Henbury Loop Line

If you want to see Henbury station re-opened and used as an important transport resource for north Bristol and beyond, take a look at the video and sign the petition.

Along with the rest of the local Severn Beach Line, a re-opened Henbury station and loop line is an obvious part of the answer to Bristol's unsustainable transport problems.

 

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Will Motorway Man Close the Bus Lane?

With missionary zeal, Westbury motorists are leafleting the suburbs this week in an attempt to get the Westbury bus lane closed all together.

As previously reported on Trym Tales, the City Council has agreed, under pressure from campaign group This Bus Lane is Madness to drastically reduce the length of the new bus lane, which currently runs from Henleaze Road to White Tree Roundabout on the inward bound stretch of the A4018 (Westbury Road).

Sensing a full victory for may be in their grasp, motorists from BS9 are urging their fellow commuters to sign an online petition in order to force the convening of a full council meeting to consider the issue. Under present council rules, an e-petition which attracts 3,000 signatures will automatically trigger such a gathering.

Describing the present proposal to reduce the lane to 120 metres as "useless" and "face-saving", campaigner and Westbury resident Simon Brookes is urging residents to spread the word about the petition.

With 2767 signatures at the time of writing, it seems likely that the 3,000 target will be achieved. In fact, a comparison with other petitions on the Council's site indicates that this one has more than double the amount of all other current e-petitions combined!

Trym Tales therefore has a series of questions to ask the petitioners:

1. Are those who have signed serious about seeing a significant reduction in the number of cars making short journeys at peak times in and out of the city centre?
2. If so, do they accept that such a reduction will require more people to cycle, walk and use public transport?
3. Are they aware of studies showing that frequency of journeys, reliability of schedules and speed of journey time are the major factors in increasing passenger use of suburban buses? And that, within realistic variables, such increased use can be as high as 55%?
4. If the current bus lane is removed, are signatories content with the fact that nothing will have changed as far as bus and cycle use between Westbury and the city centre?
5. Do they have an alternative proposal for reducing the number of short journeys between BS9 and the centre at peak times?  

I read this somewhere once:

"The present system is ideally suited for delivering the results you are currently experiencing."

What is the new system that will deliver significantly different results? (Assuming we want them.)

 




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FreeBus Bristol - Home

Image by express000 via Flickr

FreeBus Bristol - Home

Bristol's Free Bus project looks like it's gaining momentum.

The concept is simple enough: make bus services free at the point of delivery if those using the service cannot afford to pay.

There's obviously a lot of thinking gone into this, with the first service due to start in the Spring.

Check out the site, follow on facebook, etc.

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Related articles

• Passengers jumped at chance to travel on free Bristol bus service (thisisbristol.co.uk)

On Carrying Your Licence While Driving

Image via Wikipedia

This from Steve Williams, aka MotoringLawyer via Twitter, on my question about whether motorists are required to carry their licences when driving.

"No that's nonsense. Required to produce within 7 days. Police advised me not to carry in car for security!"

So, a lawyer specialising in motoring law tells me that the law does not require me to carry the documents with me while driving. Meanwhile, as reported yesterday, a police officer who stopped me on Whiteladies Road assured me that I was required to carry my licence (both parts), MOT certificate, and insurance certificate every time I was out and about in my vehicle.

Which shows the value of knowing your rights, as without such knowledge, it appears that the police are not always accurate in informing us of them.

Perhaps I will contact Avon and Somerset Constabulary for further comment and clarification.

But first, I'll wait till they get back to me on my previous question on the use of "kettling" during the recent student demonstrations in Bristol.

One thing at a time.

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Legally Speaking

Driving back from town yesterday, I was stopped by a police officer who handed me a leaflet about Operation Tonic, the campaign by Avon and Somerset Constabulary to reduce drink driving. I had forgotten that this is an annual occurrence in early December on Whiteladies Road - education and awareness raising first, followed by a proper crackdown nearer Christmas.

In the course of the conversation with the officer, I was asked if I had my driving licence with me.

