Great Western Coffee Shop

Bristol City Council are considering options to replace the ageing complex of bridges and junctions at Cumberland Basin, the junction of the A4 Portway with the A370. Three options are up for consultation, all of which involve one or more new bridges; a tunnel was considered but has been ruled out.

The consultation, together with descriptions of the options, is here: https://bristol.citizenspace.com/growth-regeneration/western-harbour/

One point to be made strongly in the consultation is the need for ALL new bridges over the navigational channel to the Bristol Docks be at such a height as to still allow Tall Ships, The M.V. Balmoral, luxury yachts such as the MOGAMBO and that yacht owned by the American billionaire that have visited the city in recent years plus the Royal Naval Reserve vessels that are regular visitors to the docks crewed by the Universitys Naval Reserve detachment. I would imagine to obtain the necessary headroom the ramps to the bridge decks would need to start at the Jacobs Wells Road / Anchor Road / Deanery Road / Hotwells Road roundabout at the city end and a flying Y junction in the vicinity of Greville Smythe Ashton Park would need ramps to start at the end of the Long Ashton By-Pass and the South Liberty Lane / Winterstoke Road roundabout. Take the case of the Avonmouth side ramp up to the M5 Avon Bridge as an example.

Has Mayor Marvin opened his mouth first again before engaging his brain and fully thought through this proposal.

My old art master at Cotham Grammar School, Gerry Hicks and his wife were leading lights in a movement to oppose the city council in the councils plans to fill in the docks when it finished a stage in its life as a working port and drive a motorway through the city. Look at the £ millions that todays Harbour brings into the city annually as the docks continues to enjoy a life providing leisure for city residents and the many many visitors in its retirement.

Marvin would be better employed if he put more effort into getting the L A P&R opened on Sundays and later than current lock-up times Mondays to Saturdays.

Time to make the Plimsol Bridge a listed structure me thinks.

The consultation document for the Western option and the hybrid option specifically includes the disadvantages of needing to perform a bridge swing when a ship movement coincides with rush hour so their are no apparent plans to close the harbour.

My post did not suggest the closing of the harbour. Tough if a bridge swing happens to coincide with the rush hour, thats life.

The Bristol Civic Society has published its response to this consultatiion - you can read it in full here (https://www.bristolcivicsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Western-Harbour-Response.pdf).

The Society is critical of the council for keeping the Arup report secret and only publishing selected options. Of the option to build a new bridge in front of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, it says:


...and:

Interesting read, especially the the bit regarding the possibly omitted "option 4". I can understand BCC/Marv wanting some control over a paper that they, after all, commissioned (although with council taxpayer's money) but surely it would make sense to make more of it available for consideration and thus avoid understandable/justified suggestions on cynical manipulation.

It does seem eccentric that some apparently obvious options have been ignored, or at least not published. Looking at this map:

(https://zemblanity.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/cumberland_basin_roads.png)
Image from OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/51.44675/-2.62072)

...you can see extensive sliproads leading to Spike Island - McAdam Way, Ashmead Way and Brunel Lock Road. These were built to connect a long-cancelled urban motorway which was planned to run eastwards from Cumberland Basin, and could be demolished or re-engineered to release a significant amount of land for redevelopment without losing the current swingbridge. Access to Spike Island could be provided via Merchants Road bridge, or even by restoring Ashton Avenue over the top of the Ashton Avenue Bridge.

Of course it may be that there are very good reasons why these options were dismissed, if they were ever considered... but it would be nice to know what they are!

It would be depressing if the earlier options were being dismissed just for the sake of being different. It would be very annoying if they were being dismissed just because they were originally drawn up by a local authority of a different political hue.

There is a petition to request that the council release the full report:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/publish-full-feasibility-report-on-cumberland-basin-road-options

As I understand it there are a number of suggestions that the council are not being particularly honest. Here are a couple that I can recall.

1) That Highways England want a relief road in case of M5 closure, particularly the bridge over the Avon, though of course that could be dealt with in a number of other ways, perhaps a Pill to Avonmouth tunnel.

2) That various bodies want to see the route between the M5 and Bristol Airport upgraded, and this is part of it.

3) That the refurb cost for the Plimsol bridge is indeed relatively low, but it doesn't free all the nice waterfront land that Marvin needs to splash around.

In this case, let's hope that Historic England, the environmentallists and the reactionaries of Bristol that have blocked so many things in the past make themselves useful ;-) 
 

It's interesting that Bristol Civic Society refer to traffic using an M5 to A370 link. This would be the road that was once fleetingly referred to as the M35, running from the point where the M5 crosses Tickenham Road near Clevedon (you can see passive provision for this here (https://goo.gl/maps/puwGrQiNyQTDbMDM7)) to the end of the Long Ashton Bypass (here (https://goo.gl/maps/MDhioL8GQqWjDnTq8)). From here, it's a bit of a long way round for diverted traffic heading north - but you can see how Colliters Way (paid for by MetroBus!) and the mooted South Bristol Link Road provide a route.

Edit: Colliters Way is the South Bristol Link.

The perceived traffic flows are key here. I'm still trying to work out how a convergence between the two routes serves a purpose worthy of some of the suggested alterations in the proposed plans. Then again, my traffic planning credentials are as good as my astrophysics qualifications which stopped at the 1960s Thunderbird 3 plastic toy on my sideboard.

