Bristol Green Party demands answers on the Cycle Path

10 Questions First and the Council have to answer about their plans to run buses down the Bristol-Bath Cycle Path.

 Room for two double decker busways plus a cycle and pedestrian path and an evacuation strip?

Thanks to the hard work of the Bristol Cycling Campaign, and their Freedom of Information request, new plans to run buses down the country’s most popular dedicated cycle and pedestrian path have been forced into the public sphere.

The plans were made by a team of management consultants employed by the unelected local quango, the West of England Partnership. The West of England Partnership is made up of representatives from the likes of the Council, the South West Regional Development Agency and First Group – the very people responsible for the current appalling state of Bristol transport.

So we can be forgiven for not wanting to take their assertions that these plans are the best option for the people of Bristol.

And it seems we’re not alone - over 3,000 people have already signed the petition opposing it.

Unless the following ten questions can be answered properly, this idea is a non-starter. And until these questions are answered to our satisfaction, Bristol Green Party will be fighting the proposals tooth and nail, in the hope that common sense will prevail, and the M32 be adopted as a much better alternative route for the new bus way.

1) Why are partners in the project already identifying ways to make the plans seem more environmental than they actually are in the public consultation to come?

(For example, when discussing whether a ‘guided’ or ‘unguided’ system should be chosen, a technical report made to the Partnership had this to say: ‘The image (of the guided system) can appear more sustainable due to the ability to plant grass between the tracks, which will be useful in softening the perceived impact of the route for consultation purposes'. See page 2 of the anonymous ‘Bus Rapid Transit Technology Assessment – Guidance Recommendation’ dated 1st August 2007, available here, which was endorsed by the Bus Rapid Transport Project Board at its 9th November meeting. While it is unclear who exactly drafted this recommendation, the recommendation was put together following a 15th October 2007 workshop at which representatives from First, Halcrow, Steer Davies Gleave and a third consultancy, Atkins, were present - see item 3 in the minutes for the 9th November meeting). Meanwhile, Business West, another unelected member of the West of England Partnership quango, had a idea. They highlighted the ‘perceived advantages of low emission vehicles’ if such buses were employed on the new route. See item 7 in the minutes from the West of England Partnership’s Bus Rapid Transit Project Board meeting of 9 November 2007, available here)

2) Why is £49 million being spent on this when First are proposing to run only two buses an hour down the track at evenings, bank holidays and weekends, and only provide enough buses to carry 300 people at peak time?

(See page 12 of the BRT Project Board's 'Corridor Options Shortlist Report' from May 2007, available here. The 300 people per hour peak time estimate comes from Save the Railway Path, who foresee an average of 50 people per bus at peak time.)

3) Why is a linear park currently used for 2.4 million carbon free cycle and pedestrian journeys per year seen as more suitable for a double bus lane than a road? Is it simply because it is the cheaper option, or because of an unwillingness to inconvenience motorists?

(See Sustrans article and accompanying letter here - extracts below.)

4) According to your own report, the cyclepath bustrack will have the lowest effect of all possible routes looked at in terms of persuading people out of their cars (“modal shift”). It is also the second most expensive and has comparatively low economic benefits. Why has this scheme been as chosen as the first route to be built, rather than others that would reduce pollution by far more?

(See pages 47 and 53 of Steer Davies Gleave, ‘Greater Bristol Transport Corridor Options, January 2007, available here)

5) What is the exact width of the proposed cycle/pedestrian corridor that is supposed to run alongside the bus track? How will it be separated from the bus lanes?

(3 metres is the figure seemingly plucked out of the air in page 2 of notes from the May 1st meeting of the West of England Partnership's BRT Project Board, available here - but this would be impossible to fit in alongside two bus lanes on the majority of the cycle path, even without the legally necessary 'evacuation strip' that needs to be included too - see item 3 here!)

6) If the bus track is supposed to be of benefit to people living in the most deprived areas of East Bristol, why is there only one stop per ward planned for the three inner wards of Lawrence Hill, Easton and Eastville?

(Ward maps are available to download at the council's website, and a map of the route is available from Bristol Cycling Campaign here. If the final destination was Temple Meads, there would technically be two stops in Lawrence Hill ward. This would at least be an improvement, as no East Bristol buses currently serve to Bristol's main station, but the Temple Meads option is only one of three, with the other two routing through the city centre, currently well served by East Bristol buses.)

7) How will residents living either side of the trackway be able to cross it, and what is meant by the reference in the planning documents to a ‘rationalisation’ of crossing points? How will schoolchildren get across to schools like Whitehall Primary or the City Academy?

(No reference possible here, as the documents currently available don't address this consideration at all!)

8) What will happen to Royate Hill Nature Reserve and other areas of conservation that the trackway will cut through?

