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Some of the stations on the list are low-hanging fruit - I'm not aware of any significant obstacles to Ashley Down, Henbury, North Filton and Portway Parkway. Portishead, Pill and Ashton Gate ought to be easy.

Many of the others are more problematic as they demand paths on busy main lines, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to happen. I'd even go so far as to say there are omissions: Winterbourne and Long Ashton spring to mind.

Some people haven't voted for all 16... are they prepared to say which ones they missed out, and why?

Some people haven't voted for all 16... are they prepared to say which ones they missed out, and why?

Okay, I missed out Horfield. Rightly or wrongly, I reckoned it was a no no if Ashley Down is reopened.

Remiss of me to leave out Ashley Down (is that the same as Ashley Hill?) ...

Indeed it is.

The old station was called Ashley Hill, but the 'reopening' proposal refers to it as Ashley Down. It's a better name; the new station is close to the City of Bristol College's extensive Ashley Down campus, but not very close to the road named Ashley Hill.

The original Horfield station site is too close to Filton Abbey Wood, although it was probably just far enough away from Filton. The site at Constable Road favoured by some is not too close to the site at Ashley Down favoured by many - if the line is electrified and suitable rolling stock used. I'm not sure of the distance though - greater or less than Clifton Down to Redland, Redland to Montpelier, or Stapleton Road to Lawrence Hill. They are all within a stroll of each other on a nice day, but very well used.

Indeed it is.

The old station was called Ashley Hill, but the 'reopening' proposal refers to it as Ashley Down. It's a better name; the new station is close to the City of Bristol College's extensive Ashley Down campus, but not very close to the road named Ashley Hill.

The original Horfield station site is too close to Filton Abbey Wood, although it was probably just far enough away from Filton. The site at Constable Road favoured by some is not too close to the site at Ashley Down favoured by many - if the line is electrified and suitable rolling stock used. I'm not sure of the distance though - greater or less than Clifton Down to Redland, Redland to Montpelier, or Stapleton Road to Lawrence Hill. They are all within a stroll of each other on a nice day, but very well used.

Quite close to Ashley Down Road too. But if we wanted a nearby road to name the station after, how about Happy Lane?  ;D

Found the poll on this and added my vote selection but dismayed at the lack of Pilning for re-opening of down platform.

Talked on the Pilning thread about a complete new station.

Any way, how about reopening the line to Fishponds and Staple hill?.

Found the poll on this and added my vote selection but dismayed at the lack of Pilning for re-opening of down platform.

... I would say a better name for a re-opened station at this location would be Muller Road...

Re-open the line from Bristol up to Mangotsfield. Just imagine how many car journeys this might save.

According to the last figures I can find - admittedly 10 years old - the line you refer to (in its current guise as the Bristol-Bath cycle path) carries in excess of 6,500 cyclists and walkers per day. That equates to a lot of car journeys saved; it's probably more people than the Severn Beach line carries. That's not to say that it shouldn't be considered - but the route has already been put to very good use.

A second line between Bristol and Bath ? Won't happen unless pigs have learnt to fly first.

Of course it could share, as a single track line, with bikes, just as happens around Bitton with the tourist steam line. I'm not sure what percentage of cycles on the route might be considered commuter traffic, and how much classed as leisure. Families out for a bit of exercise, that sort of thing. I doubt if anyone will ever do a survey, so we'll never know

Of course it could share, as a single track line, with bikes, just as happens around Bitton with the tourist steam line.

...as can be observed by anyone who goes along there during rush hours.

To confirm froome's point, the section from Staple Hill to central Bristol is very, very busy in the peaks, with frequent conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians. If anything, the path needs to be widened so that  cycle and pedestrian flows can be segregated.

The shared section through Bitton is quite different in character, with more leisure use, but even there the cycle track is in places squeezed to one side and too narrow.


I have cycled out of Bristol during the morning peak, i.e. against the flow - quite terrifying, I can tell you!

So, what did the Joint Spatial Plan say about it?

Apologies for not being able to immediately find the copy of this kindly posted on another thread.

You should be extremely alarmed that this man [Tim Bowles] has sat on £80M of City Transformation Funding. That the wording he uses around this money is about strategic transport. That he wants to ‘promote’ cycling, despite WECA scrutiny panel assuring me in a written statement that the term promote would no longer be used and replaced with enable.

