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1937
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Bristol Clean Air Zone proposals
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on: August 05, 2019, 16:44:46
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According to Bristol Civic Society, the Sustainable Transport Network (a group of Bristol Green Capital Partnership) is preparing a response to these proposals - I'll post it when they've finalised it. Among other things, they are likely to say: The plan needs to be stronger. Achieving compliance in 2029 (option 1) or 2028 (option 2) is not soon enough.
...
...other cities are delivering compliance much earlier, eg Birmingham, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield by 2022.
...whilst we understand the Council’s concerns about adverse effects on low income families reliant on their car or van, we cannot ignore the health impacts on the 20% of most deprived people in Bristol who do not own a car and also have lower healthy life expectancy. They would benefit substantially from a bold Clean Air Zone.
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1939
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / Re: Bristol Undergound
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on: August 02, 2019, 14:08:23
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...there are limited options for tunnel portals and other construction worksites without serious demolition. For example, if you want a tunnel to shadow the Gloucester Rd, the first real opportunity you have for a portal northbound is Horfield Common, southbound is probably the Bearpit. Secondly, tunneled stations are very expensive both to build and run, and there's the question of where you can fit the surface buildings, ventilation shafts etc.
The Bearpit was built as a precursor to a grade-separated junction between urban motorways, so there is as you say plenty of room there for a tunnel portal. However there is probably room for street running on the section of the A38 between Stokes Croft and The Arches; it's north of there that the troubles start... With a bit of clever engineering, it may be possible to do something using the embankment between Montpelier and Redland stations for a portal location; odder things have been done in London. The northern route is shown as running rather to the west of the A38, which perhaps opens up more possibilities in terms of finding space for surface running. A couple of routes through Southmead suggest themselves, with the potential to hook into Brabazon/Cribbs... And all this in a city where the good folks of the inner-city riot when a Tesco is opened...
Um... I don't think you can really draw any inference from that. |
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1940
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / Re: Bristol Undergound
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on: July 30, 2019, 19:41:36
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This has the air of misery about it, with councillors trying to put a positive spin on it by talking about rubber-wheeled vehicles, or the vehicles used by MetroBust instead of telling the people of Bristol the cold unpalatable truth - our fantastic new cutting edge scientific idea for getting Bristol onto public transport is - roll of drums please - more buses. At least we asked for trams once, before being downgraded to buses.
Without wishing to sound pollyannaish about this, is it possible that this is just a case of Amanda Cameron (whose story, interestingly, also appears word-for-word but with different illustrations in the Bristol Post) chosing a negative angle, and being subbed with a negative spin? OK, so Marvin Rees gives the impression of being at best lukewarm about rail-based solutions - but it's WECA» 's call, not his, if I understand it correctly. All Adam Crowther is saying is that we won't be getting 8-car trains on 90-second headways; did anyone think we were? Of the four corridors under discussion, one - the north Bristol route - would pretty well have to go underground for some distance as there is nowhere to put it on the surface. The other three routes have surface routing options (some more obvious than others, and some more controversial than others). Incidentally, Amanda Cameron had another piece published in both the Bristol Post and Bristol 24/7 today: AMBITIOUS PLANS TO DOUBLE NUMBER OF BUS TRIPS IN BRISTOL BY 2036
Transport bosses have laid out their vision for a “radical” new bus network for Bristol.
An “ambitious” draft bus strategy, which aims to double the number of bus trips in the city by 2036, was revealed to a council committee last week.
Under the strategy, a redesigned bus network would see several main routes radiating out from the centre and a series of orbital routes linking them together.
The “interchange network” model would open up more destinations but would require some people to walk further to catch a bus and to catch more than one bus into the centre.
And, to run reliably, the bus network would also require cars to have less road space so that more can be allocated to buses.
[...]
“It is really, really ambitious and it will take some pretty radical interventions,” Adam Crowther, Bristol City Council’s head of strategic city transport, said.
Full article: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/ambitious-plans-to-double-number-of-bus-trips-in-bristol-by-2036/How this bus strategy fits in with the rapid transit strategy (and MetroWest) isn't quite clear to me, but one would have to hope that this is under consideration... |
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1941
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / Re: Bristol Undergound
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on: July 30, 2019, 17:11:07
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FULLY UNDERGROUND RAIL SYSTEM UNLIKELY FOR BRISTOL
Transport chiefs have all but ruled out a London Tube-like underground system for Bristol.
The latest update on plans for a mass transit network for the city were revealed to councillors last week.
A committee heard that “all options” were still on the table as the West of England Combined Authority (WECA» ) takes the plans forward to the next stage.
But Adam Crowther, Bristol City Council’s head of strategic city transport, said: “The one thing we probably won’t have is the tube.
“If you think of the London Underground, we’re not going to have eight-carriage long trains running around. That would be far too much capacity for this region.”
[...]
“The final proposal is likely to be a mixture of underground and overground options, maybe fully overground,” he said.
