http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/will-bristol-spend-its-cycling-city-cash-19013

1. Cycle lanes to the train and bus stations. The lanes should be separate from the car road. I.e., there should be kerb stones protecting the cyclists from the car drivers. I was in Berlin a few weeks ago and they have an AMAZING cycle system that WORKS! I would recommend any planners working on the Bristol project to visit Berlin to see for themselves.

2. Signs should be placed along busy stretches of road to remind drivers to leave space for cyclists and to look in their mirrors before making erratic manoeuvres. The most dangerous time is when drivers are crawling along in traffic, and are totally zoned out from boredom.

3. Hotwells has very few cycle lanes. There are 2 stretches that I know of that last about 100 feet around a corner where Hotwell Road meets Hopechapel Hill, and again at the end by Jacob’s Wells Road. Hotwell Road is a busy road with major traffic issues. Cars rarely leave space for cyclists.

4. Clifton has wide roads, e.g., Whiteladies Road, but no cycle lanes.

Please could you include these points when you address the council on Wednesday! Thanks!

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/09/grid.html

I hope your council has the same forward thinking views as are being expressed here.

It takes time to develop the experience, expertise and imagination to handle significant levels of investment in cycling. The Council cannot conceivably develop that “culture” in just a few months or even a couple of years.

The money involved is OUR money, not the Government’s, not Cycling England’s and not Bristol City Council’s. It is money taken from us in taxes to be spent for OUR benefit. We are entitled to insist that it is.

With the Cycle Expressway idea I think Josh has identified what may well turn out to be the most cost effective way of investing this money under the present circumstances. The one outstanding success of the last 30 years in Bristol has been a Cycle Expressway – the Railway Path to Staple Hill tunnel and on to Bath.

Almost everything else that has been done has been tokenistic, fragmented and compromised by the unwillingness of the Council to give cycling priority over the demands of motorists, most notably when it comes to managing car parking (imagine what could be done for cyclists is so much space on our roads wasn’t given over to provide subsidised car parking).

Josh proposes the creation of a network based on the principles of the Railway Path – complete segregation from motor traffic; direct, level and continuous routes; pleasant green environments and good linkages into surrounding areas. We know it works, PROVIDING it is implemented by an agency committed to getting it right and not by the Council itself.

I think this may be our one and only chance to take some control of this process. As Josh has pointed out the decision making has been deliberately kept out of our reach so far, notably by such mechanisms as the Stakeholders’ Panel where the Council even had the audacity to nominate the Bristol Cycling Campaign’s representative.

So let’s all recognise that this is the moment to take a stand and make it absolutely clear that we will not accept the Council, whose own track record is so appalling, treating OUR money as if it were theirs to spend as they see fit and expecting cyclists to be grateful for whatever they deign to dispense on our behalf.