(The bus lanes would cut through the nature reserve plus a further four designated Sites of Nature Conservation Importance - see pages 15 to 17 of Steer Davies Gleave's July 2007 Greater Bristol BRT Environmental Scoping Report, available here. The cycle path does not currently pass through the nature reserve, but the part that runs parallel would certainly need widening if the plans went ahead. Do the consultants know something that isn't in the documents made available so far? Or are they just incompetent? Whichever it is, the plans would also potentially impact negatively on protected species such as bats, badgers, great crested newts, water voles and dormice, as well as the broad leaved woodland that lines the path - see page 17 of 'BRT Project Board - Progress Update from November 2nd 2007, available here. Despite these issues, the following month's update glibly asserts that these species will not prove 'showstoppers', even though none of the investigations into the extent to which these species will be affected have taken place yet! - see page 3 of the minutes of the November 9th meeting of the BRT Project Board, available here, and page 18 of the November 2nd meeting noted above for the timetable.)

9) Why are there no limits set in the plans regarding what First or any operator would be able to charge for the bus services along the track?

(All the documents contain is one vague assumption on the part of the consultants who came up with it that fares on the BRT will be 'comparable with other bus fares', i.e. those First charge now for Bristol buses, i.e. a scandalous, blind rip-off that is the single most important thing keeping people off our city's buses at present - reference to be found in the bottom bullet point in the second section of page 18 of the document mentioned in question 4 above.)

10) Why have you chosen a scheme which will put an iron curtain through several communities, and which threatens some of the most vulnerable groups in society - the main groups who currently enjoy the peace, tranquility and fresh air of the cyclepath – pedestrians, disabled people, cyclists and children.

(We'll stop with these questions now, as they're turning into irate rhetorical ones!)

We’re not the only ones with questions, though. Leading national cycle charity Sustrans have also come out in total opposition to the plans, and have posed four further questions of their own. These are:

1. Has there been an evaluation of alternative on-road options to the current proposed route to Emersons Green? If so did this take into account net carbon benefits, economic cost benefit ratios, health impacts, impact on congestion and impacts on air pollution?

2. Why has the option of running the bus route along the A432 identified just a couple of years ago in the Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study been discarded?

3. Has there been an evaluation of the loss of the very high levels of walking and cycling on the route, taking into account the already existing net carbon, health, congestion and air pollution benefits and how does this impact on the economic cost benefit ratio?

4. Have you modelled the benefits in terms of reduced car use if you invested the funding proposed for the BRT in improved walking and cycling infrastructure Bristol-wide, onroad provision of buses, and other smarter choices which, in combination, may bring about greater benefits?

They also add the following points:

'Given the commitments made by Bristol to sustainability, it is counter-intuitive, to say the absolute least, for you to be proposing a bus route which would tear the heart out of what is already one of the best used public spaces serving pedestrians, cyclists and people with disability in Bristol and, indeed, the UK.

'It also runs counter to guidance published today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommending the creation of high quality walking and cycling routes to combat obesity and other health issues. In our view acting on these should mean an extension of traffic free walking and cycling routes not their down-grading.

'This in itself is sufficient grounds for the proposed route to Emersons Green to be re-directed.

'Here are some others:

'1. The proposed route, the Bristol and Bath Path, is one of the best used sections of the National Cycle Network. When Sustrans last surveyed this section of Network it was carrying 2.4 million trips a year. This usage is increasing at 10% a year. This amounts to over 6,500 trips each day, with 56% of these journeys being for work. 58% of users surveyed could have used a car for their journey but chose not to. A BRT route on this section will, we believe, reduce current levels of walking and cycling and may well actually encourage people to return to their cars.

'2. 55% of people use the path because of its high “amenity value”, recognised by the Department for Transport in the assessment of transport networks. In addition 47% use the route because it is free of motorised traffic and they feel safe using it. A BRT route with its associated speed, pollution and fencing will destroy both of these and will discourage usage.

'3. Whilst we support improved public transport it is clearly regressive in this day and age to propose public transport improvements that will reduce the quality of existing facilities for those travelling by even more sustainable modes like walking and cycling. The proposed BRT route to Emersons Green will do precisely this.'

Sustrans have also sent a proposal to the West of England Partnership showing just how a small amount of the money currently proposed for the BRT wisely invested in improvements to the Bristol and Bath Path would significantly improve access for local people to the benefit of their health and environment.

For Sustrans' full response go to the Sustrans website, and for other further information, click here, Click here to contact the ‘Save the Railway Path’ campaign, or here to join the campaign’s Yahoo discussion group. A public meeting about the plans is being held on Tuesday 5th February (7.30 pm, Easton Community Centre, Kilburn St, BS5 6AW (opposite the Plough pub - *** NOTE THIS IS A CHANGE OF VENUE FROM THE SMALLER ORIGINAL ONE, THE CORNUBIA). Please come if you can!

The ‘Save the Railway Path’ campaign is a non-partisan group of everyone interested in saving the cycle path, and is completely independent of us or any other political party.