“It’s unlikely to be fully underground because we probably don’t need it to be fully underground, but there are some sections [where] we’re thinking it would be very challenging to do overground services.
“We’re essentially going to take all options forward.”
[...]
Crowther said the aim was to remain “technology agnostic” but that vehicle types being considered included tram-style buses with rubber wheels and track-based options such as trams, tram-trains and “Metro”.
Local funding mechanisms, such as a workplace parking levy or council tax precept, could make a “significant contribution” towards the project cost to match and supplement potential DfT» investment, he said.
Full article: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/fully-underground-rail-system-unlikely-for-bristol/ |
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1942
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: High Speed Leeds to Manchester. On again?
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on: July 30, 2019, 15:43:37
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...railway-minded folk often think too much about history and not enough about what is needed in today's real world.
Perhaps there's some truth in that; there are certainly cases where the politics of competition produced irrational layouts that we would not seek to replicate. It's also true that many disused railway alignments follow well-thought-out routes between real places, and often incorporate usable civil engineering along the way. It would be eccentric not to at least take account of this when planning new lines. In many cases, modern engineering techniques (and political will) may allow better routing options that weren't available or practical in times gone by; where this is the case it would be eccentric not to take account of that.. |
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1943
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All across the Great Western territory / Looking forward - after Coronavirus to 2045 / Re: Calne branch - past, present, future
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on: July 30, 2019, 12:56:12
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Another question is to what extent commuting patterns are determined by available transport links and vice versa. I know several people who commute from Bristol to Cardiff, Bath, Gloucester and even Reading, but no one who commutes to Oxford. Is this because it's a bit harder to get to Oxford or because Oxford's job market is less attractive? Or something else?
I think the data seem to back up your perception of things here. That is an interesting resource! This view rather makes the obvious point that commuting depends on good transport links: Lots of people commute into Bristol from Weston, but very few from Wells or indeed Norton Radstock... is it too big a leap to assume that more people would do so if it were easier? 'Commute' in this context is arguably shorthand for 'take advantage of economic and educational opportunities'. |
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1946
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / News, Help and Assistance / Re: Personal improved spell checking regime
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on: July 28, 2019, 11:22:42
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I presume that means that about the only country stili using Imperial (?) measurements is USA. Presumably more American trains, and less Japanese? Hope everybody can remember the difference between Imperial and American pints etc.
Myanmar, Liberia and the USA are popularly considered to be the only non-metric countries, though Myanmar and Liberia have announced plans to go metric in recent years. The USA uses 'US Customary' units, which are based on the Imperial system but differ in important ways - a US pint is 473.176473ml, whilst an Imperial pint was 568.26125ml. The US hundredweight is also smaller than its old Imperial equivalent, so whereas a short (US) ton is 907.185kg, an Imperial ton was similar to a tonne at 1016.047kg. |
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1948
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Sort of Oystery...
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on: July 27, 2019, 15:05:50
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'Oyster▸ ' style smart ticketing for buses and trains on its way to Bristol
'It’s sort of Oystery, that’s the vision, but a bit better than that'
"Oyster" style smart ticketing for bus and rail travel is finally on its way to Bristol.
A four-phase plan that is already underway should see the West of England reach its “nirvana” of combined public transport payments by 2025.
Details of the smart ticketing project, led by South Gloucestershire Council on behalf of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), were revealed at a Bristol City Council committee meeting on July 23.
Adam Crowther, the council’s head of strategic city transport, told members of the growth and regeneration scrutiny committee that: “It’s sort of Oystery, that’s the vision, but a bit better than that.”
Full article: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/oyster-style-smart-ticketing-buses-3141811Today’s WECA» meeting also approved investment of £718,000 on integrated ticket across public transport, including extending contactless payments for buses, as well as £100,000 to develop more walking and cycling routes. These projects are all part of WECA’s aim to get more people out of their cars and get around the region in more sustainable ways – helping to reduce carbon emissions.
Source: WECA ( https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/climate-emergency-declared-west-england-combined-authority/) |
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1950
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Bristol Temple Meads Station redevelopment
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on: July 24, 2019, 09:55:34
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For years I have thought that those planning the present day road network of Bristol were bonkers, with the latest unveilings I realise we got what we got when its devised by idiots.
For the most part, the changes made to Bristol's road network since about 1990 have been positive: * Removal of through traffic past the Cathedral; * Removal of the dual-carriageway through the middle of Queen Square; * Removal of much through traffic from The Centre; * Removal of Redcliffe Flyover. The one scheme most people agree was aberrant was the Temple Circus Gyratory which replaced Redcliffe Flyover. Wise heads at the time said that a crossroads arrangement would make more sense, but possibly due to a failure of nerve they were over-ruled. Now, at last, we are getting one. I would agree that the positioning of the MetroBus stops is surprisingly inconvenient, but that is just one aspect (albeit an important one) of what is otherwise a huge improvement. |
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