bristol named UK’s “cycling city”

At the expense of this blog becoming one long rant at Bristol’s traffic woes, I am rendered almost speechless by todays announcement on the BBC website that Bristol has been named UK’s “Cycling City” and that the Government is going to give the city £11.4 million to create more cycle lanes. Whilst I admire the fitness angle, and the fact that it might reduce the traffic here, my problem with it all is that Bristol is not already short of cycle lanes, or cyclists. We are at the hub of the Sustrans cycle network. There are cycle lanes everywhere. What we need in Bristol is a better public transport system. And I’m not talking buses here. The bus company that runs the most services (hah!) in Bristol is First, a hopelessly incompetent bunch that really should lose their licence to operate in the city. Between their extremely high fares and their useless scheduling and punctuality they have forced a situation for people that the bike is the only way to reliably get around if you dont have a car. But that doesn’t help if you are disabled and can’t ride a bike – like me – or are elderly or very young. Bristol is a city built on hills, some very steep hills. The bike isn’t an option for some people. Please spend the money on public transport!

bristol slowly grinding to a halt

Now normally I dont post here about my whinges about Bristol and it’s traffic problems, but I am so angry right now and this IS my blog so there you go.

What is Bristol City Council doing to the traffic lights in this City? Not only do we seem to have more and more traffic lights at every junction, including nearly ALL the roundabouts (that’s a gyratory or circus to some folk) but for some inexplicable reason they seem to be getting slower and slower and letting less traffic through each time they are green. This has the effect of causing HUGE jams behind where the lights are, and these queues are joining up each morning and night. A cynical person might formulate the theory that an unscrupulous council might want to adjust the timings of the lights to make the traffic queues worse, so as to make the introduction of a congestion charge more palatable. The Bristol Blogger has admirably covered this in a recent article: http://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/consultation-the-latest-farce/ and there in the comments you can find a link to an Independent article which states that this was done in London prior to the congestion charge being introduced and that cities like Bristol were planning to do the same thing.

Now this isn’t sour grapes by some jaded car driver here. I’ve been taking the bus to work for six years, and believe me it hasn’t been easy on them either. The fares have more than doubled in that time and now many services in Bristol are being cut by the hopelessly incompetant First. My X84 and 99 services are being cut at the end of June, as well as many other services to North Bristol. We need to sort out this mess in Bristol very soon or people will start to leave the city.