Old Filton Road: this is what they give us

Old Filton Road is the road where cycling city money was wasted putting in a cycle lane "hint" on one side of the road, and a shit cycle/walk path on the other, purely so that the road could be re-opened as a rat-run, something the councillors were proud to take credit for. This is how South Gloucester council spent their part of the cycling city money, improvements which they say were "designed to improve the environment for cyclists and pedestrians". Exactly how turning a dead end road into a through route while giving a shit bit of pavement to the side for the walkers and cyclists to bicker over escapes us.

Before:

1. A closed road with room for people to cycle in either direction on safely.
2. No pavement, but no need to worry about rat-running cars.
3. Room for pedestrians and lots of lunchtime runners.

After

1. A road that cars can sprint along to avoid the traffic jam that is the A4174. Yes, it's left turn only at the end, but that gets you to UWE and the science park.
2. A pavement that hasn't had any gardening budget spent on it since it was installed.
3. Traffic calming in the form of some signs and one of those 30mph signs that lights up to remind people who were unintentionally -as opposed to knowingly- breaking the speed limit.

Say what you like about Bristol City Council, it didn't add something this awful and then stand up and be proud of it. Admittedly, S Gloucs council didn't either, not to the cyclists -they sold the entire scheme as "a road re-opens", with a sob story of how "drivers who had used the route were forced on to the already congested ring road instead.", missing the point that it was people choosing to drive were the problem, not the victims.

Some people are unhappy that not everyone cycles along this newly designated path. If the UKIP -the official party of the Association of British Drivers- got their way, it would be mandatory to cycle along the path.

That's the path that is getting slowly overgrown after two years of utter neglect; the trees overhanging the path while the vegetation curves back in. Of course anyone in their right mind would cycle on the road, such as the person vanishing into the distance.

Which raises the question: what was the fucking point in spending all this money on "cycle safety" in the first place. If you are going to build something so awful that nobody will use it, then neglect it utterly, it isn't worth bothering about.

Note that to reduce the risk of head on collisions on a cycle path so shite nobody uses it, there is a big sign on the west end of the path saying "No cycles". That just about sums it up for the entire S Gloucs council cycling plans: No cycles.

Given that the bollards are missing, this photo is probably going to become the official site logo.

The Bollards of Death Path

Here is the famous "bollards of death" path at 17:30 on a weekday. MoD staff, other commuters. This is what it really looks like, compared to the sunny quiet-day video.

The bollards are visible, you can see where we taped some of them up, but they do blend in with the white line. It makes you realise why many road-side posts are in alternating white and black -visible in more conditions.




0:08 -swerve into oncoming lane. No protocol here so there's a risk you both swerve. It happens. That's why when there is a lower pedestrian count the path switches to normal left-side-of-road rules.

0:18 anyone walking over the zebra crossing is lined up to get hit here. Also note the barriers. Rationale unclear. Not bicycles, so it must be stop pedestrians crossing the road except at the zebra crossing. So why not allow that?

0:55 mediocre visibility on an uphill route; hope nobody is descending.

1:12 MoD pedestrian access point. Again, having the bike path on the RHS would reduce risk here, but look at what comes up

1:19 foot access to the train station, key part of the pedestrian route. Oh, and a pillar in the middle.

1:24 even two people walking side by side are something you have to worry about

1:39 notice the vast space for parking. This site fills up its parking, a lot of staff were reallocated from elsewhere. Now people who live within three miles aren't allowed to park. But what is the alternative. We're on it.

1:56 its quieter here as its either residents of Northville or Lockleaze on foot, or bicycles. At the end of the path there's a blind corner, but we are avoiding it as we are taking the Northville exit.

2:10 This is a bike path, marked up on the maps, oddly not in the better by bike video. When we say "you need an MTB to cycle round here" we forgot to mention the max handlebar width and travel. The more travel your bike has, the higher your bars go, the harder it is to get through here. Good thing there's nobody in the way, and that we arent carrying children on the front bars -or in a trailer or tagalong.

2:17 narrow bridge. Clearly this is a path for pedestrians that's had some anti-motorbike barrier for a while and with a blue circle is now a pedestrian/bicycle shared route.

2:28 into the garage zone. It's interesting how much space is allocated to parking here. Even though you are a few minutes cycle/walk from the supermarket, the whole Bristol suburb culture is about driving. The busses are less frequent, the corner shops bleaker and further away. You are expected to drive.

2:46 and we are in the cars-on-the-pavement suburbs.

Now, is this path a failure?

Experience: Fail. In that it doesn't go out of its way to make you feel welcome and valued yes. Neither pedestrians or cyclists will enjoy this walk. Indeed, one of the things about walking round this area, or up to parkway station, is how mindnumbingly dull it is. Even the graffiti isn't that interesting. All you see are car parks, dual carriageways and cars, until you get to crossings that make you wait for 30-60s before you react. It's implicitly designed to make you wish you'd rather be in a car.

Maybe this is why its so rare to see anyone walking around. In the inner city, people out and about. Here, people walking to their cars, some teenagers loitering, and people waiting for busses looking miserable.

Use: Unknown. We have no before/after data, the MoD exclusion zone will encourage more walking and cycling so the statistics won't be reliable. It's busy with pedestrians and some bicycles. Some morning and school time data would be useful, probably between 8 and 9 am is the peak hours.

Scalability: Fail. The path may only have a few bicycles, but its already saturated. The segregation fails because the path isn't wide enough for two directions of walking and two directions of cycling. If the number of people cycling down here were to double or triple at peak times, it still wouldn't make much of a dent in the car traffic statistics, but it would overload the cycling infrastructure. And what then? A new lane?