A38 high streets part 3: Gloucester Road shows "car parking" is a cargo cult solution

Parts 1 and 2 of the A38 tour, must have depressed everyone looking at the sights.

Filton Road: a shopping area reduced to a mini roundabout, some pig-pen barriers to keep pedestrians from crossing the road, and a row of run down shops -despite the free parking outside and in the car park.

Bedminster: a pedestrian precinct with nothing but a closed down booze express, check cashers, a low grade bakery and a motaman car parts shop.

Bleak. Yet what else does the A38 have to offer?

The best high street in Bristol. 

 
One the BBC Today program visited when they wanted to see what a thriving high street still looked like in the UK

A street with trees, cafes outdoors, bike parking that has bikes in, rather than two bent racks that look unwelcome by the shop forced to to put them in. The breadstore, below, always has a queue of people waiting to buy bread on a saturday
 
A street with five star reviews on Yelp.  A street recommended as a place to visit in Bristol tourist guides.

See that? Not "a place to drive through on your way to an out of town supermarket". Not "somewhere to take out a payday loan" (there is one of those shops, and a booze express, but they are discreet, not shops that are struggling to survive themselves)

Look at the difference with the other two. Independent shops. That's key. Less of the same chainstores you get that make every street in Britain the same. They are there: a sainsbury's lite, a boots, but they are only one or two of many.

What you do see is people walking around. Again, this looks like a Sunday, but some of the shops are open -and people are walking, or pushing a bicycle from shop to shop.
 
The road here is no parking at any time on one side, showcase bus and bike route on weekdays.
 
Between 8 am and 9:30 am, and from 4:30 PM to 5pm, any parking in the bus lane gets a ticket issued by way of the CCTV cameras mounted on lampposts.

No doubt those are exactly the tickets that Pickles was ranting about, the ones destroying the high street,the ones Mary Portas was implying are killing high street.

 


Well, here's some evidence neither of them know what they are talking about.

THE SOLE HIGH STREET OF BRISTOL'S A38 THAT IS CLEARLY THRIVING IS THE ONE WITH THE MOST PARKING RESTRICTIONS
   
Instead of vans outside shops, you see people sitting outside having coffee. Next to them a traditional greengrocers. Go there on a Saturday and the butchers will be selling hamburgers, or whatever else they are cooking on the street, the fishmongers the same with fresh fish.

The independent retailers have made this a destination, the people come.


It's not about car parking. Saying "we need car car parking" is a mistake. It is looking at out of town malls, saying "they have car parking and are successful -if we add car parking, we will be successful".

OUT OF TOWN SHOPPING MALLS ARE NOT WHAT HIGH STREETS NEED TO MODEL THEMSELVES ON.

They need to copy the high streets that are doing well. In Bristol, that is

• Gloucester Road
• St Mark's Road, Easton
• Southville (adjacent to Bedminster)

 What are their secrets? At a glance

• Interesting shops, making walking along the streets something to do for pleasure, to make the extra time doing that versus pushing a trolley round a supermarket a pleasant time. 
• Cafes if you want to have some food or coffee. Not just chain coffee shops, but a variety of options.
• Useful shops: greengrocers, ironmongers, butchers, fishmongers. A post-office.
• Small supermarkets, not an ASDA "street-killer" class facility
• A pavement that is pleasant to walk on, not somewhere for cars to park.

If you look at what Bedminster are trying to do, they realise this. They are trying to join up with Southville, trying to make it better. But with all that car parking, its a walking wasteland.

The very features that encourage driving: wide roads, roundabouts and parking lots, make walking so uninspiring and cycling so dangerous, that people don't walk there. They don't walk around. All you get are fat lazy bastards like Pickles himself, nipping in for a packet of cigarettes and some cheap beer.
If you hear anyone saying "parking is needed", or "10 minute parking outside shops should be encouraged", point them at Filton Road, Gloucester Road and Bedminster North street (they are all on Street view) and say "which of these streets would you like to shop at". Then say "which of these streets has the least parking facilities. Then ask them whether they realise they don't have a fucking clue and should shut up until they have something fucking sensible to say.

A38 High Streets part 2, Bedminster

Part 1 of this series looked at Filton Road. Now lets take the streetview camera across Bristol to another part of the same road, the A38. This time, Bedminster.

You can't actually get into North Street unless you are a delivery van or bus -here are some of the outside views.

From this side street, a building to let. In the distance, a check cash and loan shop.




From the western end, budget booze appears to be suffering, it has some polish shop signs above it, and another "to let" sign
  
 Getting into the through traffic bit, it's not any more welcoming. There's a pawnbrokers to the right. Further up the road is the S. Bristol branch of Motaman -the other one being on Filton road (RHS of the final photo in part 1)
 

Bedminster has been chosen for this part of the A38 overview for a key reason: it's a Mary Portas Pilot Town! Its run-downness -1 in 5 shops- is clearly obvious, the fact that the open shops -cash converters, pawn shops, check cashers show that the people who do come there have little or no money to spend, and aren't the people going to revitalise it.

