed on the day of a Halloween Street Party as part of the road closure…then left in place. (thanks due to Peter Lipman of Sustrans for his advice on strategy). By stopping parking on the corner, they make crossing easier, stop lorries getting stuck and provide a home for trade bins in the gutter instead of the pavement. The bike racks mean less bikes on the railings obstructing the narrow pavements next to the Thali cafe. Everyone’s a winner!

Unfortunately one resident thought she was a loser, and complained about the loss of ‘valuable parking space’ even though parking on that corner would be in breach of the Highway Code. A council officer phoned the main instigator in a threatening manner: Living Streets intervened and Jon Rogers ‘had a word’ with the relevant officer: the future of this installation now seems secure. The door appears wide open for other areas to do the same, and this is especially relevant as a means of traffic calming in 20mph areas. We have heard Mina Rd residents might be planning something….

Stapleton Rd Consultation

There is a new consultation out with relevance to pedestrians, concerning the part of Stapleton road from Muller Road adjoining J2 of the M32 to Fishponds Rd (alongside the slip road where 3 pedestrians have been killed). This part of the Frome Cycleway plan and involves creating a shared space pavement. These are controversial but it is wide and bollards will keep cars off the pavement so generally, this looks at worst neutral and perhaps an improvement for pedestrians. If you use this road regularly, what do you think?

The consultation closes on 15th January 2010.

Lights review

One of our priorities in the Summer was to get changes made to the light controlled crossings across the city, many of which had unacceptable and unneccessarily long crossing times for pedestrians. The council have carried out a review of some crossings (though how they were chosen is unclear) and reduced the times at many.

The review states:

Key points:

– Review looked at 58 stand-alone UTC/SCOOT pedestrian crossing facilities in the city with the aim of reducing the wait times for pedestrians without greatly increasing congestion to traffic. – Outcome is a reduction in the overall average pedestrian delay from 30 seconds to 16 seconds at these junctions.

- Further reviews of signalling being planned.

Sadly, the review was apparently carried out at a junior level and although there are improvements at many crossings, those causing the most complaints – the three across Newfoundland Way between Cabot Circus and St Pauls – were not included. Another much maligned crossing, outside Brown’s at the Triangle, was included but no changes were made as it was thought the impact on congestion would be too great. The crossing where Baldwin St joins the centre, notorious due to 3 fatalities, was not included either..

Conclusion – if you have a ‘bete noir’ crossing then we need to hear about it – and also is there someone who would like to take a lead on this?.

City Centre changes
The Council say they want a debate about how best to redesign the city centre ‘let’s open the debate about transport’, which is very welcome, and Jon Rogers’ team do seem genuinely open to ideas from the public. The reason for the redesign is of course to accommodate the Bus Rapid Transit from Ashton Vale, on which opinion is divided. Leaving that aside, there is an opportunity for improvements to the city centre for pedestrians. The consequences for displaced traffic will need thinking though carefully.
Please follow the link above and via that you will find the ‘Ask Bristol’ site with lots of interesting comments. Chris Hutt has put an excellent analysis on his Green Bristol blog too. We have seen before with the 20mph campaign that a sizeable number of pro-pedestrian comments help to support those pushing a pro-walking and -cycling agenda in this city so please leave a comment.

Gating Orders and Public Rights of Way (PROW)
Bristol City Council are poised to use a ‘Gating Order’ for the first time, to restrict access to an alleyway between Oldbury Park Road and Vassals Road in Fishponds. This PROW is heavily used by locals including lots of mothers with young children to get to school, but is also the site of several incidents of antisocial behaviour.
The Gating will restrict access to key holding local residents. On Living Streets’ behalf, I objected, (as did other organsiations) asking for gating of side alleys. The original officers’ report agreed with us and recommended that no Gating Order was made: unfortunately David Bishop has overruled it after pro-gate residents lobbied Jon Rogers. This isnt the end of the matter – several residents oppose the gating order (though a minority) and the effect of Gating is uncertain.
If anyone lives in Fishponds, uses this route or simply has an interest in this issue, please let us know.

