First Bus and the Wrath of Abraham

On Sunday, workers on behalf of the council were scurrying round the city's bus stops posting the new timetables that First Bus had introduced that very day. In some back office, similar changes had being made to on-line information, like the Travel Plus real-time pages and the Traveline South-West pages. 

Other essential changes to be made at public expense will be to update the city bus map, though for some considerable time yet passengers will have to make do with the outdated one (published as recently as July) 

First were just as quick to update their own website with the changes, and an explanation

Not too bad for those with web access, then. But a dead loss for those without. First Bus, the architects and decision makers behind the changes, had promised to distribute paper copies of the new timetables, but none were to be seen at the usual outlets – the Bus Station, Temple Meads, and the Tourist Information Centre (the last two checked today, Thursday!)

Most Stockwood bus users will have been surprised to see, instead of the familiar 54 bus, a newcomer with a 2 on the front plying the same route.  (In the 48 hours since, several 54's were spotted – presumably last week's buses running late).   The number change seems to be merely cosmetic, but it does mean quite disproportionate change in travel information services.   The new, more frequent, timetable is billed as providing an evenly spaced 5-minute frequency (together with the 1 Broomhill – Cribbs Causeway service) on the shared route between Temple Meads and the White Tree roundabout on the Downs.   Seeing will be believing.

But these minutiae are as nothing compared with the impact on Sneyd Park  (which is, of course, where Peter Abraham comes in to the story).   There, First have the effrontery to introduce a route change on the outbound no.40 route moving it a street away from its present course along the narrow Julian Road – where, they say, 'inconsiderate parking' affects the punctuality and reliability of services.

Cue outrage from Cllr Abraham, faithfully relayed by the Post.  Consultation on these changes was seriously limited.  (He's right on that).   Never mind that the changes on this particular route will provide late buses between Bristol and Avonmouth (the lack of which Cllr A has complained of volubly – and rightly – before).   Never mind that its purpose is to get buses running to time despite the best efforts of local car drivers to delay them.

Oddly, it's been left to Alderman Brenda Hugill, ex Labour councillor for Lawrence Hill, to try to get the Mayor to explain First's failure to consult the public over the route change at Sneyd Park.   Cllr Abraham has bigger fish to fry at Tuesday's full council meeting; he's moving a motion of no confidence in First.  It reads:
“This Council has ‘no confidence’ in the ability of First to run an affordable, comprehensive and reliable bus service for the benefit of the people of Bristol. Accordingly, as a matter of urgency, we call upon the Mayor and his Cabinet to consider every option available to them to remedy this situation, and finally deliver the kind of quality public transport provision this city deserves.”

Few could disagree with the sentiment, or the evidence – for as long as I can remember, successive council transport bosses have been struggling to get any significant co-operation from First.  But it is, as the BBC's Robin Markwell notes 

“a purely symbolic gesture by Bristol's Tories as the council does not control the buses “

Perhaps if the motion was phrased to put pressure on government to change the law that gives First it's disproportionate and self-serving powers, it would be a bit more relevant to the real problem.  

As it is, it's mere grandstanding, as self-serving as anything that the bus company does.

[The 'golden motion' on Tuesday, to be moved by Tess Green, is much more constructive – it's to make sure council contracts don't go to companies operating employment blacklists.   Might be interesting to see what the Tory line is* on that.....]

(added 10th Sept)
* No surprises there.  Tory councillors, including our two from Stockwood, followed like sheep behind their leader, who opposed the Green motion, dismissing it as a 'rentamotion' but otherwise offering no opinion on the companies who operate illegal blacklists, some of them being Tory funders.  Fortunately the rest of the council were a bit more principled and the motion was carried comfortably.

Meanwhile....The 1/2 timetable is out now on paper.   The delay must have been to get the proofreading  right.

Doubting Tessa

Tessa Coombes, until recently the Director of Marketing, Membership and Policy at Business West, has started her own blog, subtitled "policy & politics blog with a focus on place".  

 

She kicks off with a nicely balanced piece "The South Bristol Link – A Road to Nowhere?", about a project that, on behalf of her employers, she used to champion. 

In fact the name 'South Bristol Link' is attributable to Tessa, who advised in an internal 2006 briefing (now sadly removed from the Business West website) about what was then called the South Bristol Ring Road:

"Think about a new name for the road – it has a serious image problem! South Bristol Link Road, Bedminster Bypass – anything to get away from the idea of a ring road – “ring roads take people through places, not to them”.

The advice was heeded; even the word 'road' was removed from the project. On the ground, though, the road signs weren't changed. Now, the new road is even named in the North Somerset / Bristol joint working agreement as the 'SOUTH BRISTOL BUS LINK', although well under 1% of its users will be using buses or more sustainable transport.

