Friday 26 February 2010

Extra £825,000 to "ease" congestion in Bristol

Gushes the Beeb:

An extra £825,000 is to be ploughed into tackling congestion in the greater Bristol urban area.

The money was awarded by the Department for Transport after targets to ease congestion in the area were exceeded.


Hooray! Does that mean we might see improved traffic light synchronicity (which would benefit ALL road users), maybe removing a good few sets of lights? (ditto)

Of course not. Something that motorists might benefit from? Unthinkable!

The money will be spent on further encouraging people to walk and cycle to work or take up public transport instead.


Great. A poster campaign I shouldn't wonder. What a great way to spend the cash. Because of course, we all need to be "encouraged", so if we choose not to walk or cycle, there must be something wrong with us, right? I guess they feel that previous useless poster campaigns weren't "on message" enough.

Work will also be carried out to improve junctions to help traffic flow and shorten bus journey times.


I rather suspect this translates as "Work will also be carried out to help bus flow and shorten bus journey times".

The money goes to the West of England Partnership, which brings together councils in Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset, and North Somerset.


This would be the same WoEP who are planning on turning one of Bristol's best cycling assets - the cycle path - into a bus lane?

2 comments:

AngryDave said...

After they spent so much money on putting up traffic lights every 20 yards to cause the congestion in the first place, i find it hard to believe that the council will do anything meaningful.
It's just going to be a load of bullshit telling us how bad we are because we dont cycle and we dont buy into all the climate change bollocks.

Sod It said...

*sighs* I happen to agree with Angry Dave here. Most transport projects like this are designed in order to 'change our behaviour' rather than make travel, any kind of travel, easier or more convenient.

Remember- Bristol, along with just about every other city, town or hamlet in this country was built for the horse and cart and nobody has really had the vision and the guts to say let's rebuild our cities around 21st century needs rather than the 'needs of the planet'.

So yep, it's bollocks.