BRT Questions for WoE Partnership

An item on Chris Hutt's Green Bristol Blog starts me on a hunt for information from the West of England Partnership.

WoEP have just put in a funding bid for the Ashton Vale Bus Rapid Transit scheme, and have published the 'outline business case' (OBC) that they've sent to the government. Fair enough - the plan had been approved by the Executive Members form each of the four authorities back in January, and by the Cabinets of the key councils, Bristol and North Somerset, the following month.

It had also got through the scrutiny process without any blips, in fact Jon Rogers (still in political opposition at that time) was moved to describe the 'interchange' at Temple Meads as 'a very exciting, innovative element of the scheme'. He was referring to that exciting, innovative new bus stop 400 metres from the rail station.

But the OBC that the transport planners have sent to Westminster doesn't seem to reflect the plans that our elected reps gave their blessing to a couple of months ago.

Take the Prince Street Bridge crossing of the Floating Harbour. The plans said no more than that the bridge would certainly need a bit of work, to accommodate the width and frequency of the BRT and the rerouted buses at this pinch point. There had been mention of a new bridge, or a new cycle and pedestrian bridge.

What the OBC suggests is nothing of the sort: it's very much the same bridge, but with cyclists in both directions expected to share a carriageway with the shuttling buses and, apparently, with cars and commercial traffic excluded.

I have no problem with that last bit, but I know it's controversial! You might expect the motorists' champions, the Tories, not to mention the Evening Post, to be up in arms about the exclusion of cars. After all, their leader Richard Eddy had led the campaign to prevent it back in 2006, and with some success.

Today, they had their big chance to object using the official 'scrutiny' provisions of the Partnership. But they remained silent. Reason - their very own chair of the scrutiny committee, Barbara Lewis, had cancelled the meeting because it had no business of sufficient importance! And this is the only group that scrutinises the West of England's many functions. Has the partnership done nothing worth looking at this last month?

On Friday, the four West of England Transport Executive members will be meeting at Temple Quay, and they'll be asked to 'note' that the OBC has gone in as they agreed. Except, of course, that it doesn't seem to be what they agreed. Jon Rogers, as an assiduous blog reader and twitterer, should know that by now, if he didn't already.

I've tabled some questions for answer at the same meeting, to try to bring out this and other issues around the weaknesses of the BRT scheme - not least the opportunity loss of a decent Temple Meads interchange. It will be interesting to see what the members think of them.

I'm not holding out much hope of constructive answers though. Today I got an e-mail from the same transport planners after I'd pointed out crucial contradictions (items 8 and 9 below) in the case made out for South Bristol Link Road. It said " I'm not proposing to comment on specific elements of it at this stage".

Well, if they don't tell the Executive members what they're up to, why should they treat me any better?

Roundabout Routes

The proposed Bus Rapid Transit route from Ashton Vale seemed to be welcomed by the four West of England Executive Members who were presented with the details this morning. What they didn't pick up is that it fails miserably to improve millions of journeys - by missing the golden chance to kick start a new interchange on Plot 6 at Temple Meads.

Instead, the nearest the bendy bus would get to the station would be the 'Island Site' - being what's now in the middle of the Temple Circus gyratory system. It's the furthest from the station of all the scattered bus stops around Temple Meads - but it's still being described as a new 'interchange'! Is this really the limit of the city council's vision?

It's already intended to turn the gyratory back into a light controlled junction, with Temple Way and Temple Gate forming the main through road. The listed George and Railway Hotel will find itself on the Redcliffe side of both carriageways, with more than enough land released by the works to provide a stop for the rapid transit. BRT passengers heading for the station (or emerging from the station and heading for the city centre and points west) will have to cross the main road by a new subway or bridge before they can continue their journeys by BRT. They probably won't bother. Would you?

The excuse for this abject failure is that BRT passengers heading on to Broadmead or the Centre would be delayed by as much as five minutes if their superbus had to cross Temple Way twice, to get close enough to the railway station to share its passenger facilities, along with - potentially - bus passengers to and from the rest of Bristol. The time loss for rail or bus interchange passengers somehow got left out of the calculation.

errr... isn't this BRT the flagship route that includes a new bridge over the Portishead line, a reconstructed bridge over the New Cut, two new foot/cycle bridges (the New Cut at the Create Centre and the Floating Harbour at Prince Street) and - probably - the re-engineering of the Cumberland Road bridge to give enough clearance for double-deckers? How is it that a bus underpass or bridge at Temple Meads, where they're going to rebuild the road system anyway, is so unthinkable?


Taken from the developers' 'Area Development Framework',this screenshot shows the proposed new road layout. Being a bit out of date, it also still has the rapid transit crossing Temple Way and heading off toward the railway path. Another daft idea is the 'bus hub' on the far side of Bath Bridge.

£47 million for what?

The Post reports today on the first of the proposed Bus Rapid routes, from Long Ashton Park and Ride into the centre. The story's based on a report (pdf) to the West of England Partnership.

Good to see that one suggestion I (and no doubt others) had put forward has been taken up - they're going for an 'anticlockwise loop' route, so that the inbound bendy buses will go to Temple Meads before they circle Carboot Circus and the Centre.

Even so, it's hard to see much justification for the route as a 'stand-alone' system - after all, it just replicates the existing P&R buses. Hardly worth spending £47 million to gain a couple of minutes journey time on just that route. And that's before the running costs.

Wouldn't it be wiser to put the money into, say, Oyster-type smart card ticketting systems ? That could save more than a couple of minutes on every bus journey made in Bristol