The Great Wall of Filton

Rob Bushill of Really Useful Bikes feels that we, the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, have been giving the S Gloucs cycle team a hard time. That swearing is abusive and the wrong way to get things fixed.

His section on cycling with kids is something we cannot disagree with, as he shows lots of lovely ways to carry kids on the bars, cargo bicycles -we are sure that he dreams of a region where families can safely cycle round. We agree on the goals -merely the detail. He and the other collaborators with the regime believe that constructive engagement is the answer. We believe that talking to the people is an utter waste of time -and furthermore, they don't even talk to you, the splitters, about what they are about to do to make cycling round the region even harder.

We value and respect Rob, and his goal of providing useful bikes for the area, so will not swear in this post, or make any direct accusations about the competence of the cycle team.


Instead we ask Rob to question his own beliefs -and to consider whether he should come out in support of the cause -or give up and start selling mountain bikes with 80-100mm of travel on the front forks, as these are the best way to get past The Great Wall of Filton.

Yes, the "the Great Wall of Filton", a barrier put in to stop anyone on a bicycle cycling down a road that was closed "to make it a better place to cycle" -at the bottom of Eighth Avenue and the top of Wordsworth Avenue

It's not a cycle path, it's a wall of bollards and barriers, with a van on the pavement to make even the pavement inaccessible.

It's not wide enough to get a bicycle with panniers through

It's not wide enough to get any straight-bar bicycle through without the risk of clipping a wheel on the kerb (where the black marks show it happens), or the bar on the bollard.

It is not a cycle path. It is not pining for the fjords. It is a dead cycle path.

As Rob does not want us to say anything negative about the cycle team, we leave it to him to discover for us whether this was put in without their knowledge, whether their objections to something utterly useless were overridden -or whether they thought this was a good idea.

If he raises this issue at the next cycle forum -he should also ask why The Great Wall of Filton was not discussed beforehand.

Here are our questions for Rob about the Great Wall of Filton

1. Do you any of your family cycles get through here?
2. As this route will link up with the nearby Concorde way, do you believe that this route could form part of a safe joined-up family cycling network?
3. Do you have any evidence that the plan for the Great Wall of Filton was raised with the cycle forum? 
4. Do you think that the Great Wall of Filton is something the cycle team should be proud of?
5. Do you think they were involved in the design?
6. If the cycle team where not involved in the design, does that not indicate that the council is out of control, and that the cycle team have no apparent awareness of what is going on in their shire?
7. Whose budget do you believe it came out of?

If he finds the answers unsatisfactory, we extend the black glove of the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire to Rob -and invite him to recognise that the cycle forum is not the solution to any cycling problems that the area has. Together, we can be.

Cities Shit for Cycling #2

Chester Cycling have given us an updated logo.

This is far more authentic, and shall be used as the official logo for all coverage of S Gloucs council from now on.

S Gloucs: Cities Shit for Cycling

Citizens! The new Times "Cities Fit for Cycling" campaign targets councils like that of S Gloucs.

Unfortunately our council could not support any of the objectives of the campaign, especially that bit about providing useful infrastructure. As far as the council is concerned y\the only role of cycling infrastructure is to keep people on cycles out the way of cars -and if there is a conflict, the bicycles lose. 

For that reason, we, the People's Cycling Front of S Gloucestershire have some artwork to donate to the council, their own logo that they can stick on the vans that block bike paths.

Some people might think "will not the council be embarrassed by this?"

S Gloucs council doesn't give a fuck about bicycles. We know that because we have seen photographs of the new Great Wall of Filton! Until one of our campaign units has visited the site we can not confirm that it is real, but if it is, it actually makes the path with a 50cm dropout look good. At least that one could be ridden on a mountain bike. 

Until that coverage, enjoy our new logo. Before any outsiders complain that the word "shit" doesn't join up with the rest of the sentence, compare it to S Gloucs cycling farcilities before slagging of our graphics.

The Bristol Cycling City report

You can now download the final cycling city report.

Remember, S Gloucs got 1/3 of the cash, so you'd expect 1/3 of the progress, enough to justify Bwian Allison appearing on the introduction.

