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Bristol Temple Quarter Harbour Greenway impression"Awful" - Bristol Cycling Campaign's verdict on Temple Greenways plans
Cycling campaigners in Bristol have described plans for a shared use path for bike riders and pedestrians to the city’s planned £91 million arena as “awful,” and that provision for cyclists in the city is “piecemeal” and appears to be drawn up as an afterthought.
The routes in question, known as Temple Greenways, will provide a link from Temple Quay to the city centre in the area around Temple Meads station, which is being transformed as part of a massive regeneration project.
Bristol City Council believes the proposed network of paths, which form part of a £21 million scheme to improve transport, walking and cycling provision in the area, will encourage people to visit the 12,000 capacity venue by bike and on foot.
But in their response to a consultation which closed last Friday, Bristol Cycling Campaign said that while there were positive aspects to the proposals, issues such as more bike parking remained unmet, and that due to expected volumes, it was vital to separate pedestrians from cyclists.
They said: While both sets of plans show some innovation and welcome improvements, for example on the Promenade Quietway and a riverside path on pontoons, they also show a failure to tackle the fundamental issues and barriers, such as linking the Bath Road Freeway into the centre, or the 6,000 space cycling hub that is needed at this key transport interchange.
“We think that recent plans for cycling are so awful because they continue to throw in piecemeal routes after all major decisions have been made, and then most of them are for shared use with pedestrians.
“There is only one section of separated Space for Cycling in these plans, and that's the existing short Cattle Market Road section. Everything else is shared use with pedestrians which is only suitable when volumes and speeds are low.
“These routes will be some of the most heavily used in the city as we move towards the 20 per cent level of cycling that the Bristol Cycle Strategy is aiming for. We can expect walking to comfortably exceed 40 per cent of trips making clearly separated networks for walking and cycling essential,” they added.
Launching the consultation last month, assistant mayor Mark Bradshaw said: “The streets and spaces around Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone need to be improved to meet the needs of the growing number of people who will live and work here and visit the area.
“With the arrival of the Bristol Arena in 2017, improved cycle and pedestrian routes to the arena site and good links to the station are vital to encourage visitors to travel to the venue sustainably.
“We want moving around Temple Quarter to be an easy and pleasant experience and for streets and spaces to be safe, welcoming and attractive,” he added.
The overall plan is shown below – click here for a full-size PDF.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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24 comments
Horses for courses... I ride a very Dutch bike through town every day, pootling along and shared use is fine, I'm not going fast (wouldn't want to sweat my neat work clothes!), it's in town, just like the pedestrians I'm just trying to get to somewhere.
Shared paths and roadbikes are NOT A GOOD MATCH. They are not suitable infrastructure for people at high speed!
And just for the record - however glorious Dutch cycle infrastructure, I wouldn't take the roadbike to the paths through the dunes on a sunny Sunday afternoon - too much conflict with gentle riders. And there's much less racing in urban areas too - a roadie would slow down in town, the infrastructure there, however glorious, isn't fit for going fast either! No such thing as a 'cyclist' - too many different types!
Precisely. Cycling is not a one size fits all. Slow down. Enjoy the ride. And behave responsibly.
Shared use paths in Bristol are an awful idea. You can't take a normal pavement, put a white line down the middle and declare it a suitable cycle path.
"This is a recreational area, cyclists should be going slowly enjoying the environment"
And this is precisely the problem. You see a pretty route along the river, where people should be pottering along slowly. I see yet another poorly thought out shared use space around Bristol's main train station and what will be a major music venue next to Bristol's commercial centre. The main roads round here are godawful to cycle on - multilane, very busy, lots of lorries, vans, busses and taxis - but you (& the Council) think that this is where those of us who want to use bikes for transport rather than for leisure should be.
Lets try that with cars, its a residential area you should be going slowly, ie 5mph....
There's a shared 6m wide path in my local park (Highbury Fields).
Seems to work fine. Cyclists ride around peds and there's plenty of width for them to get away from each other.
But on a normal footpath, it's useless and asking for trouble.
You can tell how awful this is going to be for cycling by looking at the architect's drawings. It's like "Where's Wally", with a couple of bikes hidden at the back of the pavements. http://www.betterbybike.info/News/green-light-extra-cycling-investment-b...
