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.

 

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

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.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Related articles

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

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.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Filton Bomb Scare

The A38 has been closed both ways at Gypsy Patch Lane this afternoon following the discovery of a suspect package in the area about quarter to four.

The army explosives team are on site, according to Avon and Somerset Police, and a few buildings have been evacuated in the immediate area.

The closure is between Gypsy Patch Lane and Station Road.

Word from the front gate is that there are suggestions that the package was found inside the Rolls Royce factory in the area. Others have claimed it was in the Royal Mail sorting depot on the other side of the dual carriageway.

All traffic, including buses, are being diverted so there is considerable congestion in all approaches though by 6.30 the road had been re-opened, without an explosion, as far as I can gather, so it looks like the whole thing was a hoax.


Post Script: it seems that the only mainstream reporter on site was Martin Jones of Original Radio. You can hear is report from the scene here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Find Hannah Saaf

Police have named the owner of the white Ford Focus estate that crashed into a group of children last Friday night, killing 11-year old Sam Riddall.

Police are searching for the owner, Hannah Saaf of Kingsdown, who also goes by the name of Hannah Jewell.

A woman described as white, with blonde hair and in her mid-30s was seen running from the scene of the crash in Eastfield Road.

Hannah's photo can be seen on the Evening Post website here and anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to contact crimestoppers immediately on 0800 555 111.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Boy Killed in Hit and Run in Westbury on Trym

An 11-year old boy has been struck by a car and killed in Eastfield Road in Westbury on Trym.

The female driver - described as white, in her mid-30s and with long blonde hair - fled the scene and is being sought by the police in connection with the incident, which is the second fatal hit and run event in Bristol this week, following the death of Troy Atkinson near Cabot Circus seven days ago.

The Westbury on Trym incident occured around 9.15 last night (Friday) and the Evening Post has more details of the tragedy here.

The victim has been named by the police as 11-year old Sam Riddall of Westbury Park.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

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.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

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.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Fun for the Weekend

Just when I was unsure of how to spend my leisure time this weekend, the answer has fallen into my lap.

In celebration of the removal of the traffic lights from the junction of Westbury Hill and Falcondale Road, I will be driving back and forth like a madman between Texaco and White Tree roundabout, no longer playing my little game of count-the-twentieth-car- in-anticipation-of-an-amber light.

Just watch me.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

No Business Like Snow Business

Well, what a day.

Bristol's worst, or best, snow in somewhere between 10 and 350 years has taken the city by storm.

Today's whiteout began for me while still dark with the gleeful sound of a younger member of the Trym clan announcing, text message in hand, that school was cancelled and that the buses weren't running.

This second piece of information had me scurrying to the computer for confirmation from First Bus that the three centimetres of snow that had fallen overnight had in fact resulted in the total collapse of the public transport system of England's fifth city.

Unfortunately, the only information I could find on the First web site was a piece of PR on the recently unveiled fleet of new buses (which increase by at least 46 the number of places in the city where I can be secretly filmed under the guise of making me feel safer) and information on how to get to Cabot Circus by bus - a journey that those familiar with this blog would know that I would only take if the one marked "Death Leap Over the Avon Gorge" were already fully booked.

First's strange silence on the subject of whether it would be running a service today was broken in the early evening with this item, announcing that "On Thursday afternoon, the majority of services were running normally" - a fact that all but the visually impaired could have confirmed by looking out of their windows at the numerous buses running normally along the slushy streets.

The uncertainty in the morning on the state of the buses lead me to some considerable inner debate, only fully appreciated by those of us fortunate enought to be self-employed, as to whether to embark on a one-hour walk to my usual place of work (the car being used by another member of the Trymites) or to "work from home."

Five hours later, and having wrestled control of the car from its former user, I made the short journey to Redland. And what a happy sight greeted me on the way. With the majority of adults (teachers excepted) firmly ensconced in their places of work, the city had been taken over by several thousand of its bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youth, who were gleefully turning every available patch of public space into a winter wonderland of snowmen, snow furniture and ludicrously over the top snowball fights, of the type long banned by the kind of people who put secret cameras into buses.

I was amused to note that more than a couple of the ten thousand snowballs thrown managed to hit the numerous First buses now scurrying pele mele around the city. Oh the irony.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

View from the Bus Stop

Waiting at the bus stop on Falcondale Road this week, I noticed the following people and vehicles passing me:

• A long black stretch limo with a white chauffeur and a black man in the front seat. As the luxury car passed, I noticed that the black man was wearing a formal jacket and a dog collar.
• An old white haired man in a covered electric buggy driving along the pavement to Somerfield.
• A white woman with scrapped back brown hair screeching at the other three occupants of the beat up Toyota.
• A luxury motorhome with a dog in the back window who barked incessantly at other motorists whenever the motorhome came to a stop.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Letting the Train Take the Strain Through the Middle of Bristol

I cannot tell you how excited I was last week to take my first journey on the Bristol Suburban Light Railway.