On its present course, the Ring Road follows a circuitous line by way of the Parson Street gyratory and Winterstoke Road before it releases its load onto the A370, north towards the Portway or southwest into Somerset.   At its eastern end, the options are east on the A4 to Bath or continuing round the Avon Ring Road, or north to the St Philips Causeway for the M32 and the M4.

If the SBL is built, ring road traffic might get through South Bristol a few seconds quicker, and there'll be more of it. But it will still be a Ring Road.

........

The same Business West briefing acknowledged the lack of evidence for a new road doing anything to improve business development in South Bristol:

"The argument for the ring road suggests it will have a beneficial impact in access to existing employment sites (and may even open up new). If this is the case then these need to be clearly identified. If Cater Road and Hawkfield Business Parks will benefit, where is the evidence? Need facts and figures to support the economic development arguments particularly as more recent evidence on new road provision would not support this case.”

7 years later, and free to express a view outside Business West, Tessa still has doubts on this score:

“Only time will tell whether or not such a road will create jobs and encourage business to locate in the area, but all my instincts tell me that providing improved road access to South Bristol is only a very minor part of the problem. Businesses will still not locate there if the office/business space is not attractive, the right skills are not available locally and the local environment doesn’t provide what their staff need. “

Surely, the business lobby should be making that case – the new road is an expensive, damaging, irrelevancy.

More Pearls from the Link (and a conspiracy theory)

(or...  Why have the figures been drastically changed ?)

There've been some changes made.   Back in 2009, when all the intensive work was being done, consultants Mott MacDonald came up with figures for the likely traffic impacts of the South Bristol Link.

Among all the stats, it was revealed that the road would draw enough traffic onto the new alignment to push up the numbers at both ends.  At Brunel Way, as it passes Bower Ashton, another 6,000 vehicles a day would funnel in with the 35,000 that pack it now;  along Hengrove Way/Airport Road, there'd be an extra 5,000 on top of the 16,500 that we see today.   Frightening, but not really surprising.

Meanwhile, advised Mott MacDonald's experts, the Bus Rapid Transit (sorry, I must learn to call it 'Metrobus') would carry 3,000 people a day along the leg of its journey between Hartcliffe and the A38.

But that was in the olden days.   Planning Committees reading the latest reports will find the goal posts have been adjusted and traffic projections rounded right down – and not directly comparable because daily figures aren't given, only the hourly peak and the 'interpeak average'.   So on Brunel Way, the new road is now claimed to have no significant effect on traffic levels approaching the Cumberland Basin in the morning rush.   Back at Hengrove, the planning committee will be told, morning peak traffic will actually drop (!) once the same road becomes a new ring route through South Bristol.

Just as the traffic numbers are now being played down, it turns out that the SBL Metrobus (you know, the one that's going to be good enough to get people out of their cars) will also carry far less passengers – certainly a tiny number compared with the forecasts on which the scheme was developed.  This link (figs 7-12) shows that for most of the running hours, and much of the route, throughout the 15 year study, hourly passenger numbers won't even reach double figures, let alone the 3,000 a day plus on which the whole SBL project was sold.

Conspiracy or cock-up?   It needed high passenger figures to justify the scheme in the first place.  With that out of the way, and funding secured, low passenger figures can justify dropping the expensive, uneconomic bus element of BRT altogether, leaving just the highway, a new ring road, and a stimulus for developing the Green Belt.  Job done.

Of course, I made that last bit up.   It couldn't possibly be true.  After all, we're going to be European Green Capital.

Badgers and Bikes

For years, badgers have been digging and enlarging their sett on the 'Whitchurch Way' cycle path with a multitude of entrances either side of the tarmac. Now the path has collapsed into one of the interlinking tunnels.

The city council, quite properly, won't fix the path till they get advice about protecting the badgers.  Down the road in Somerset, though, they're preparing to shoot the creatures, healthy or not, in a (probably ineffective) attempt to reduce the incidence of bovine TB in cattle. There's a good dispassionate summary of the issue in this Science Media Centre briefing

Apart from cattle and badgers, the disease can also be carried and transmitted by deer, horses, cats and dogs.  Bikes too, for all I know.  All of them frequent this stretch of the path, which has direct links into dairy and beef farms. 

So doesn't the logic of the cull suggest that dogs, cats, horses and cyclists should be shot too?

Pearls from the Link

The mass of documents published as part of the planning application to build the South Bristol Link must baffle most of us who want to submit an informed comment. And every day it's being added to with more letters of support or objection. I've just put my own objection in; they're still being accepted.

To ease the burden, the links below are for the key 'Transport Assessment', which is part of the Environment Assessment and unhelpfully scattered in bits randomly around the official documents list.

Part 1 (there's an index in this one – after that you're on your own)

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Especially illuminating are the predicted peak hour traffic flows – demonstrating, for instance, that once the road-builders have gone, residents of quiet, leafy King Georges Road will get over a thousand vehicles passing through in the morning rush. Not to mention those three (yes, THREE) passengers shared between half a dozen spanking new Metrobuses.