Bedminster is trying to improve itself. Even Mary Portas herself, insightful expert in rebuilding high streets, has visited it.


Did she say "legalise illegal parking" here? Even she wasn't that stupid.


Directly behind North Street: 1 hour free parking
 
Behind that, a vast space of extra parking
 
And at the North end of North street (carrying on forwards past Motaman), there's the giant asda supermarket -with an even bigger car park.
 

The one thing Bedminster doesn't suffer from is a lack of parking.

It suffers from

• A supermarket that over 20 years killed off day to day shopping.
• Replacement shops like Booze express and Motaman failing to attract other customers. Even these two shops have now shut down.
• Lack of money in the remaining visitors. You don't have two short-term loan companies and a pawnbrokers in a thriving area.
• the fact that the asda supermarket blocks pedestrian and bicycle access from southville doesn't help.

Mary has her work cut out here, and we wish her well. Yet Bedminster proves something important

You can add hundreds of parking spaces to a run down high street and it will make no difference whatsoever.

Whatever they are going to do for the town, it won't be extra parking. At least it shouldn't be. Its inevitable that someone will be blaming the pedestrian only area for loss of trade, demanding it is reopened to ten-minute shoppers, but let's be ruthless here: it has done nothing for those bits of the street that are open to two-way motor traffic.

Will parking revitalise the A38? Part 1: filton

Mary Portas supports Eric "end the war on motorists" Pickles proposal to stop drivers parking  illegally for 10 minutes "to pop into a shop" from being ticketed.

Let's consider the implementation details of that

1. How do you prove you just popped into a shop? A receipt? A witness statement? A CCTV camera? Impossible. All that leaves is the claim of the driver.
2. How long is the cutoff time? 10 minutes? 11 minutes? 9 min? Again: it'll be a point of contention. Without witnesses, opinions of the driver again.
3. Is it OK to drive from shop to shop, stopping for 10 minutes each time? You can see fat lazy bastards doing this -people who look like Eric Pickles. Is there a minimum time between parking illegally, or a minimum distance you have to drive?

No doubt Pickle's didn't think that through when he did his populist speech.

Let's turn instead to something else: the claim that this will benefit the high street.

Filton Road on the A38. This is the border between Bristol -behind the camera- and SGloucs.

There's some parking, but perhaps they can't deal with a giant influx of shoppers.

Maybe it's the lack of parking at peak times that has shut down a lot of the shops here. The lack of traffic hints the drive-by was on a sunday, but the carpet shop is open, unlike the abandoned "uniform centre"

The wide pavements are begging for people to walk on them -and if not, why not turn it into parking? Why not let people park on the zebra crossing and let them nip in to the shops here -so revitalise a high street clearly on its last legs.

Here's why not: turn round and there's a giant parking area for shoppers.

It's even highlighted as you approach, "Shoppers Car Park"

It is fucking obvious that having enough parking spaces for tens of cars, along with short-stay parking right outside the shops doesn't magically bring some mediocre high street back to life?

And why is this high street so mediocre? Because its so painfully car centric that it only welcomes people in a car -and once you get in one, you may as well drive all the way on to the ring road instead of shopping in such a run down street.

Encouraging people to park simply discourages people from walking to the shops -and once in a car, they can shop where they want.

#FAIL

After British cycling's Arab Spring: the storms

The first half of 2012 has to go down as British Cycling's Arab Spring. Consider:

• The Times making cycling safety a key issue for the paper.
• Mass protests round London about junction safety.
• The CEoGB changing the agenda from "right to die on dual carriageways" to "right to get to school alive"
• All the London Mayoral Candidates having to make a promise towards Dutch Cycling.
• A change in the thinking of the LCC towards safe infrastructure, and even the CTC considering it.
• TfL promising to review its most dangerous junctions.
• Mass protests to Addison Lee about their "just use the bus lane" policy and a U-turn on that.
• The Sky cycling team finishing the Tour de France in yellow
• The UK olympic team finishing with lots of gold.

That was the spring. Now: autumn. And its storms.

We have already seen the press pushing back, NYC-style "bikelash" articles usually referring to Wiggins or that MP and then somehow blaming every cyclist for existing, while the councils and TfL continuing to do nothing dutch-style for their regions.

Now it is getting worse. The councils are moving beyond indifference to cycling to adding features that make things worse -prioritising more motor traffic at the expense of the inconsistent, incomplete and usually shit cycling facilities we get today.

What little leftovers we had on the side of junctions is being taken away to add extra traffic lanes.

Twickenham is the most well known example right now: a council working with TfL to convert a bus lane into an all-traffic lane, omitting all consideration of cycling -and when pushed back saying "it's too early for detailed planning". Except we all know, that that phrase will suddenly change to being "it's too late" -which is already where it is in the minds of the road planners. This also shows a key flaw in all on-road bluewash paint-jobs: it only takes another layer of paint for it to go away. At least proper infrastructure takes effort to destroy -someone really has to want to do this.

