Our man out on the town (again) reports …
“I was at a party talking to a woman whose best friend’s flat mate’s sister knows someone who works somewhere not unadjacent to chief Bristol City Council transport officer, Colin Knight.
“She was saying that Knight and his team are currently working night and day to come up with an alternative to a BRT scheme that’s not on the Railway Path.”
The climbdown cometh …
Doesn’t that just confirm that they never gave proper consideration to any alternative routes in the first place?
They’ve got to come up with at least one alternative to give credibility to Bradshaw’s claim that other options are being considered. But it doesn’t follow that they will present it as if it were a truly viable alternative. Their objective may simply be to demonstrate that there is no viable alternative to the Railway Path.
The process remains fundamentally flawed in that publicly funded officers and consultants are operating in a partisan way, pursuing their own agenda in quasi secret. There need to be checks and balances against that.
I sincerely hope that the balance has been tipped. It was clear from the meeting that Lib Dems had with with officers immediately in advance of the Easton meeting in early Feb that the choice had moved from neutrality on route towards “the Cycle path with the others being used as negative comparators “during the preceding few months. We put the point then that if they continued to work in this way then they might well finish up with nothing as the cycle path was unacceptable and if they put out negative comments about the M32 route they would find it very difficuilt to switch horses later.
It is too early to tell whether there has been a genuine switching of horses or whether they are being instructed to go through the motions.
The climbdown seems to be well underway.
I’ve recently received “The Update”. This is a leaflet, dated March 2008, informing subscribers about the progress on the development of the Transport Innovation Fund application.
Plenty of mention of Bus Rapid Transit, but strangely nothing about Emerson’s Green to Ashton Vale and absolutely no mention of the Bristol to Bath Railway Path. There’s a proposed Hengrove to Bristol City Centre, Centre to Cribbs Causeway, and a new one, Emerson’s Green to North Fringe.
So either the four councils (there’s no mention of the West of England Partnership) have shelved the Railway Path route, or they’re trying to pretend they have and sneak it through anyway, or more likely, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing.
The rest of the document is the usual waffly old trash that uses thousands of words to say precisely nothing.
Under the sub-heading “What’s been happening?” the authors of the pamphlet have neatly ignored the unprecedented furore surrounding the Railway Path. Indeed they’ve neatly ignored virtually everything including the fact that the Government STILL haven’t approved the funding for the Greater Bristol Bus Network (more ineffective Showcase bus routes) nearly two years after the original scheme submission.
However, they do mention a lot about CONgestion Charging and how we’re not going to have one before “real alternatives to the car are in place”.
Yeah right.
We’ll get a few more Shitcase bus routes run by the diabolical First Group and perhaps a single BRT line, again run by First.
Then we’ll get the CONgestion Charge.
Welcome to the brave new world of public transport in the Bristol area, exactly the same as ever. Riddled with lies, incompetence, undefunding and a total lack of imagination.
“We’re not going to have Congestion Charging before real alternatives to the car are in place.”
Which is another way of saying “never”.
Whatever “alternatives” they put in place, they will never be considered enough and the fateful decision on Congestion Charging will be postponed endlessly while yet more “alternatives” are pursued.
It’s ever-increasing congestion for the foreseeable future, at least until the Council get real and start dealing with practicalities instead of pipe dreams.
How about re-opening the Portishead-bristol Railway?
I’ll get my coat.
Its quite simple guys, we need a modern light railway that can convert into a tram in the city centre.
The Portishead link is a good start. NOT taking cyclists off the road in order to line the pockets of First Group.
Apparently, the new Cabot circus cark park at the bottom holds 3,000 cars?! Where the hell are they going to get in?
I recon that the M32 holds more than 3,000 cars and will become the largest car park in the SW.
I think that I’ll be taking the bike to Harvey nicks then.
“I was at a party talking to a woman whose best friend’s flat mate’s sister knows someone who works somewhere not unadjacent to chief Bristol City Council transport officer, Colin Knight.”
Wow…next, you’ll be quoting his imaginary dog. Hmmm…maybe you’re hoping for a job with the Express Group. Lol..you should do well.
BTW…I totally support your point. I just don’t think you need to go down this route to make it.