Abraham's 'Empty Heads' Law.

It's always going to be difficult when elected councillors are asked to rule on planning applications from their own councils. When it happens, they're expected to exercise the same dispassionate and independent judgement as they apply to any other planning application. That includes, in particular, avoiding any possible charge that they have prejudged the decision.

That was the situation on Wednesday, when Bristol City Council sought the blessing of its own Development Control Comittee to construct the in-city leg of the South Bristol Link Road, attracting heavy traffic through Withywood and across Highridge Common to the A38. There it joins the North Somerset leg, already approved for construction, and primarily a route that opens up green belt for development while clipping as much as a minute off airport journey times. (It will also save busy commuters the embarrassment and inconvenience of running over Barrow Gurney villagers)

On the day, the Bristol councillors voted the Withywood leg through by 8 votes to 2.

One of the dissidents was the Greens' Daniella Radice, who found a host of reasons (reinforced by the transparent failure of officers to offer convincing answers to her questions) to vote against. The other was Labour's Sean Beynon, who could not reconcile the undoubted expense of a very dubious project with a cash-strapped council being forced into harsh austerity measures by a ruthlessly ideological government (my words, not Sean's!). It just doesn't add up.

Helen Holland would surely have joined them – but as a long-standing and very public objector to the project she did the decent thing and stood down from the Committee – only to be replaced by a Labour colleague, Afzhal Shah, who decided to go with the flow and approve the road.

Of course Helen should have invoked Abraham's Empty Heads Law. All she needed was a simple statement saying “But I wish to give an absolute assurance, and that assurance is, that I come to this with a completely open mind. That must be done, and that is what I shall do.” It worked for Peter Abraham on the Ashton Vale Town Green debacle.

At least two previously-declared cheerleaders for the Link Road weren't troubled by any suspicion that they might have formed a view before the meeting. 

Both Claire Campion-Smith and Mark Wright had been part of the LibDem Cabinet that unanimously agreed to bid for government support for the road back in March 2010. Mark Wright had, at that meeting, (and in comments on this blog) rehearsed some of the same pro-road arguments as he repeated on Wednesday before voting in favour of the new road.

Planning applicants..... planning committees...... sometimes they just seem to merge into one.

(more on the nosouthbristollink website)

A Little Bit Faster. A Whole Lot Worse

Mayor George is busy creating, not to mention advertising,  a thousand 'Calmer Crescents' with the roll-out of 20mph limits on the city's residential streets.

But not in King Georges Road.

 

That doesn't get the mayoral treatment, it gets an appropriately royal going over from the West of England Partnership, egged on by the motoring and business lobbies. The Madness of King Georges Road .

Today it provides a path for around 500 vehicles a day – and it rarely, if ever, sees a juggernaut. But as soon as the South Bristol Link opens, everything changes – ten thousand 'car equivalents' will pass these front doors each day.

 

Perhaps a few will come from local businesses, rerouted from current journeys down Hartcliffe Way or along Airport Road. But by far the majority will be the traffic that already flows – or inches from standstill to standstill - along Airport Road, heading for the A38 or for the Cumberland Basin and the M5 at Avonmouth.

  

   

They'll save a few seconds too – unless the road is a victim of its own 'success' and attracts enough new traffic to cancel out even that small benefit for the driving public. As tends to happen in real life.

A little bit faster?   A Whole Lot Worse

[The Planning Application for the South Bristol section of the Link is expected to be held on Wednesday27th November at City Hall (6pm).   More on the 'NO to the South Bristol Link Road' pages]

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.

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?

BRT 2: WOTSIT 4

The Bus Rapid Transit route that will bring north Somerset commuters from the Long Ashton Park and Ride into town by a different route, didn't start that way. Originally it was part of an ambitious new network that would traverse the city. BRT2 itself was to continue right through to Emersons Green by commandeering the Bristol-Bath cycle path for the its north-eastern leg. It was also intended to be a substantially different form of transport, using guided bus ways and sufficiently unlike a bus to attract drivers to make the switch from cars to public transport.

