Sunday 4 August 2013

Suspension Bridge Video -and some cyclists dare to complain?

Following on from the Suspension Bridge Anti-cycling proposal, we sent an expendable cyclist over the bridge to view it from their perspective, rather than ours (they pay nothing and hold us up)


This is a saturday and traffic is quiet, apart from Mercedes GY62KKT trying to turn over the cyclist at 0:10, not much happens.

  • 0:15 The tax dodger is not nice and stays out the cycle path provided for them
  • 0:25: the normal ice-cream van in the bike path has been replaced by an ice-cream bicycle on the pavement. Shocking.
  • 0:30: some pedestrians walk across the bridge. They should recognise that drivers have paid to be there and not walk around. This is why they are not allowed to cross in the centre of the bridge area.
  • 0:34-0:39. Tax dodger becomes a toll-dodger by swerving into a dedicated bicycle bypass, before jumping off the kerb ahead of the low-visibility dropped exit point
  • 0:40-1:06. Toll dodger cycles over the bridge. There are three oncoming cyclists, showing that nobody is paying for its upkeep. It also shows that there is pent-up-suppression needed for this crossing, which we are grateful for Bristol Council to provide.
  • 1:14-1:3. Toll dodger exits the bridge, but the central barrier again stops anyone important trying to get past -no matter how much of a hurry they are in. There isn't quite enough room unless they pull over into the echelon-parking bays. We really need signs saying "cyclists pull over to let paying users past"
That's it then: the bridge on a summer saturday from a tax dodger's perspective. They ignore the cycle lanes that we paid for from road tax, yet choose to use the toll booth bypass when they want to. Then they pootle across potentially holding up traffic -not just on the bridge, but at the exit.

The consultation isn't going to do anything to address these hold ups -the barriers will remain in place. there will be some speed-pavements on the approach (0:20-ish), but you need to slow for the queue means that has no impact. Hopefully they will be made of slippery bricks that will drop roadies out for a wiggins-worship weekender.

1 comment:

Stephen Lawrence said...

Not sure why peds or cyclists shold be expected to pay a toll on this bridge, since a bridge designed for those two categories only would be a significantly smaller affair and would thus attract v. small (1/10th?) of the toll, so small not worth collecting on a per-trip basis. toll-saving Deviation at 0:35 is lethal. Shouldn't be necessary to do this.