But I will try.

From the moment I walked down the ramp from Clifton Down Shopping Centre towards the platform to the time I alighted at Stapleton Road, I was as happy as a sandboy.

For a start, the journey was so quick. Clifton Down to Easton took 11 minutes - a journey which would have lasted nearly 40 had I taken the required two buses via the centre.

Costwise, I had to part with £1.50, which struck me as reasonable. The Severn Beach Line, on which I travelled, is awash with rumours of how easy it is to travel for free on these trains as there are no ticket machines at any of the stations between Severn Beach and Temple Meads. I suspect these urban folk tales have grown with the telling. At any rate, the lunchtime service I took had a conductor selling tickets - a bit like the old days on buses before the drivers took on that task.

The icing on the cake, however, was the experience of seeing Bristol from new and unusual angles. How many of us (gaffiti artists excluded) have felt the frisson of excitement that can only be generated by looking down onto Gloucester Road from the viaduct that crosses it at the point where it meets Cheltenham Road and Zetland Road? Or, have we noticed the extent of the allotments at Aashey Down and St Werburgh's?

The only drawback that I can see is that the trains run only once every 45-60 minutes at present. I estimated there were about 20 people in the train's two carriages as it headed inbound to Temple Meads. If the frequency of journeys were doubled and the service advertised effectively, I would think that the service could go a long way towards relieving congestion in the centre and west of the city.

Friends of the railway maintain an online presence here. Bristol West MP Stephen Williams also thinks the local service is a very good thing and has some things to say about it here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Skateboard Santa

I was rather bemused on Friday night when, driving through the centre of Bristol, I saw not one but two santa's careering along the pavement on skateboards.

In both cases, Father Christmas was holding a can of Stella Artois.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Somerfield Falcondale Road

Was struck this evening, while filling up at Texaco in Westbury on Trym that, despite having walked past the petrol station every day since it opened, I have not once seen a single car drive in or out of the car wash.

White elephant?

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Pay as you go Cycling Arrives in Bristol

The new pay-as-you-go cycle project has been launched (if ten bikes located at UWE may justifiably be described in such grand terms).

Hourbike requires users to register their membership online and then pay £1 by the hour for the use of the bikes, which are kept in secure parking areas and released through an individual PIN. The first 30 minutes are free.

The scheme is the first visible element of the much-publicised plan to spend M £20 of public money on turning Bristol into a cycling city. The plan has to be a good one in broad terms, though the Bristol Blogger, among others, has a much more detailed analysis of aspects of the overall scheme here.

When Hourbike moves to the city centre from its Frenchay base, I'll be signing up.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Fat Boy Sim

Making my way to work yesterday on the number 1 bus from Somerfield in Westbury on Trym to Whiteladies Road, I found myself sitting just behind two passengers who were having a disagreement.

The larger of the two was waiting at the bus stop on Canford Road and boarded the bus with his mobile firmly placed to the side of his head. His conversation continued from entering the bus through to his departure on Blackboy Hill.

Tension arose when the gentlemen, who was of some girth, adjusted his position in order to fit more comfortably onto the double bus seat he had occupied. The woman next to him - well spoken and silver haired - clearly felt inconvenienced by this movement and proceeded to adjust her own position in such a way as to communicate her displeasure at being in quite such close proximity to her fellow passenger.

The phone man, who was continuing his conversation uninterrupted, expressed surprise through his facial expression at the movement of the senior citizen next to him. This gesture afforded his neighbour the opportunity to make her feelings more explicit:

"You're taking up too much of the seat. I don't want to move for you. You've got a problem," were, I think, her exact words.

Clearly surprised, her fellow traveller proceeded to explain to his mobile what was happening.

After an uncomfortable few minutes, during which my fellow passengers stared hard into their copies of The Metro in that way that made it obvious they were not reading them but were listening intently for the drama to develop, the two passengers exchanged unflattering opinions about one another while the larger (and younger) of the two provided a running commentary on the proceedings to his Motorola.

Although I was not able to catch every word, I do recall him explaining to his friend on the other end of the phone that he was required, among other things, to attend the local police station that day in order to register his whereabouts with the officers - a detail which sent a frisson of nervous excitement through the attentive passenger body, who had now lowered their Metros and were fully attentive to the proceedings unfolding in suburbia.