All that fell to pieces, of course. First with the successful defence of the cycle path against the encroachment of 'rapid' buses; then with the forced budget cuts that the Department of transport insisted on (the cuts were, of, course, in the government grant. The local contribution actually went up to £15 million plus extras). The latest change is to (perhaps) revert to a rather more eco-friendly bus instead of the diesel bendy-buses that have been the first choice up to now, and to fiddle a bit with the route at Temple Meads. 

In all, the current scheme is a very different animal from the original, except in the route it's to take from the Park and Ride into the city centre.

So it's legitimate to ask what it's actually for now.

The official answer seems to be that the government has offered some money towards it. That's a bit like going into a posh shop, seeing a very expensive item that you have no use for with a big “70% OFF!” price tag, and finding the offer irresistible. Then, after paying, finding there are many more built in costs than you bargained for. And it's not something you ever wanted anyway, and now you've got to find more money for the things you really need.

Another part of the downside is the despoilation of the popular waterside walks and rides along the New Cut and the Harbourside, as tarmac and diverted buses take over from the Create Centre to the M-Shed.

Benefits? We're told that the BRT2 will clip a minute or two off some journeys into town – though that will depend heavily on budgets, frequencies and, of course, on choice of destination. It could do the same for all the other buses from north Somerset that will be diverted onto the same route instead of coming through Hotwells and Anchor Road. And it will free up bits of the Cumberland Basin highways from some of those buses, in turn encouraging more private traffic, including all the extra that will be brought by the new South Bristol Link Road. Don't expect improved traffic flow there, then!

It's that South Bristol Link Road that probably explains why BRT2 (pretty pointless in itself even for its sole beneficiaries, the north Somerset commuters) is still on the table.

Ripe for development - the S Bristol Link Road route

The Link Road (read 'Ring Road') really is a money-spinner. It's key to developing the Green Belt to the southwest of the city, just as was proposed in the Regional Spatial Strategy with the enthusiastic support of land speculators and builders. The airport expansionists have been lobbying hard for it. But it would never win funding unless there was a veneer of 'sustainability' about it. 

That's where another of the rapid transit routes comes in.
 

This one follows the alignment of the South Bristol Link Road, and wraps it in a 'sustainable public transport' label. Nobody's really  fooled of course... everyone knows that if you want to invest in a useful rapid transit system, a link between Hengrove and Ashton Vale will be near the bottom of the wish-list. But the promise of these vehicles on the new road gives planners and politicians in Bristol and London the excuse they want to build a road, opening up the green belt.

To give this BRT link a bit of added credibility (because predicted passenger figures prove it would be nowhere near economic, or even socially necessary, or accessible to most potential passengers) the route has to do more. That's where BRT2 comes in, providing that essential link to take the South Bristol Link BRT on into the city, albeit by a tortuous and time consuming route that makes nonsense of the word 'rapid'.

If BRT2 should be abandoned, there's an inescapable knock-on effect on the South Bristol Link BRT, which would lose any shred of credibility that it might still retain. And if that BRT gets abandoned in turn, it removes the sole figleaf of 'sustainability' that covered the destructive potential of the Ring Road.

I think that's why they're clinging on to BRT2.

Note: A petition has been launched asking the new mayor (whoever it may be) to cancel BRT2. You can read and sign it at https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-mayor-of-bristol-please-stop-brt2

Running Rings Round Bristol

The South Bristol Link is, exactly as predicted, morphing back into a Ring Road. The temporary green veneer that was provided by the promise of Rapid Transit is fading even before any contracts are placed.

Oh, and it's going to cost us an extra ten million quid, too.

Remember how Jon Rogers was so keen to deny that the South Bristol Link had anything to do with any ring road project? The Rapid Transit was what it was all about - even though everyone knew there was no convincing case for it.

Now, desperate to offer a road-loving, cost-cutting transport secretary what he wants (and to clip a minute or two off Steve Comer's drive to the airport), the Joint Lords of the West of England Partnership, egged on by the new Local Enterprise Partnership, have been wielding the knife with one hand and reaching for the council chequebooks with the other.

The new deal which keeps the Ring Road on the DfT table retains just the same road link between the A378 Long Ashton and Hengrove Park. The Rapid Transit is the same too - for the few hundred metres from Long Ashton P&R as far as Brookgate, where road and BRT converge just north of the railway crossing.