Still, every cloud..... Over at Barrow Gurney, they already get a thousand vehicles through in the morning peak, so they're naturally very keen to see the new road built. As one resident says,

"Villages like Barrow Gurney have been severely damaged with both the buildings and the community smashed by increasing traffic levels. In places the carriageway is only 14 feet wide with stone walls and no pavement but cars expect to be able to pass each other irrespective of any villagers trying to access village amenities such as the pub, village hall, playground and shop as well as visit friends. It is an attractive village with most of the houses in the centre listed but this narrow winding road carries around 15,000 cars a day, every day with no respite at weekends and bank holidays. The children and old people in the village need to be able to walk in safety but cars make no concession for pedestrians. The last village appraisal revealed that 15% of residents had been struck by cars in the village centre so it is not surprising that 85% of villagers felt unsafe walking in the village. Such a situation is unacceptable.”

The SBL predictions suggest that the traffic along Barrow Lane will be halved when the new link opens. Only a partial solution, then - maybe only 7.5% of residents will be struck by cars.   Still, there's at least one of the offending drivers who's conscience stricken - and looks forward to a clearer run. He writes:

“I write as a North Somerset resident, as a chartered civil engineer and transport planner, and as Chairman of Bristol Chamber of Commerce's Transport Group, which I represent on the Mayor of Bristol's Transport Advisers Panel.

I moved to Bristol in 1984. At the time, the construction of the road that is now known as the South Bristol Link was part of the strategic plan for the area. I believed then, and continue to believe, that the construction of the road will be of major benefit, both by improving access to the communities in South Bristol and by providing a bypass to remove through traffic from Barrow Gurney.

I moved to Wrington in 1987. Since then, for 23 of the intervening years, I have commuted to Bristol via the A38, through Barrow Gurney and along the Long Ashton Bypass. Despite peak period hold ups in Barrow Gurney, this is the quickest route between home and work and takes my journey past fewer homes than any other option, meaning that my commute causes the least nuisance to others. That same route is preferred for many journeys between Bristol Airport and Bristol. Consequently, with increased air travel, it has become steadily busier and the traffic on it must cause significant harm to the quality of life of residents in Barrow Gurney.

I wish to express my wholehearted support for the scheme both because of my self interest, in that it will improve my journey to work, and because it will provide so many wider benefits for North Somerset and south Bristol.”

Now there's a saint! Wherever would we be without transport planners like this?

Fortnum & Mason comes to Stockwood

An advance party spotted this morning.

They've settled on a site on Hencliffe Road.

Question is, are we on the way up, or are they on the way down?

They're bringing in stocks already.

Click here for the video

Angst at Ingst

I've never been to Olveston. Streetview tells me it's nice but unremarkable.  Without a car, it's a tricky place to get to and from. Occasionally a bus passes through the village during the working day, headed for Cribbs Causeway or Yate, but it's not the sort of service you'd rely on for anything beyond a carefully planned trip to the shops; anything more needs a help from a journey-planner or a travel agent. Naturally, most of Olveston's residents will have to depend on a car or three to lead anything like a normal, 21^st century life. It's quite nicely placed for that... not far from Almondsbury, Severn Bridge, and the M48/M4 junction.

The village expanded hugely in the sixties, so now something over 2,000 people live there. And they face a common foe in the shape of REG windpower.

A couple of Cornish wind turbines ruining the view

REG windpower plan to bring the village to its knees by erecting two wind turbines over the other side of the motorways, at the hamlet of Ingst.

I'm not exaggerating. I've read a few of the objections to the planning application.

The curate takes the view that village children won't be able to concentrate at school, and would be better off with a nuclear reactor for a neighbour.

The owners of a local 'country park' business fear their car-borne customers will be frightened off from their £7 a pop 'uncommercialised' park if a couple of turbines are visible, causing redundancies all round.

Helpfully, a UKIP councillor explains the background.... it's all thanks to European regulation plus the Tory ruling classes, who are “using turbines to generate themselves and their friends huge amounts of money at the expense of the tax payer and the poor people and animals that have to suffer these monstrosities “.

Of course there are also some in that neighbourhood brave (or foolhardy) enough to declare themselves in favour of the turbines, by adding their comments to the planning application. Their addresses are in the application papers. We know where they live.

Meanwhile, the applicants are shamelessly promising that they'll put substantial cash into the local community if the scheme goes ahead. Not only that, but the turbines, once up and running, will be offered to the Bristol Energy Co-operative, if they can raise the finance through a community share offer. Community ownership, in fact. Or creeping socialism.

There's no date yet for the South Glos. planning meeting, and they do still seem to be accepting comments from the public. Mindful that the tip of the turbine blades may be visible from this side of the city, Stockwood Pete has just chipped in with his own two-penn'orth.