The reality is that Tim Bowles is utterly failing the people of the West of England, and before you try and defend him in anyway, Andy Street [West Midlands Mayor] is Conservative and Andy Burnham [Manchester] is Labour. It is not about parties, it is about ability, about political will, about surrounding yourself quickly with good people and delivering.

...

This situation is utterly depressing and is very much down to Tim Bowles and his utter failure to get a grip on Transport from all aspects unless it has to do with 18a of the M4 junction.

As Chris Boardman said “It is not what does it cost to get people cycling and walking, but what is the cost not to get people cycling and walking”.

With the Joint Local Transport Plan not being published until April 2020 at the earliest, Tim Bowles will have set back the west by at least 2 years. In the meantime other mayors are absolutely killing it, focusing on enabling walking, cycling, and transforming public transport.

It’s less Metro Mayor Tim Bowles and more Teapot Tim.

We need a commitment from Tim Bowles to allocate the £80M he has been given to walking and cycling, implement a Strategic Cycling Analysis exercise, and begin delivery of a complete cycle network across the west. This could be done this year.

Source: Cycle Bath (https://cyclebath.org.uk/2018/06/10/metro-mayor-tim-bowles-is-failing-us/)

As an aside, cycling groups in Bath and Bristol are unhappy that WECA are failing to spend £80 allocated for cycling improvements

80 quid won't go very far ...

Badminton station would I feel be easy to open, as it is along loops and when I last looked the buildings were still there.

I suggest that, if there is one lesson which we ought to have learned in the last 10 years, it is the lesson of the enormous difficulties and expense of relieving congestion of traffic in urban areas and providing adequate parking space. It is true to say that at Badminton there is parking space, because the old goods yard is virtually unlimited and in any case it can be extended ad lib at very small expense, because the surrounding land is open land.

...

My third complaint is the ludicrous nonsense that inquiries before the transport users' consultative committees have become. They are entitled to look only at the question of hardship. I am not denying that there is hardship here. When people from the country areas with luggage or children and prams are forced to stagger on to a bus, on which there is no sort of accommodation for the sort of thing, when they generally end up at bus stations well away from the railway stations, and when there is no porter to help them, of course there is hardship. There is also hardship for the person who has been able to get to the railway station for a 4s. 6d. taxi journey and is now charged 25s. But the committees should be able to consider the wider questions to which I have referred.

...

We have a position which, whatever its merits from the point of view of the railways, has none from the point of view of town and country planning. The railways are making a staggering financial loss. Badminton station shows a profit. Are they really in a position to turn up their noses at any profit in this day and age?

...

I hope that the Ministry of Transport will occasionally think of something other than a rather bogus policy of trying to make a particular railway line a little more convenient to the railway authorities and instead consider the wider situation and the enormous extra costs that may be thrown on the city authorities in widening the roads in Bristol and providing adequate parking space.

F V Corfield, MP for Gloucestershire South, May 1968
 
Source: Hansard (https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/may/28/badminton-railway-station-closure)

Talking of Badminton, I read this:


So back in the sixties, South Glos recognised that its transport issues were inextricably linked with Bristol's... If only they'd had an integrated transport authority...

Talking of Badminton, I read this:


So back in the sixties, South Glos recognised that its transport issues were inextricably linked with Bristol's... If only they'd had an integrated transport authority...

Not too worry then mine can't read let alone write.

I once worked with the last Stationmaster of Badminton who often recollected how it was very much the station of the Duke of Beaufort and his family.
With its closure Chippenham stn as an alternative was under ten miles away and of course the nearby M4 motorway serves it particularly well.

Of all the stations on the list, I'm interested to know what role people see Badminton Station fulfilling... it doesn't seem to be be near anywhere, and I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake when I voted for it!

Of all the stations on the list, I'm interested to know what role people see Badminton Station fulfilling... it doesn't seem to be be near anywhere, and I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake when I voted for it!

OK - I admit it - I included Badminton in the list as a 'control' to see how many people would vote for anything - of 27 voters, 7 did ... but only 4 voted for Coalpit Heath, so perhaps the last laugh in on some of the voters who have looked carefully and said that Badminton IS a good idea but Coalpit Heath is not.   Comments welcome

Maybe or maybe not. Your earlier post quoting support for a what is now a suggested P&R there is maybe even more relevant now?

Thing is, I think I was fairly negative about Breich station and may even have talked down Pilning, only to realise that there was more to these proposals than met the eye ....

Maybe or maybe not. Your earlier post quoting support for a what is now a suggested P&R there is maybe even more relevant now?