Through traffic to be banned in parts of Bristol for ‘liveable neighbourhood’ scheme

Well, it's a victory for people power... unfortunately I think a mistaken one *.  The problem (as Chris Boardman has noted) is that such failures tend to cause the council to retreat **.  And "plucky locals defeat bureaucracy" is a story which may well inspire others (think about the vandalism of LTN / ULEZ signs and cameras, or the burning of planters...)

* As slc has noted - it will be a burden to residents - if only slight, and if only temporary.  That's because all the other motorists, of course... and without making a start that will never change.  Although as Dnnnnnn notes some of these stories stretch the boundaries of "inconvenience" or in the case specified "is that actually a real thing"?

** Oddly I'm not sure councils cave in so often when it's driving infra, and getting blocked doing that in one place doesn't seem to cause them to stop building driving infra in others.  Apparently this only applies to "untested - well, untested here" active travel measures...

Apparently protetesters were also blocking the road to cyclists this morning.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bristolcyclists/posts/9473161649381409/

(about halfway down)

hawkinspeter wrote:

It's proper kicking off!

Wow!  I find it hard to understand sometimes - but I guess I'm woke now.

Presumably it's "you've made something worse - why?"  And "I can't drive in all directions as before, which means that I'll need to take a different route sometimes.  That is ... intolerable".

Presumably they see this as e.g. if a journey takes 10+ minutes longer this will "ruin their life" e.g. they'll need to re-organise taking their kids places, getting to work, events they attend, shopping?  For a bit ... but isn't Bristol traffic already so bad that it might be quicker to walk?  And prone to unpredictable delays?

I guess if you rarely walk or cycle then "distance" is really however long it takes to drive.  And the terrible thing is in cities we've been sold a pup - driving is nothing like the adverts.

But on the face of it the protests sound like: "Save our traffic sewers!  What do we want?  Unsafe streets!  When do we want them?  24x7!  Congestion for children!"

Is it "urban jungle dwellers panic if outside the forest of cars"?  A lack of constant traffic makes people nervous?

The protesters say there was never a traffic problem on most of these roads  and that the scheme so far has created only problems, including heavier traffic on some roads - the latter is to date true. They agree that Bristol traffic is slow, and think this scheme means they need to drive further through more of it. They do agree that two roads are problematic. They believe that simple interventions (zebra crossings, higher kerbs, double yellow lines) would solve the problems that they recognise. So their case is internally consistent, while they think that there is no alternative to driving, and no strong need to find one.

That sounds a good summary.  Of course, they may find "simple interventions" don't do what they think.  And if "nobody messes around with their streets" (e.g. council change nothing) things won't necessarily remain "how they always were" anyway.

However "what is, is" and people generally just accept the "unplanned" inconvenience, noise, road death etc...

Lots of people don't see alternatives to mass driving - even if they don't drive themselves.  And usually they're entirely correct, for the life they have built around mass motoring.  Change would indeed mean ... change.

hawkinspeter wrote:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/police-called-residents-block-work-9895466

It's proper kicking off!

I do wish the reporters would challenge some of the claims made, e.g.
""If I need to get to [my friend] in an emergency, I've got to go the long way round and it could cost his life".
From where to where is this journey? What emergency, life-critical care relies on one nearby friend - and why? What happens when the carer-friend isn't nearby? And - if I was this friend - I'd want to know why the person I rely on to save my life isn't prepared to risk a fine for driving through a bus gate*!
*which might also make the emergency response journey quicker by removing most traffic currently using that route.

I'm sure she is genuinely concerned - like the disabled woman who claims she can't get her regular-sized van down a street the bin lorries manage OK - but it does sound like she might just be - y'know - wrong.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I think that's a problem in general with journalists - most of the time they're just copying press releases or simply repeating quotes without doing anything deeper such as getting to the truth of the matter.

“If it bleeds it leads”, as the old saying goes. And the EBLN is great for the local media - like a mini-Brexit with more human interest.

I do have some sympathy for local reporters though - there's probably not a lot of reward when people want your work for free. And at least they didn't turn it into a "KILLER BUS GATE" headline.

Dnnnnnn wrote:

but it does sound like she might just be - y'know - wrong.

Effectively the argument that councils and others keen to see the scheme succeed are stuck with. Always a difficult sell - convincng people that things will work out because they will turn out to be wrong. Very much the kind of thing that gets you jeered out of town, as the council reps found, even if it is also at the core of sane democracy.

A good thing that populism is on the way out then...

Dnnnnnn wrote:

“If it bleeds it leads”, as the old saying goes.

I thought the saying was, "If it bleeds, we can kill it"? 

Appears that the scheme installation has now been paused

Sad news! I hope the council acts against the baying mob.

Maybe the council should put up signage to encourage motor traffic through those areas - after alll, that's clearly what the residents want...

I wonder how quickly they'd all decide they wanted a LTN after all.

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Maybe the council should put up signage to encourage motor traffic through those areas - after alll, that's clearly what the residents want...

I wonder how quickly they'd all decide they wanted a LTN after all.

There's plenty of traffic along Avonvale and Marsh Rd already without needing to encourage it.

I hope it doesn't sound too mean-spririted when I note that the face of opposition has publicly said that they live on Victoria Ave. That road had around 500 vehicle movements each day in the count before the scheme - compared to 4,000 for Beaufort Rd, 5,000 for Avonvale Rd, and 18,000 for Church Rd. 

They could send some protesting farmers with their tractors down there. They'd love that.

Good URL though

Good link- usual Bingo comments with malevolent thicko NIMBYs pretending to care about the disadvantaged, disabled etc. On the same page is the enlightening "Man dies after being found seriously injured in Bristol"- this is about 99% probability a hit-an-run, but the death is described by the police as 'not being suspicious'. This roughly translates as 'somebody driving a vehicle has killed somebody else, but that's not deemed to be as serious as somebody not driving a vehicle killing somebody else. The police statement wording implies that their 'investigative enquiries' were completed by about 5:50am- I hope this is not true.

All good - it's stuff like this which ought to be "just do it already" and which should be "quick wins" (because has zero effect on motor traffic when it's not vital).  As we've seen even "slam dunk" stuff like this can become a battle though!

Also perhaps "nothing to see here" but to my eye curious language: "... temporary barriers" but " ... The permanent schemes encourage ..." - suggesting that maybe even temporary barriers erected for a short period twice a day might be seen as a big change and subject to being removed if "it causes congestion" etc.

I'm actually wary of changes that have little impact - because these tend to be "window dressing" set out so we can say we have one thing when in fact the status quo is unchallenged.

Example: my building is actually on a signed "home zone".  It's a cul-de-sac leading to a car park - street goes nowhere else.  Some "engineering" has been done - the street is signed 20mph and it narrows to a single lane in several places, plus the required double-yellows and signs are everywhere.  But the home zone sign means nothing legally and of course people carry on as normal, paying little attention to parking restrictions or speed limits.

I've not seen children playing in the street.

Maybe they are waiting on their bikes at a red light while wearing an orange jacket and a helmet. 

How is St Werburghs going to have a school street outside it?  The road outside it is the main road - other than the motorway - to get out of the city centre to points north (St Werburghs, Eastgate, Eastville, etc).