After that, what was a segregated guided Rapid Transit track becomes a mere nearside bus lane up the hill to the A38 at Castle Farm. To most eyes, that means it's going to be a four-lane road for most or all the time.

From there, dipping across Highridge Common through Withywood and on to the Hartcliffe roundabout, there was to have been a central carriageway for the buses. That's been ditched in the newest plan, substituted by 'nearside bus lanes on the approaches to significant junctions'. In other words, the bendybus becomes an ordinary bus on ordinary busy roads, but with less stops.

To complete the deal, the council is offering an extra £10 million from its (our) own resources toward the overall cost. £10 million that could have been set against the horrendous £70 million cuts to services that must be implemented in the next four years.

So we get the road that the businessmen and the airport operators want. The local price goes up to £17 million (plus the risk of cost overruns), but it's about more than hard cash and missed opportunity. We can also forget that talk about reducing road traffic, facing up to climate change and the threat of Peak Oil (not to mention the LibDem's claims to oppose new road building).

Welcome once more to the LibDem World of Hypocrisy.

Sources:
Scheme Description (March 2010)
Revised bid for 5 Major Transport Schemes (30/12/2010)

Whitehall puts the South Bristol Link on hold

It turns out that the West of England's bid for funds towards the cost of a South Bristol Link Road (plus the token bendy-bus route and cycleway alongside) was put on hold by Whitehall. That's even before the election, the coalition deal, and today's announcement of spending cuts. It doesn't seem to have been made public at the time, though.

Within a week of the bid going in in March, the DfT replied to say that a comprehensive spending review of its budget was to take place, affecting all major transport schemes. A decision on the South Bristol Link would therefore be delayed. They warned that "if you choose to continue work on your major scheme, it will have to be at your own risk".

It is unthinkable that the new government, with its programme of deep public spending cuts, won't take at least as strong a line.

Except for one ominous sign. The LibDems' presumption against new road building, part of their pre-election puff, has mysteriously disappeared from their website. Presumably another victim of the seductive call of power?

Public Forum Party Games

Over the years, I've used the public forum part of council meetings to ask many questions and make a few statements too. For the most part, it hasn't changed anything, except to put put things 'on record' that would be otherwise hidden. Statements are politely received then forgotten. Answers are carefully crafted to give nothing away.

It was a bit different at last week's Cabinet. The topic was the bid for the South Bristol Link (Road + BRT), which they were about to nod through. Knowing that nothing I said about the rationale for the project would change anything at this late stage, I simply pointed out that new road building is contrary to Lib-Dem national policy.

For once, they seemed to listen, and I got an animated response.

Jon Rogers (who, I suspect, is quite embarrassed by having to push this particular project through) floundered a bit: "This is not road building, it is a link route, it is a Greater Bristol Bus link route, and although there is a road element within, it is clearly not just a road"

Hmmm... yes, a new road predicted to carry 1070 vehicles in the morning peak hour, compared with 200 passengers on the parallel bus rapid transit. If it looks like a road and it smells like a road.....

Jon went on to claim the 5-page 'eco-checklist' prepared for the meeting was enough to satisfy his party's expectation of environmental protection (although there are not yet any clear predictions of the wider traffic impacts of the scheme, )

We also got the repeated mantra that "This is not a Ring Road, absolutely fundamentally, it's not". Tell that to Steve Comer, who has told his Lib Dem colleagues how much easier it will be for him to drive from East Bristol to the Airport and beyond.

Mark Wright then weighed in, undermining Jon's case with a paean of praise for the road, and the traffic it would bring to South Bristol. Somewhat obscurely, he told us that you can't have new homes without new roads (possibly a coded reference to his ambitions for green belt development?) and that you can't take a six-ton sack of sand on a bus. Thanks, Mark.

No-one bothered to refute the case put in another statement from Mike Landen of the Alliance Against the Ring Road. But then Mike wasn't being 'political', he was just stating the reasons why the Link is a bad thing.

Then, of course, they voted to put in the bid.