Wasn't the proposed M35 spur to south Bristol planned to leave the M5 at J20? That junction seems to be an unnecessarily large roundabout for one B road into Clevedon. Said roundabout is also oddly aligned, with both the bridges over the M5 carriageway on curves. Why design it like that for a single B road interchange? This roundabout appears to have been designed for something grander and the alignment suggest's its to accept another major road on its eastern side. If J20 had only every been meant to serve Clevedon then a much simpler trumpet junction with one two way bridge over the M5 would have sufficed. I'm pretty sure this is where the passive provision for the M35 was designed in, not further north at Tickenham Road.

Also of note is the wide central reservation from J20 to J21. Further passive provision I believe. This time to allow for later widening to four lanes between the south of Bristol spur and what could have been another motorway spur into Weston-super-Mare, potentially the A370(M).

The south Bristol spur was indeed to come off J20.  It was still a protected route in the early 1990s as I had to evidence to that effect to the public inquiry into the (then) Clevedon, Nailsea & Portishead Local Plan where Woodspring council wanted to block the route with an industrial estate off J20.

Thanks for putting me right - yes clearly Jct 20 rather than where I said.

According to an article in Bristol 24/7 (https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/why-plans-to-tunnel-under-cumberland-basin-have-been-ditched/), Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees:


Classic Marv.

No one who has given it more than a cursory examination thinks a tunnel is a viable option, but Marvin is trying to make it sound like that's the focus of the debate.

What many people are actually arguing is that any scheme which retains the existing swing bridge would very obviously be a lot cheaper, and would probably be preferable to any of the three highly-damaging alternatives his administration chooses to pursue.

It's actually not very illuminating but Bristol Live has published what it says is the first image of how the new Western Harbour could look.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/first-image-released-how-western-3436527

I don't think I'm the first to point out that this vision appears to have been produced by photoshopping a couple of photos of Wapping Wharf onto a picture of Cumberland Basin. I hope they didn't pay anyone too much of my council tax for doing that!

Classic Marv.

You can see what I mean if you look here: https://goo.gl/maps/jX9gBpuFZRpuxeEi7

Decent attempt for a Year 10 art student.

So I guess that means that the Wild Beer Company haven't actually got a 2nd premises.

Bristol City Council have now published the full 162-page Arup report, detailing the 9 road scheme options together with option 10 - the hybrid scheme. The report is here: https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/documents/s42622/Appendix%20A%20-%20Arup%20Report.pdf

Option 8 - a new four-lane lifting bridge by the Pump House pub, with total removal of the flyover network - is the clear winner, though it won't be uncontroversial as it involves demolishing the old iron swingbridge on Merchants Road, some houses on Ashton Avenue and the Riverside Garden Centre.

Removing the flyover would be good but it would be a shame to lose that Lysaght bridge.

<Partially more informed commentary may or may not fill this space when I've had a look at the document.>

Source: Bristol Post (https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/feisty-residents-hotwells-tell-mayor-3768602)

I think the area could be greatly improved by removing the Plimsoll Bridge and especially the flyovers leading to/from it. But whether it will be does depend on what is built in their place.

It could, but the four lanes of traffic that currently cross there is not going to go away.

No, (well some of it might take other routes, depending on its destination) but a different bridge might be more nicer. Not sure that any of the proposed replacement bridges necessarily will be an improvement, I haven't seen details of them.

Source: Bristol 24/7

Good thing too IMO. I reckon that the drawing board is where they should stay.

Dave

Something has to change, even if it just comes down to doing some heavy maintenance.

Most of Spike Island to the west of the Harbour Master's office (by The Cottage pub) is taken up with a knot of roads that were built to terminate a motorway-standard link to the A370 towards Temple Meads. This plainly (thankfully!) will never be completed, and parts of this junction complex have long been abandoned. It must be possible to simplify this and free off some land.

That aside, the road system could certainly be improved. It is supposed to be free-flowing, but many of the slip roads are far too tightly-curved to allow for safe merging.

But it's not going to be an easy circle to square; a lot of traffic comes through here on a normal day, and on days when the M5 is closed this goes up by an order of magnitude...

The aerial photo in the B24/7 article shows just how much the area is dominated by the Plimsoll bridge and its slip roads. A visit to the small businesses situated west of Create Centre and the council's bonded warehouses emphasises this; they're literally in the shadow of those slip roads. It's hard to imagine there won't be a need for a bridge in that area but the whole of Spike Island has changed in the last ten years or so and Cumberland Road now carries relatively little traffic; a bridge crossing directly from south of the New Cut to north of the Floating Harbour would probably be more efficient and less dominating without losing any meaningful connectivity.

I think a name involving the word "Creek" would be helpful.

Cumberland Road isn't the cut-through that it used to be, now that it is has been adapted for use by MetroBust and the airport express service. It was, of course. closed for a prolonged period after the collapse of part of the bank of the 220-year-old New Cut. The route had to be diverted via Coronation Road, which is itself now under threat of collapse. Serious work needs to be done on the New Cut from Bedminster Bridge to the edge of the docks before anything more is considered.

The Plimsoll Bridge has become part of  the Bristol furniture, and would be missed. I occasionally enjoy a stroll around those parts, which serve to remind us of Bristol's past as a trading port, and form something of a link between old and new. It is big and obvious, but it isn't easy to think what could replace it more subtly now, without damaging some of the historic setting. As has been said above, the traffic will have to go somewhere. Red Squirrel's plan to reorganise the failed motorway on Spike Island sounds a winner to me, and could lead to there being land for building there, rather than on the edges of the harbour. With housing, there is also the tricky matter of flooding to consider, something we are told will get worse with time.

This is one case where doing nothing for now may not be a bad idea. Marvin could well be into his last couple of months in office, and the new incumbent may have better plans - or none.