Some of the big office blocks round there now have 1/5 of their staff riding to work regularly and this design fails them completely.
I can't help but agree with the hints from others commenting here that years of Sustrans being used by authorities as consultative body for cycling projects has retarded progression towards quality infrastructure. They have spent years now endorsing and promoting really poor shared use and piece meal infrastructure (think diabolical circuitous alleyway links through 90's cul-de-sac hellholes and mucky bridleways) in the endless drive to claim an ever-growing network to brand up as Sustrans routes, but this is now backfiring.
However, in their defence, it was most likely a necessity in the context of the 1980's/90's and early 00's when it was that or nothing and therefore seen as a 'seed' for future infrastructure. Unfortunately nothing ever got developed and it's now clear that shared use infrastructure is woefully inadequate in so many urban settings for the kind of aspirations being held up by cycling cities and demonstration towns etc.
Woefully low ambitions for city that styles itself as a "cycling city".
Time to step out of the shadows of Sustrans-esque "shared-use" paths and embrace proper Dutch-style cycling infrastructure.
Back to the drawing board.
Shared use paths are OK for low volume use, but are a nightmare when lots of pedestrians and cyclists are mixed.
If Bristol is serious about cycling growth it should be planning dedicated cycling infrastructure.
So for a 12,000 seat venue, with 20% cycling to the venue and 40% walking. Assuming it's full and most people arrive (90%) within an hour of the "kick off" That's say 36 cyclists per minute and 72 pedestrians per minute - Sharing what looks pretty normal width foot paths. I think a significant level of concern is appropriate.
I use several shared paths on my commute, none are problematic, but they aren't shifting that many people.
You want to see cycling groups go nuts, just ask them to share space.
If you want to get cyclists off the roads for safety reasons, why create another conflict by mixing cyclists and pedestrians?
Or conflict caused by cyclists, pedestrians and forty thousand metres of retractable dog lead.
Not quite the same is it. Cars and cyclists mixing vs pedestrians and cyclists mixing.
Nope, still no clue what point you are trying to make. You are a very opaque poster!
Cycling campaigners aren't asking for this kind of abysmal compromise, aren't designing it and aren't building it. Blame whoever is responsible for the design.
In any case, I don't see many pedestrians all that keen on sharing space with bikes. Usually they're the first to moan - read the letters page in any local paper.
Very odd post. I can't figure out what point its making. I mean, its just a statement of the obvious (apart from the peculiar implication that pedestrians are happy to share with cyclists - something that is quite obviously not true)
Cyclists and pedestrians don't like having to deal with each other, because its very inconvenient and slightly hazardous for both.
The only place sharing makes sense is beside very fast major roads going long distances between towns, where there are not too many cyclists and hardly any pedestrians. When there's such low traffic having two seperate paths would be a waste of space.
Yes I was being a bit mischievous with my comment, but there is is always an element of throwing out the baby with the bath water by cycling groups. They tend to be very black and white in their views that modes of transport must always be separated. There is no doubt that the extent of shared space proposed under the scheme is a problem. However I don't think it is a bad idea along the pontoon. This is a recreational area, cyclists should be going slowly enjoying the environment. Any conflict which occurs will be at very low speeds. Rider can easily adjust. Put a line down the middle and you just increase speed and promote a 'get out of my space' aggressive attitude.
@jaytree
I don't disagree that just putting a white line down the middle of the path with no other changes probably wouldn't help. Paint rarely does. But is that really what the cycle groups are asking for?
And is it a 'recreational area' or a transport route _to_ somewhere? Sounds to me (not being a local) that its more of an actual route to a place. And it sounds like a bit of 'fobbing off' to suggest that this is good enough for cyclists. But yeah, I'd have assumed that a proper solution would involve a lot more than a line of white paint.
The 'shared use' paths I know of I tend to avoid entirely, because they are useless for actually getting anywhere (unless its the middle of the night, anyway, and even then there are those wretched invisible dog leads!)
Curious, were these plans drawn up by Bristol CC, or were Sustrans involved?
I'm not really a gambling man but if a cycle lane is described as 'awful', I'd be confident putting money on Sustrans being involved.
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