Ironically, given the claims that the BRT element will provide access to the city centre and beyond for S. Bristol Residents, albeit by way of Ashton Gate (the scenic route?), the next item nodded through was the Hengrove to North Fringe bus rapid transit; which provides a far more direct and fast public transport link, making the South Bristol Link BRT redundant within minutes of being approved!

Genesis of a Bendy Busroute

The decision was predictable enough... the South Bristol Bypass got the ok from the West of England Transport Executives this morning. Now it's down to the cabinets of North Somerset and Bristol to confirm they want to go ahead - followed by what (one hopes) will be close scrutiny of the whole thing by the Department of Transport.

Equally unsurpising (except in the fact that it was - in confidence - admitted by a key player) is that the Bus Rapid Transit route was added to the road scheme simply because a road by itself wouldn't stand a chance of funding. It always looked like the obvious explanation for such an unviable route - but here it was, straight from the horse's mouth.

Look out for the next bit of rebranding for BRT; Bus Rapid Transit will be deleted from the record, to be replaced by Bristol Rapid Transit. I expect we'll all still call it a bendybus.

And, while on about phrasing, how about Jon Rogers' new call, made at the same meeting, to 'bring balance to the city'? It appears to mean making South Bristol look like the North Fringe, but that doesn't sound quite the same.

More about the meeting, and what follows, on the Green Party pages.

The Leigh Court Puppeteers

In June 2007, the words 'South Bristol Ring Road' made their last appearance in the transport planners' list of projects. In July 2007, we first saw the South Bristol Link - just the same project in a new suit of clothes.

There had been no 'Windscale fire' to prompt the change of name, and many of us wondered why the rebranding had happened. Whose idea was it, and why?

The answer may lie in a briefing about the Ring Road prepared by GWE Business West a few months before. It commented:
'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” '.

So, sure enough, that's exactly what the planners and politicians did.

There was more than that to it, though.... Business West were worried too that the business case for the ring road didn't stand up:

" 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." (my emphasis)

Perhaps that explains the absolute lack of any substantive case for the regenerative effect of the proposed road. Better to say nothing than to reveal that the case doesn't stand up.

Still, who needs facts? The real problem, as always, is negative public perception! To counter this, Business West recommended:
"Produce some photos/pictures/artists impressions together for particular sections of the route to show what it could look like – tree lined avenues,
cycle/bus lanes, guided bus route etc. This would help to get away from the idea that the ring road is just a dual carriageway for cars that would segregate communities and produce barriers to walking and cycling access."

If you'd like to see how that turned out, the West of England's 'Travel+' website has the pictures

On Business West's website now, it would take an expert navigator and a lot of luck to find what they thought - and feared - back then. Now, they too talk of the 'South Bristol Link' with the same simple assumptions that it's a good way to spend money and carve through South Bristol and the Green Belt.

Almost exactly what's being presented in the officers' report to tomorrow's West of England Transport Committee.

Another dodgy dossier

Yes.... it's the ring road again. Or rather its second rebranding, as the "South Bristol Link"

And this weeks dodgy dossier is the officers report(pdf)to the Joint Transport Executive Members of the West of England Partnership. It has much in common with the pre-Iraq War dossier on WMD; high on assertions, light on facts, and driven by ideology and the need to get support before a key deadline.

A week ago, councillors from all four local authorities looked at the case for the Ring Road plus Bus Rapid Transit that the Partnership aims to bid for in March.

They weren't satisfied with what they saw. They want more more 'information to be taken into account or work commissioned before a final decision is made'. That's because they were struck above all else by "the incompleteness of the report" (their emphasis), particularly on the economic (jobs and regeneration) performance. They wonder (so do I!) what's happened to work known to have been commissioned to do the economic analysis.

It certainly doesn't appear in the latest report. No reference to any economic analysis, though there's an assertion that benefit to cost ratios come in at a satisfactory 4. Still no commercial appraisal of the BRT service, which even at peak hour isn't expected to carry more than a couple of hundred passengers over its specially laid 7km route. There's confidence enough, though, to claim :
"the scheme will lead to improved accessibility for a number of key sites, and that this will result in increasing employment densities on these sites as well as an overall improvement in the quality of jobs on these sites."
No source for that, though. Maybe they found it on the web in someone's university dissertation?