Here, South Gloucestershire council has started exactly that at the BAE/Airbus Roundabout on the A4174, where the A38 Northbound crosses the ring road. On the E. and N. sides -dual carriageways. On the W. and S. sides: single lane traffic jams -better to cycle through as the stationary traffic makes it easier to negotiate.

The Road Planners wanted to widen the road by taking away the parkland, the we want your shubbery debacle.

They went back to the drawing board, listening to Filton Council's suggestion of "use the pavement".

Now they have returned, with a plan to exactly that -remove the shared pavement cycle path to make a driving lane. 

The proposals are online in a three week long consultation.

If you look at the plans, you can see a wide bit of pavement being cut away.

If you look at google streetview, you see something different. You see a cycle path on the pavement, helping people cycle over the overbridge to the shopping centre on the other side, or to the crossing lights. As only the bold use the road here, this (shite) pavement infrastructure is the closest the area has to utility cycling. It's not great, but between junctions it is survivable.

Once the council take this away, you will get dumped onto the ring road, now forced to cycle over a junction which has an extra lane of traffic trying to feed left. Or you will just give up cycling altogether.

This is beyond indifference. This is beyond ignorance. This is a wilful removal of off-road cycling infrastructure to add extra traffic lanes.

If they can do it here, they can do it anywhere in the area -and the whole ring road cycle path is at risk.

Here comes the storm.

A Statement about Shellmor Avenue

The People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire have issued a statement at 10:00, 10, November, 2010. Or, in S Gloucs council time, the little hand is near the big hand on November 10, 1974.

Here is the statement in full:

WE ARE AWARE THAT REPRESENTATIVES OF MANY OF THE LARGEST EMPLOYERS IN S GLOUCS ARE ATTEMPTING TO ENGAGE THE COUNCIL IN DISCUSSION OF THE SHELLMOR AVENUE PROPOSALS, HENCEFORTH KNOWN AS "THE SHELLMOR AVENUE FUCKUP"

THE ISSUE THESE REPRESENTATIVES HAVE IS THAT OF THE FOUR TRAFFIC CALMING MEASURES PROPOSED ONLY ONE HAS TAKEN CYCLING INTO ACCOUNT TO PROVIDE A SAFE AND CONVENIENT ACCESS POINT TO THE TRAFFIC CALMED ROAD. THE COUNCIL WOULD RATHER CYCLISTS RISKED THEIR LIVES ON THE A38 THAN USING QUIETER ROADS.

WE HAVE A MESSAGE TO THESE REPRESENTATIVES -WHO ARE CLEARLY SPLITTERS AND PROBABLY MEMBERS OF THE POPULAR CYCLING FRONT OF SOUTH GLOUCESTER:

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT? THE FACT THAT THE PLANNERS INCLUDED ONE CYCLE FEATURE IN THEIR PLANS FOR THE JUNCTION IS EITHER A MIRACLE OR AN ACCIDENT. THE PLANNING TEAM MUST HAVE GOT OUT THEIR "1973 INTERCHANGES IN LEEDS AND GLASGOW" VISIO TEMPLATE OUT AND PUT TOGETHER FOUR PROPOSALS FOR A JUNCTION, WHILE STARING AT THEIR PROUD AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF THE M4/M5 JUNCTION."

"YOUR ATTEMPT TO ENGAGE THE COUNCIL IN DISCUSSION ON THIS TOPIC IS WASTE OF YOUR TIME. BY NOW CLLR BWIAN ALLINSON WILL HAVE ADDED ALL YOUR NAMES TO HIS JUNK MAIL FOLDER, AS WILL THE TRAFFIC DEPARTMENT."

"THE COUNCIL OFFICERS MAY HAVE SAID THAT YOUR NEEDS WILL BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT LATER -BUT THIS SHOWS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. YOU WILL BE FORGOTTEN ABOUT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE AND LEFT WITH SOMETHING WORTHLESS. EVEN THEN, THE RESIDENTS WHO HAVE CHOSEN ANY OF THE THREE OPTIONS THAT LACK CYCLE LANES WILL THEN BE UPSET THAT CYCLE ACCESS HAS BEEN ADDED."

"YOUR ATTEMPTS TO ENGAGE IN DISCUSSION WITH THE COUNCIL LEGITIMISES THEIR PLANS, AS NOW THEY CAN SAY THEY HAVE CONSULTED WITH THE LOCAL CYCLING GROUPS AND LOCAL EMPLOYERS"

"THE CYCLING CHAMPION IN THE COUNCIL, THE CYCLING OFFICERS IN THE COUNCIL, AND THE COUNCIL TRAFFIC PLANNING DEPARTMENT ARE NOT YOUR ALLIES -THEY ARE YOUR ENEMIES"

"RECOGNISE THIS, JOIN OUR ORGANISATION, AND TOGETHER THE COUNCIL WILL COME TO FEAR THE KEVLAR BACKED BLACK CYCLING GLOVES OF THE PEOPLE'S CYCLING FRONT OF SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE"