Sounds entertaining! And good sense too. I've heard that some streetlamps are being so equipped but it seems to be a very rare thing so far.

The irony being that so far, many of those obstacles have been introduced in the name of cycling; the barriers and gates intended to keep cars and motorbikes off cycle paths. Worst IMO^▸ (in my opinion) are the foot-height things with one low side and one high side, but I'm sure everyone's got their own anti-favourite.

It's busy but in a different way to nowadays. Far fewer cars and more but smaller lorries compared to what you'd find in a city centre today. And virtually no vans! Didn't see many buses either. Just as significantly, the traffic seemed to behave in a different way; more of a constant slow flow with the few hold ups caused by bad parking (that hasn't changed) or vehicles in front turning right, rather than today's stop, start and accelerate.

Fishponds Road and all the other roads that might benefit from some decent cycle infrastructure aren't of course in Sustrans' remit to do anything to. But that's where IMO^▸ (in my opinion) the something is needed. And within what Sustrans can do, there's an awful lot of far worse paths than this one. As Sustrans themselves acknowledged not so long ago. I think the figure they came up with was only 46% of their network could be classified as good?

Brompton is the cannonical folding bike. Nothing else folds as small, though there are some which are lighter to carry. But they're unobtainable at the moment unless you get lucky on ebay; the factory isn't even taking new orders, they're so busy. Other decent brands of folding bike include Dahon and Tern. Tern are certainly available with electric assist, I don't know about Dahon. There's a Tern dealer in Bath literally right by the station, Avon Valley Cyclery, and they're the kind of shop that's very much into bikes for transport rather than sport. But I think Brompton is the only one that strictly speaking folds up small enough to meet most TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)' rules as luggage rather than a bike.

If you were thinking of a non-electric bike I'd definitely say buy secondhand to avoid an expensive wrong commitment and for speed of delivery etc. But I'm not too sure about a used e-bike. There are lots of dodgy home conversions out there as well as official products which are in various ways substandard.

Whatever you get, put mudguards on it if it hasn't got them already. It will rain and while rain from above is just wet, spray off your tyres is mixed in with all sorts of oil and dirt on the road. Also, it creates a stripe up your back that looks even more unfortunate than it feels.

There's a wider point here as well. There isn't, as we know, much money spent on cycling infrastructure. The very fact that the government treats Sustrans, a charity, as a civil service agency where in other fields it might create a "Cycleways England", indicates this. Given that there isn't much funding and that the BBRP is already pretty good, I'd far rather see cycle infrastructure improvements in other parts of Bristol. These shouldn't be alternatives, but then they should have been done 40 years ago.

You just need to hang around the Hippodrome. 

Well yes, that's the change. Sustrans have now said their previous plans are not valid, so any response to those previous plans is therefore also invalid and will have to be updated in due course.

Returning to the Bristol-Bath Path, as it was originally double broad gauge track, the width should be there to make for decent separation, apart from Clay Bottom and one or two other places like by the TV studios and the waste siding. But somehow it doesn't all feel that wide. I guess an awful lot of clearance and foundation work would need to be done.

I have both cycled the path end to end numerous times and walked it about three times. It feels a lot further on foot than on a bike! I've even walked it in the dark, which is interesting (in a good way). Though I should say I've only ever walked from Bath to Bristol (having taken the train to Bath), never the other way. Looking at it from both sets of experiences, segregation is a boon when done well but a curse when done badly. Good separation allows walkers and runners to make their way on foot without fear of being hit by a cyclist and cyclists to ride without having to lose momentum for walkers and without having to avoid for instance dogs, whether off lead or, worse IMO^▸ (in my opinion), on those expanding but hard to see leads.

Good separation needs two things IMO&E: width and distinctness. It obviously needs to be at least four "dynamic person units" wide to allow separate streams in each direction. Because pedestrians and cyclists vary widely in speed, control and situational awareness, from toddlers to athletes in training, it also needs to allow for safe overtaking. By "dynamic person units" I mean a cyclist isn't actually any wider than a pedestrian, and is probably narrower than a mobility scooter, but because of their shape and the way in which they move (including but not only speed), they need a wider "envelope" around them. Two walkers can, if necessary, pass shoulder to shoulder (social distancing aside!) but two cyclists have to be very skilled to do this, regardless of speed.

It also has to be clear which side is for walkers and which for wheels. Not just clear with symbols and so on but clear as to why; the walking side has to be in some way more appealing to walk on than the cycling side, or else people will walk both sides. Why wouldn't they? It's relatively easy to make the walking side unattractive for cycling by use of bollards and so on, but harder to make a path that's designed for cycling less appealing to walking. The various edge cases (roller skaters, faster runners, toddlers on balance bikes, mobility scooters, kickalong scooters, etc) are best dealt with on a case by case basis.

A good example of bad separation can be seen on the Concorde way where it runs past Filton Abbey Wood and the MoD. The path has been divided into two equal-width parts with a white line. This leaves insufficient width for one cyclist to pass another without one of them going into the walking half. This can become a game of chicken or sometimes of double-chicken, where both assume the other is staying put and both move over! The remaining width is only just sufficient for two people to walk past each other, too. It would be far better if this section were either undivided, like the section immediately to the south running past the Lockleaze playing fields, or were divided by direction of travel rather than mode.

The Bristol Cycling Campaign response is to Sustrans' earlier suggestions, isn't it? The announcement that Sustrans now consider the path too narrow for those plans is very recent. (Didn't they survey the path at all before drawing up their plans?)

Not quite. There's also hell fire. At the moment it's all wasted. Stolen shamelessly from Gunter Grass's fictionalisation of the real Lord Rumford, Benjamin Thompson, physicist and stove inventor.

Ecological or financial?

Are we talking about the yellow-orange ones? If so, I was thinking about them just the other day. That they used to be everywhere and now they're quite rare. Until a couple of years ago there were still a few streets near here with them, but now they've been replaced with (white) LEDs. For which I'm quite glad. Why would you want to replicate that colour-sapping dull yellow glow?
But you score highly on self-awareness!  By the way, do you have a brother called Bobby!

Stroud to Strood.
St Helier to St Helens.
Saltaire to Saltash.
And a little bit hopefully...
Salford to Saltford.