Letters and article in the Bristol Evening Post

Bridge can be enjoyed by walkers and cyclists

The bridges in Bristol provide some of the best vantage points for enjoying the surrounding views of the city. Strollers can wander at leisure from one side to the other to look at the boats, the water birds and many other things, plus it makes a tranquil break from the noise of nearby traffic.

Even if you are just crossing to get to work, the Temple Quay bridge is great fun to walk over with its modern curves and materials. However, Jo Rubery and other cyclists want to take over part of the bridge as a dedicated cycle lane rather than dismount and walk over with the other pedestrians. This is an extremely bad idea as a lane would effectively be a no-go area for walkers. It would turn one side of the bridge into an area in which it is not safe to walk, as cyclists will feel free to speed along without restriction.

I suggest that the whole of the bridge should be freely available to everyone. I do think that slow-moving cyclists and pedestrians could cross the bridge quite happily together if the cyclists gave walkers some warning of their approach. Bristol's own cycling organisation Sustrans recommends that cyclists use bells just for this reason. However, they universally ignore this, and in so doing, treat pedestrians with as little respect as cars.

People on foot have rights too, and maybe it's time to say to cyclists "get off your bike" at the bridge and other places, especially pavements.

Paul Dimarco, Hazlewood Road, Sneyd Park

Dear Sir

Re: Bridge can be enjoyed by Walkers and Cyclists - 4/1/03

Your correspondent, Paul Dimarco (4/1/03) makes some very valid points about Valentines Bridge, and its use by both pedestrians and cyclists, but he is perhaps not in full possession of the facts.

The reason why cyclists are so upset at the attitude of the company which manages the bridge for its owners, the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) is that they would appear to be congenitally opposed to cycling, and this has been demonstrated on a number of occasions.

The bridge was always planned as a shared-use, pedestrian and cyclist bridge, and all the documents and plans refer to it as such, but before it was opened "Cyclists Dismount" signs were installed, against specific advice from the planning authority. The bridge is on a strategic cycle route, avoiding one of the busiest, most dangerous roads in Bristol, Temple Way, where, as has been demonstrated recently, many drivers exceed the speed limit.

Incredibly, the consultants employed to design the bridge (WS Atkins) seemed to ignore the fact that it was shared-use and designed it with parapets too low, and with a surface which it is now claimed is unsuitable for cycling. Having failed to produce a bridge which was suitable for its intended purpose, one might have thought that the management company would look elsewhere for consultants when there were further problems with it, not employing the ones who had already failed, but they did not.

WS Atkins have now produced a solution to an apparently non-existent problem, which makes the bridge more dangerous, more inconvenient and less useful. The only thing the barriers do is to force cyclists and pedestrians together into a small gap, so that congestion, frustration and danger are caused, a situation analogous to the installation of chicanes on the Bristol/Bath cycle track, for which the local authority (Kingswood Council) were taken to the Local Government Ombudsman. All planning guidance, all advice from cycling and pedestrian organisations and all independent advice opposes such barriers.

No planning application was made before the barriers were installed, even though Bristol Council advised that it would be required. A retrospective application has now been made, which contains several factual errors, including claims that the bridge and its approaches are pedestrian only.

The consultants appear to have hit upon a scheme which is a licence to print money: design the thing wrong in the first place, get hired to sort out your own mistakes, make more mistakes, get hired to sort those out and so on ad infinitum. If I was a shareholder in the management company, I would be asking some very serious questions of my managers.

As I have already pointed out, the bridge belongs to SWRDA, which should be following the Regional Development Plan and other Government guidance, including integrated transport, all of which make the strongest possible case for providing for cyclists, especially in new developments, which this is. Perhaps someone from SWRDA would like to tell us why they are employing a management company which refuses to follow SWRDA's own policies and guidance, and perhaps someone from W S Atkins could tell us why they ignore planning guidance.

I can only agree with Mr Dimarco, as do all responsible cyclists, that pavement cycling is stupid and dangerous, but this bridge is a cycle route, is wide enough for shared-use and all the evidence shows that cyclists and pedestrians can happily coexist given enough space.

The story of the design of, subsequent modifications to and management of this bridge is a complete farce, and rather than blaming cyclists for wanting to cycle on a cycle route, Mr Dimarco would be better employed asking why the farce happened in the first place, and why it continues.

Your sincerely

Richard Burton - CTC Right2Ride representative