The culmination of the discussion was when the portly passenger made his exit from the bus. Both travellers had clearly been preparing their final salvos for just this event. Hers consisted of, "You're a very rude and unpleasant person." His was more double-edged: "Have a nice day; though with a face like that I'm surprised you had the courage to come out."

A murmur of low level conversation around the bus followed the conclusion of these proceedings, during which time the senior citizen explained to a woman behind her that her former travelling companion had announced into his phone that he was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease - a claim I did not hear myself, but one which afforded me just that bit too much detail at that time of the morning.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Bristol Bus Secrets

Returning home by bus this this week, I have twice found myself transported from my place of work by trainee bus drivers and have thus been able to observe (discreetly, from behind my copy of the Metro) part of the process by which a new driver is inducted into the profession, at least as far as employees of First Bus are concerned.

As a result of this eavesdropping, I have discovered the following tricks of the trade, passed on apprentice-like from an experienced driver to a novice:

• the way to remember the correct route when driving the number 20 as it passes through Bishopston is to think of the game of chess - "King ('s Drive), Bishop (Road)"
• when seeking to pull out of a bus stop, the procedure is to indicate right, check the mirror and drive on. Waiting for cars to stop is ineffective, apparently
  
• If your route takes you along a narrow road, indicating right while driving along it raises your profile before oncoming vehicles and encourages them to pull over to their left
• the Lake Road bus stop near the junction of Henleaze Road and Southmead Road is "tricky". Very few passengers there actually wish to board the 20 or 21 and are in fact waiting for another service. Pulling over at this point places your bus in the left hand lane of a short dual carriageway, immediately before you need to be in the right hand lane in order to turn into Eastfield Road for Westbury on Trym village. The policy, therefore, is to ignore the stop unless flagged down.
  

View Larger Map





If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Bike Bristol

Driving home yesterday up Gloucester Road, I had a strange experience. At 5.30 in the middle of the rush hour, I found mine the only car on the short stretch of road between Zetland Road and the old swimming baths.

Not the only vehicle, I hasten to add, as I was surrounded by bicycles.

I wasn't aware that there was a cycle protest on. But there were about 30 cyclists heading my way up the road.

It was a strange but rather pleasant experience as I got a glimpse of what Bristol might become as it moves towards its status of cycling city.

Maybe it will look more like Amsterdam.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Bristol Cycling City

Thank goodness for the independent media.

Without such robust reporting and campaigning as that evidenced by Trym Tales (if clicking a mouse may be considered a political act) Bristolians might still be choking in their own traffic fumes.

Thankfully, the powers that be - including the Department for Transport, Sustrans and Bristol City Council - have clearly been reading this blog and have responded promptly to a post this February calling for a bike sharing scheme to be implemented in the city.

In fact, they have gone a stage further and designated Bristol as England's first cycling city, a move which will see over £20 million spent on bike-related infrastructure.

In happily wallowing in its own self-congratulation at this impressive result, Trym Tales would like to make clear that at no time did it call for either of the following related cycling initiatives to be implemented, both of which are apparently part of the grand scheme:

• Cycling buddies assigned to help novices
• Door-to-door, one-on-one advice in some areas
  

On the latter issue, I was somewhat perplexed to read that, according to the BBC, this advice will involve Council officials going "door to door in low income areas evangelizing about the benefits of cycling." I wonder why Lawrence Hill rather than Sneyd Park will be targeted in this way, the former having far fewer cars per head than the latter.

Political correctness not withstanding, the scheme is of course welcomed. At its best, it has the potential to effect a significant and positive shift in the Bristol traffic scene.

Since Trym Tales is clearly punching above its weight in this area, I will offer my additional contributions to the debate, safe in the knowledge that they will become public policy within months. The question is, what would cause a flabby, middle-aged suburbanite (not thinking of anyone in particular) to cycle more in Bristol? Two factors would be decisive:

Secure, monitored cycle lock up areas

I hate having stuff stolen. Having lost numerous children's bikes, scooters and a moped from my property over the years, I just hate being the victim of this kind of crime.

Bike repair shacks located throughout the network

It's no use telling me it's easy to learn - people have tried with me for decades. Fixing things, including repairing tires, is a life skill that has sadly passed me by. A shed where I can get my puncture fixed on demand at a reasonable price would make a difference between using or not using a bike.

Right, campaigning done. Back to the football.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Today in Westbury

Westbury on Trym Primary School held its annual Red Squirrel Day this afternoon. Bunting galore on Channells Hill.

Elmlea Junior and Infants Schools also held their combined annual Summer Fair, building work not withstanding.

Kumon Educational held a group presentation for parents interested in the Summer Taster at their regional office in the village.

Texaco on Falcondale Road ran out on unleaded petrol this evening.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.