There are a few stats thrown in, though no source is quoted for them, either. They're not about economics, though, they're about predicted traffic levels, and they don't really suggest the ring road will make much difference anyway! The key DfT yardstick of city-bound journey times is - once again - nowhere to be seen.

There's even a 45 minute claim! It's said to be the average peak journey time from Hartcliffe to the city centre on today's 'showcase' bus, and that (at least for the minority living close to the BRT route), the journey time would be shortened. You'd hope that smart ticketting would by then have cut journey times on all the buses, but that's not mentioned either.

However, all this is not driven by the need to establish whether South Bristol will benefit from a road through it; it's driven by a timetable that requires a bid for 'Programme Entry' in March, and the formal agreement of two Cabinets before that. And that may not happen if the Transport Executives ask too many questions on Thursday.

The S. Bristol Green Party's 'statement'to the meeting does list sixteen questions that need clear positive answers before this scheme goes any further. If we're going to spend 50 million quid (all public money, and a sizeable chunk of it our own) lets show that it's money very well spent. Remember the alternatives we'll be missing out on.

SBLinkered

Seven years ago, our Local Transport Plan set out a vision - and minimum targets - for the kind of bus services the city should expect by this year. 98% of Bristol's residents should live within 400 metres of a bus stop that offers at least four buses an hour (daytime) to the city centre, which they would reach within 25 minutes.

Then came the Utopian vision of Bus Rapid Transit. Modern vehicles, limited stops, quick boarding, dedicated lanes.

The very latest BRT scheme, the nominally 'green' part of the South Bristol Link, was up for scrutiny by West of England councillors on Thursday.

The map (click to enlarge) shows where it goes, Hengrove to Long Ashton Park and Ride. It's intended that the BRT units would continue their circuitous route from there, swinging sharp right toward the city centre. Whether they'd complete the whole route via Temple Meads to the Centre in 25 minutes is anybody's guess, I can't find any predictions - but the route is about three times longer than a direct line would take it.


I've added red circles to the map to show how much of South Bristol comes within about 400 metres of one of the stops. And how much doesn't. That, along with the meandering route and the expected service frequency of a bus every 18 minutes, might explain why consultants who looked at the scheme earlier in 2009 considered it just wasn't justified.

Most of the scrutinising councillors agreed that the plans were seriously lacking, forcing Bristol's Steve Comer into a desperate and embarrassing bid to praise both road and BRT elements of the SBL, in contrast to his LibDem colleagues from S. Glos and BaNES.

Steve told us what a blessing the road would be for people like him driving from the east of the city out toward the airport - inadvertently confirming that the road isn't really there to serve the regeneration of south Bristol, but to bypass it. Then he went on to suggest that the proposed 18 minute bus frequency would be fine, because timekeeping would be so good during the day you'd need wait by the roadside for no more than that for your super-duper modern transit vehicle to whisk you into the centre. He didn't announce his own intention to use it, though. And who would, given its narrow catchment strip and the instant availability of a spanking new road alongside?

The Scrutiny Committee did not give the scheme the unequivocal welcome that the promoters must have wished. Instead, they recommended that the decision makers (Jon Rogers and the other three Transport Executive Members) should seek - and share - further information about its pros and cons before any bid goes in for government funds. (Remember, it's not free - the local authorities must bear 10% of the cost plus any cost overruns).

Right now, the evidence to justify the South Bristol Link simply hasn't been produced, and there's a whole lot of evidence to weigh against it.

But Answer Came There None....

A load of detailed questions about the South Bristol Link were due to be answered at Tuesday's Cabinet Meeting. Several of them were based on damning data in the 'Options Appraisal' of last winter, to find out whether, as suspected, the latest scheme, introduced a couple of months ago, really performs as badly as the previous ones did in that Appraisal.

But answer came there none. Or rather, we were told that the officers and executive don't know the answers.