Other issues
Meetings
The last city centre meeting was attended by 10 people. Neil Harrison gave a presentation about the forthcoming Walking Strategy and strengthening of Parking Enforcement. We will be invited to comment on the draft walking strategy when it is ready. I had hoped to include an item on Barriers to Walking in Easton/ Lawrence Hill as several supporters have called for us to do something about the lack of a street level crossing of Easton Way between Stapleton Rd and Church Rd, but no-one from the area attended.
Consequently we have had a rethink: although we now have 78 bristol supporters, citywide meetings are not effective. We are effective at campaigning more locally, as the paragraphs above indicate, and can usefully influence Bristol wide issues like the centre resign via email. Consequently, we think the way forward may be to have local, issue related meetings as the need arises, and stop holding city centre meetings. Easton supporters are forming a ‘cell’ for this reason so if you want to be included, please let us know.

Website
We could easily develop a blog-style website for free. If you don’t already, look at Green Bristol Blog (excellent current blog on lack of gritting of pavements) and Bristol Traffic (the key people in both are supporters of Living Streets Bristol and we wouldn’t be looking to duplicate their styles)

‘YahooGroup’ anyone?
Currently our supporters cannot contact each other as we use ‘blind’ emailing to preserve confidentiality. It is possible to set up a group so that those who want to be able to contact others can do so. If you are interested, please let us know.

Steering Group
Our steering Group needs re-energising.The number of possible issues Living Streets could take on is greatly in excess of the time the steering group can devote.
If you want to make 2010 the year you made a bigger contribution to our efforts to improve the city, please let us know.

September Meeting

steve — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:59:11 +0000

The next meeting will be on 14th September 2009 at 7.30pm.

Stag and Hounds upstairs room - Old Market/ Temple Way Junction (next to Evening Post).
Neil Harrison will be coming to talk about the forthcoming Council’s draft walking strategy.

August Update

steve — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:56:52 +0000

Dear supporter

We held our first Living Streets Bristol open meeting on 23rd July. 15 people discussed issues and possible solutions, resulting in an agreement to concentrate on 4 areas:

1. Better Faster Crossings:

a maximum wait for pedestrians at light controlled crossings of 30 seconds – though many should have no delay at all
an end to the zebra cull – a commitment to preserve all existing zebra crossings – and make funds available for more
more ‘informal crossings’ – raised road surfaces across side road junctions

2. Enforce existing parking rules

A substantial investment in council parking enforcement – which could be self financing – throughout the city.
Zero tolerance of pavement obstruction. In many areas, vehicles block pavements for days on end. We want this to be a citywide policing priority.

3. 20 mph limit citywide

A 20mph limit as a default thoughout the city, including all residential roads and shopping streets. This should be supported by street design - ‘shared space’ being one example.

4. A Traffic free city centre

Every Sunday, with many roads closed 7 days a week

Steering Group

A steering group of 6 was formed, others are welcome to join it. What area would you like to work on?

Where and what are the obstacles to walking?
For example, a friend from Greenbank area tells me few people will walk home from the centre to Easton area as the underpasses on Easton Way and Lawrence Hill Roundabout are so dangerous. Does this affect you? If enough people are prepared to join together in demanding change, we can get something done!

We can log similar examples and build a picture of the ‘obstacles to walking’ across the city.

Developing the Walking Strategy

We will soon be asked for our input into the Council’s Walking Strategy ( Come and speak to Neil Harrison about it at our next meeting – see below).

There’s also work to do with schools, developing ‘Safe Routes to School’.

Pavement obstruction by vehicles

Have you ever tried to get the police to deal with this problem? We would like to hear from you – then we can map how different beats are tackling this across the city, with a view to establishing some consistency.

Bins -
Many people complain about bins blocking pavements. The rules the council work to are complex and sometimes bins are allowed on wider pavements – if 1.2m width is left for pedestrians. Email us if you want further details.

Aled Williams, the Council Bin enforcement boss, says that people should email him about any bins that are causing an obstruction. He appears to be genuinely keen to help and their approach is very much to work with residents and traders to find them appropriate ways of dealing with their rubbish.
mail him at aled.williams@bristol.gov.uk