When I said I did not, I was politely informed that I was required to carry my licence (both parts), my MOT certificate and my insurance certificate whenever I drive anywhere.

I didn't know this was the law.

Does anyone know whether this is correct, and if so, when these requirements were enacted?

I'll be investigating further.

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From LA to Bristol?

A couple of weeks ago, seven miles of streets in the city of Los Angeles were closed for the day.

About 100,000 people took over the streets on non-motorised vehicles.

Could we do it here?

CicLAvia, Let’s Go! from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

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Undressed Roads in Westbury

Reports of the preemptive surface dressing of Hilsdon and Southdown Roads have, like those of Mark Twain's death in the 19th century, been greatly exaggerated.

Barely had the wide-bellied construction workers unloaded their signs and road closure barriers than they were gone, leaving Westbury's favourite cut-through (with the possible exception of Chock Lane) once again open to non-residents and - more to the point - undressed.

We the people can only speculate as to the meaning of this week's strange events. One theory exercising the men folk of the neighbourhood as they debate the great matters of state at the Prince of Wales on Stoke Lane is that the crew who arrived and disapeared wtihin 48 hours at the start of the week were in fact not the surface dressing team but the surface measuring team.

If so, we can presumably expect the surface dressing team to arrive and dress the surfaces sometime between May and September - the time frame stated on the original yellow signs whose appearance this week casued such a stir among the local citzens.

All is clear. Stay tuned for further deveopments.

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Council Finishes Project Before Starting it

Last week, without warning, the gentle folk of the Hillsdon and Southdown Road areas of Westbury on Trym, were all astir at the arrival of bright yellow signs on lampposts informing residents that the two roads would be "surface dressed" (whatever that means) between May and September.

Excellent, I thought as I surveyed these well-placed and colourful signs. If I were ever going to surface dress a road (whatever that means), I also would do so during the summer months when the weather is fine.

Happy, though slightly surprised, at receiving such advanced notice, my fellow citizens and I went about our business for several days, secure in the knowledge that the inevitable upheaval of local road works would not begin for at least a few weeks, possibly months.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when on waking this morning I heard not the cooing of the wood pigeon but the thumping of the petrol generator, signaling the start of major surface dressing (ibid) in the road.

The workers had arrived and by this evening they had placed barriers and no entry signs willy nilly around Westbury on Trym's favourite cut-through (with the possible exception of Chock Lane).

It appears that our local streets will have their surfaces dressed (ad nauseam) before the planned start date of the project - an achievement for which the city council planning and surface dressing department should be applauded.

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Motorway Musings

Driving home from London along the M4 on a midweek evening last week, I smiled as I passed Wooton Basset, the name of the Wiltshire town which always reminds me of a packet of sweets.

As it was late, and despite my obligatory power nap at Reading services, I was very tired and my thoughts started to wander to other places in the UK that have edible names:

• Sandwich
  

• Cheddar
  

• East Ham
  

• Appleby

• Scone
  

• Strawberry Bank

• Bakewell

Having exhausted this little game, and not even being at the Bath junction, I then turned my thoughts to places named after animals - a natural progression in my carnivorous mind from items of food to things that had the potential to become such.

My list included:

• Swanage

• Cowfold
  

• Birdlip (I know, I know, the d is silent in the local pronunciation)

• Dog Village (Devon)
  

• Duck End (Essex)
  

• Fishponds
  

• Goose Green

• Barking (stretching a point, really)
  

• Wolf's Castle
  

• Leighton Buzzard (of course)

From there, for reasons not clear to me then or since, I started to muse on place names that suggested a location best avoided:

• Gravesend
  

• Grimbsy
  

• Downham
  

• Bury
  

• Saddington

• Dulverton
  

• Lower Slaughter

Inevitably, I then turned to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum and started to list happy-sounding places. I found fewer such places coming to mind:

• Luckington
  

• Helpston
  

• Lover (in Wiltshire)
  

• Fairfield

Before I knew it, I had passed junction 18 and had caught my first sight of the orange glow of the Bristol conurbation from the top of the hill.

Game over.

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