So let's look at P6 at the on-road and traffic free improvements

Contra-flow streets: A number of contra-flow streets introduced to allow cyclists to travel against the flow of motor vehicles on one way streets, provide an advantage by allowing cyclists ‘filtered permeability’ through an area – mostly in central Bristol.

Measures to increase the use of the Bristol-Bath Railway Path: Two new paths have been installed to provide access to two highly populated communities. Lighting has also been installed to provide illumination up to Bristol City Council's administrative boundary. 

The only bit of infrastructure they cite is the concorde way. That's the one where they put the bollards in because people were actually using it.  They also discuss the bus network

Work with the Greater Bristol Bus Network: Cycling was considered using Cycle Route Implementation and Stakeholder Plans (CRISPs) to identify as many opportunities as possible to benefit cyclists in parallel with buses.

No mention of the S Gloucs plans to ban bicycles from the bus lanes on the A4174, the plans for shite shared-pavement options along the new to-cribbs route being designed.
Same page: 20 mph areas,.

The two 20mph limit pilot areas in Bristol were implemented  

See. In Bristol.  Notice a trend there?

Now P10, area -six.

The Cycling City project implemented 0.72 km of on-road and 19.19 km of traffic-free cycle infrastructure

This all sounds wonderful were not the 19.19km of off road routes 19.19km of such awfulness that the money would have better off spent in Bristol. It probably includes the old Filton Road pavement, put in so that rat-running councillors would be able to use the Old Filton Road, which was until then traffic free.

It probably includes the pavement route put in while a new bus stop was added, with the bike lane set up to crash cyclists into anyone waiting for a bus. And Appendix 6 says "Western Link to UWE". You know the one., the one which only a month ago finally got the junction to the existing infrastructure levelled off so you could actually ride it in both directions on a bicycle without suspension and off-road tyres.




As for the on-road stretch, we fear it includes the other direction of Old Filton Road, as even the council road planners realised that trying to make a pavement 1 metre wide even before it got covered in vegetation two way was daft. Instead they put some green marks down in precisely the one place you don't want to be when heading east.

Page14: a discussion on how signage benefits cycle path users. Well, in S Gloucs on those rare bits of path that do have signage, the signage is just another hazard to fear at night.

From the perspective of Bristol, the results are good. The 20 mph zone, it slows cars down a bit (excluding Ashley Down, York Road, Stapleton road, and it pretends Coronation Road isn't there). The near ubiquitous cycle parking means that trips to local shops are better -and that you feel welcome, which is not the case in S Gloucs outside the big employers.

They also claim that in Ashley Ward, 26% of people cycle to work, in Southville, Redland and Bishopston the percentage is 20%. These are not people who cycle to work in the North Fringe. how can we make such an assertion? The automated traffic count data on concorde way has apparently risen by 102%. But they don't give the figures. If 20% of people in S. Gloucs cycled to work, don't you think they would have mentioned it? If 20% of schoolkids in the area cycled to school, don't you think they would have mentioned it? They didn't. They gave some impressive numbers for the inner city, and used "percentage increases in traffic" as the measure of success in the fringe, missing the point that a doubling of fuck all is still nearly-fuck all.

Anyway: read the report. A key thing to note is that all the big employers of the area had a lot of staff engagement, their employers are supportive and with their on-site bike parking, there are the facilities. What they don't get is anything resembling the infrastructure outside their offices that they deserve.

The daily-mail commenters are always complaining that they, the tax payers, waste money on the cyclists, but what about this. The tax paying staff for the main businesses in S Gloucs, the business that pay the most business rates, don't get the cycle facilities their tax has paid for.

Why not? Because the people in charge of planning cycle facilities in S Gloucs are either dead or missing.

Half-arsed, but better than TfL's work.

In a break from the whining, here's an Xmas gift, the route to St Werburgh's. This is good quality, though missing a few features that would prevent it being used as much as you'd think. Little things like lighting and signage.

This is a video of the descent from UWE to St Werburghs, following the official path with a few mountain bike options exercised. After all, the quality and intermittentness of the S Gloucs paths do effectively mandate mountain bikes with good travel on the front forks and -ideally- disk brakes. If you have the transport needed to negotiate bike paths whose entry and exits go over undropped kerbs, paths with 50cm dropoffs where the paths meet, etc, then you may as well make the most of it and have some fun.