This time, no-one knows what congestion might be expected as a result of the new road bringing in new traffic. No-one knows how many more vehicles will thunder through South Bristol. No-one knows how it will affect journey times into the city in the morning peak rush. No-one knows if the scheme's proposed BRT 'figleaf' has the remotest chance of breaking even.

Because no-one's asked.

And maybe that tells us more than we could have got from any set of consultants predictive traffic modelling.

The story's on the Green Party's website here

Oh No Jon, No Jon, No Jon, No

""Do nothing/minimum" is always an option"
Jon Rogers, re South Bristol Link, this blog, 28th October

"There is no point in asking people whether they want a scheme, that has been asked before, and we have, based on all the information, going back years, already decided to proceed to the next stage."
Jon Rogers, re South Bristol Link, email, 13th November

Cue a batch of questions for answer at next Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, in an effort to find out what the options really are, and to bring some of the realities of the road-plus-BRT Link into the public domain.

More of those later. Meanwhile, Vowles the Green has been tabling more challenging questions for Cllr Rogers at the same meeting. Like how can exponential economic growth, promoted as a 'Core Value' in the city's future, be 'sustainable'? Very fundamental question that. I'm looking forward to the answer, while not really expecting one!

Jeckyll and Jon

In his Dr Jeckyll persona, Jon Rogers excelled himself at this morning's Joint Transport Execs meeting, confronting the forces of darkness from BaNES, South Glos and N. Somerset. His anger wasn't enough to persuade them to relax their opposition to an Integrated Transport Authority for Greater Bristol, though.

What he did manage was to make them admit it openly. The cross-party consensus in the city that an ITA is the only way to achieve a half-decent public transport system evidently doesn't extend into the neighbouring Tory unitaries. North Somerset's Elfan Ap Rees -whose favoured transport is by helicopter - was particularly obtuse and nimbyish. He'd said at the previous meeting that he'd like to kill the ITA ambition stone dead. In the end, it may not be quite dead, but it's certainly stuck in a coma with no real hope of improvement.

That was the extent of Jon's challenge to the status quo. When it came to the South Bristol Link, I'd put my own statement drawing members attention to the absence of analysis, consultation, and future proofing in the one remaining option, and asking them to make sure that that there was still a choice other than saying 'yes' to it. No chance. The statement didn't get a mention, even to refute it, as the officers' programme to build a ring road was nodded through. Whatever Jon meant when he said here that "do minimum is always an option" remains a mystery.

(picture of Elfan ap Rees leaving the meeting, job done.
from boreme.com)

Ring Road Regress

When the West of Englands four Transport Executive members meet at the Council House on Thursday, one tiny item on the long agenda will ask them to 'note' - ie approve - what their staff are doing to push the South Bristol Ring Road forward. They're told that after a second round of public and stakeholder engagement this November, Members will subsequently receive a further report seeking approval to submit a bid to DfT in March 2010.

So it's verdict first, evidence later. Again. Except there's not even any prospect of reliable evidence to give some after-the-event credibility to this bid.

The one scheme on offer wasn't tested in the costly 'Options Appraisal' report commissioned a year ago from Mott MacDonald. Even the 'do minimum' scenario (a forecast that assumes that new initiatives like a Hengrove-North Fringe rapid transit, the Callington Road Link, and a Barrow Gurney bypass go ahead) didn't get fully assessed.

'Do Minimum', as you may have read on this very blog, is always an option (except, of course, in the current consultation documents)

So... if you were a DfT civil servant, weighing up competing demands for government cash that's nowhere near enough to cover everything, would you entertain this bid for a moment? It's not been appraised, the consultation is a mockery, there's no attempt to answer the Big Question: "What do we get from this scheme that we wouldn't get anyway?" Looks like an easy decision....

Cue for a nudge to the assembled Transport Execs, before they give the nod to this ill-advised stitch-up attempt. My own attempt comes in this 'Public Forum Statement' which, the partnership promises, "will be considered when that item is discussed"


Statement re S. Bristol Ring Road, Nov 09

South Bristol Link: time to weigh up the option.

Spot the difference.....