Anyone who depends on TfL for their cycle safety will stare at this video and say "we wish we could have something this good", but the dutch will look at it and say "Could our children get to school on this?".




This video was taken in October, just as the sun was starting to set during the evening peak commute times. Once the clock changed, this went all dark and even on foot you'd worry about the underpass beneath the M32. You'd also stop using the fishponds roundabout underpasses and use the road crossings. Which, in their favour, are there at all: those over the M32 entry/exit points are recent. Until a year ago there was a sign saying "three pedestrians have died crossing here -use the underpass". Now there is an overground option that is survivable, even if you have to wait a minute or two.

Speaking of underpasses, the stairs are optional. You can go down the slope, though it's a bit skittery when the autumn leaves are there. A direct descent of the (shorter) steps avoids the corner and the traction on a 45 degree flight of steps is consistently bad in all weather.

Once you cross the roundabout you get into the 20 mph zone, with speed bumps to enforce deceleration. Heading out, the pavement is a shared use route, heading in you can grab the lane and head down it before scooting right. Then comes the final stretch to the St Werburgh's bridge, up over that and it's in to St Werburghs. UWE to the city, in under 14 minutes, with minimal risks, at least during daylight hours.

Most of this route is under the control of the Bristol Council cycle team. The good features: the 20mph zone, the give-way crossings, the new bike/pedestrian crossings at the roundabout, the frome valley path are all their work. Presumably the stretch through stoke park is theirs too.

In what is clearly the S Gloucs stretch at the beginning, you can see their official bike path features. Crossings and barriers. No signage saying "city centre 15 minutes".

And all the way along: no lighting. You would be fairly bold to do this on foot or bike on your own.

The biggest irritant is that stretch of road. It's a wide road with minimal parking pressure. Why didn't they put a segregated bike path along here, with some formal crossing at the roundabout? Do that with some lights and you do have a safe path that the kids could use.

The other issue is that the M32 bridge can't sustain heavy bicycle traffic. Two bicycles cannot pass on the corners, and visibility as you approach those bends, especially uphill, is pretty bad. If the volume of cycling traffic increases, this bridge could become a choke point. This would be an opportunity to put in access routes that are wider, and add some lighting at the same time.

Hembrow will be weeping blood over this

Our dream "cycle paths the dutch won't laugh at". Well, Hembrow won't be laughing at the next set of proposals. He will be crying tears of blood, at what a wasted opportunity to make cycling -in an area where there are few of the space constraints of a city- vaguely pleasant.

1. Lockleaze to Parkway
2. Lockleaze to Cribbs
3. Parkway to Cribbs

It would be a waste of time to go through these point by point and criticise them, because nobody in the council will care what anyone says. The cyclists will be given something shite and expected to be grateful.

Rather than do the whole lot, let's look at the short stretch from the MoD Roundabout to Abbey Wood station on the ring road, covered in just one fraction of the plans.

Do the plans note the presence of a bus stop in the bike path, and propose adding some more path over the wide green space to the left?

Not a fucking chance.

Whenever something gets too narrow for a bicycle and pedestrian to pass each other, the segregated signage gets replaced by "shared path"

But even in the segregated path, they turn a blind eye to bits where it goes away.

What about this outcrop of greenery that forces pedestrians and cyclists to collide? Any thought of moving the signs -designed for passing drivers- and widening this? No. It will stay as is, with one more pole for some sign to go up.

One more, after things like the pillar saying this is a shared route, in the middle of what is painted as a segregated route.

If any of our members could be arsed to turn up at the "cyclists patronising forum", the question they would ask is

Why the fuck do you put signs in bike lanes saying "This is a bike lane" while you are at least sensible enough not to put them up in the middle of road lanes.

Then there is the underpass by the brige. Lethal on the road, impossible to pass anyone coming, on foot or bike.

yet because of all the no bicycles/no cycling/handlebar barriers on the other crossings nearby (like the Abbey Wood train overpass, 100 metres to the left of this picture), this and the equally useless path on the other side are all we have.

Now imagine such mediocrity to continue for  miles and miles. That is S Gloucs.

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"