This is what Jon Rogers and the other three West of England Partnership Transport Executive Members approved when they met on 1st October. These two road/BRT options recommended for further examination and consultation might have surprised them - after all, they'd not been among the five shortlisted for the previous round of consultation or for the 'Options Appraisal' study of their probable impacts. Nonetheless, the Execs nodded it through.



This is what the two options favoured in October have now become. Somewhere, somehow in these last four weeks the southern option has been dropped. All that's on the table is the BRT to nowhere and the 'northern option' road. That's the one that squeezes 10,000 vehicles a day through the now quiet backwater of King Georges Road, swells traffic entering the Cumberland Basin by 20%, and increases journey times into the city centre. All in the name of cutting congestion, cutting emissions, and some nebulous claims of regeneration.

So now we're invited to comment on just one option. Hobson's choice. The 'consultation' takes the form:
"We welcome your views on the scheme - please help us by answering a few questions at the end of this pamphlet."

OK, I'll probably do that before deadline day. But I wonder if they'll first answer mine?

* Who took the decision to cut the two options mandated by the Execs, to just one?

* How are you going to cope with the extra traffic you'll bring to the Cumberland Basin - especially if a stadium and a superstore get added to the mix?

* Will you keep the bus rapid transit in the scheme, subsidising it to make up for its losses?

* How on earth will you explain yourselves to people living on the route?

* How do you square this new ring road with:
Cutting CO2?
Peak Oil?
Cutting congestion?
Getting people out of their cars?

* Whose tune is it that you're dancing to?

Traffic to rise 20% in congestion hot-spot.

......and they're thinking of adding a Tesco Extra to the mix!

One of the two proposals for a South Bristol Ring Road, which won the blessing of the West of England's transport bosses on Thursday, would add over 7,000 vehicles a day to the traffic on Ashton Way as it approaches the Cumberland Basin.

That's before adding further to it by building 230 houses, a stadium, hotel, and fast food outlets at Ashton Vale, and a Tesco megastore at Ashton Gate, as Bristol City Football Club are demanding.

Is it the transport planners, or the football club owners, that are on some other planet? All of them, I reckon.

Edit, 2.30pm 7/10:

The 7,000 figure above comes from the Options Appraisal (App7.1), showing an increase from 35350 (do minimum option) to 42950 vehicles/day for Option 1 - a road from Hengrove to A370 Long Ashton

Lots more on this topic from the Bristol Blogger (look out specially for Tony Dyer's comment on the regeneration myth) and on Chris Hutt's 'Green Bristol Blog'

Two cheers for Jon Rogers

Two cheers for Jon Rogers. Presumably he's behind the city's response to the airport expansion plans, now awaiting a decision from North Somerset council.

Given the 'official' council position, after it first mutilated, then adopted, the motion that Charlie Bolton brought to full council back in March, outright opposition to expansion was never going to be an option.

Still, there's lots of constructive comment in there. In particular, it points out BIA's failure to put a persuasive case for the economic or environmental benefits of expansion. It calls for a far stronger commitment to noise reduction, and notes that road traffic generation will lead to a worsening of the already unacceptably poor air quality in the city if expansion goes ahead.

On climate change, it notes that, even excluding the worst offenders, the aircraft themselves; "the proposed development will significantly increase the West of England carbon emissions and make it difficult to meet our existing reduction targets (which exclude aviation emissions) particularly due to increases in surface transport CO2 emissions". As if it wasn't difficult enough already.

But sadly, the mitigation measures it suggests are no more than tinkering at the edges. More airport buses to more destinations, that sort of thing. The elephant in the sky is ignored.

And there's a disturbing, if predictable, reference to the South Bristol Link. Remember, that's the one currently under consultation to see whether it should be a road, a public transport, or a hybrid route? Looks like the decision's already made, it's to be a road, a final link in a South Bristol Ring Road. The response says "South Bristol Link would be likely to reduce airport traffic on Bristol's network in the vicinity of Parson Street gyratory....". I don't think that'll be down to the passengers from Hengrove who'd get the rapid transit over to Ashton Gate to change on to the 'Flyer' coach.

That's the trouble. It's hard to criticise the airport's added climate change impacts when you're busy doing just the same thing yourself by building more roads.

Hat tip: Bristol 24-7 for the news item.