PARK’S SUPER HIGHWAY HORROR

Crash! The new VIctoria Park

Crash! The new look for VIctoria Park

Uproar south of the river as Sustrans – the cycling psychobabble lobby group for lycra clad middle class loudmouths – announces they intend to build a FIVE METRE WIDE cycling ‘superhighway’ across the southern section of VICTORIA PARK.

Naturally, this crazed idea to create a HIGH-SPEED cycle route across the flat area of the park – ideal for playing sports and games in an otherwise hilly park – is wholly supported by the management crackpots of the council’s transport and parks departments.

The decision to proceed with the highway – laughably branded a ‘QUIETWAY‘ to disguise the obvious cycling racetrack qualities of the proposal – was taken after Sustrans held a consultation “one Wednesday afternoon in the park when no one was there”!

When the absence of people actually consulted for their HAREBRAINED SCHEME was pointed out to Sustrans, they hurriedly contacted a few members of the park’s community group, VPAG (Victoria Park Action Group).

They told Sustrans the path should be no wider than THREE metres and needed to clearly encourage cyclists to understand this is a was SHARED ROUTE with all park users, pedestrians, pets, children and an inner city community short of safe, open space. Rather like the current low-tech under-engineered pathway already does!

This, of course has been entirely ignored by this arrogant sustainable transport charity for snooty people. Instead their five metre wide OVER-ENGINEERED SUPERHIGHWAY plan gives the green light to anti-social middle class loudmouths in lycra to hammer through the park at speed shouting, screaming and even attacking any dogs, children or adult who might get in their way as they race to and from their city centre creative non-jobs.

This selfish scheme must be stopped in favour of a scheme that takes account of all park users and the wider community – not just the commuting needs of a wealthy, loudmouthed lobby of twats.

8 thoughts on “PARK’S SUPER HIGHWAY HORROR

  1. Ian

    Not all lycra clad cyclists are middle class loudmouths, having just started commuting into the centre of Bristol on the shared cycle path I can state that pedestrians and cyclists are as bad as each other.

    Reply
    1. The Bristol Blogger

      See what you did there? “Shared cycle path”. It isn’t a cycle path. There’s that sense of entitlement that pisses other users off.

      You’ve also invented a whole new commuting menace – “the aggressive pedestrian”. Just what we need.

      Reply
    2. Ian

      Invented have you actually cycled down there in rush hour? You have school kids walking three abreast completely oblivious to anyone, people walking in the middle of it, and yes the twats going 20mph treating it like a velodrome. Not all cyclists are a menace but don’t let that get in the way of your little rant.

      Reply
  2. Bristol Traffic

    First, please lay off the “Lycra” cliche, it makes you look like the evening post. Go down the railway path of a morning and you’ll see a far more diverse set of people on wheels than the vilified middle class Lycra Warrior of the press. Which is precisely what safe cycle routes help create: school routes, shopping routes, leisure routes, work routes. Paths where you don’t need to be doing 20 mph and ready to rip the wing mirror off the corsa whose texting driver brings it in to close.

    Regarding the route itself, shared paint paths are pretty unsatisfactory all round, with this you won’t get the bikes weaving though the families, engineering in conflict.

    If you are going to fault the council though, pick on something else: why are they spending money tuning a bit of path which is already survivable, when you still get abandoned in the city centre? Why is the triangle only for the brave, the Hotwells gyratory so unpleasant, then stokes croft “cycle lane” some red paint forever lost under parked vans? It’s because the council is more scared of upsetting suburban drive-to-school, drive-to-work commuters, or worse, adding 15 seconds to a FirstBus schedule. And of course the few hundred K it would take to roll out safe infrastructure is lost between the metrobus dash for cash and the tendency of the roads team to over engineer.

    So instead we get what? A town shit to drive in, yet unable to break the news to the commuters that their dream has died. A town at best mediocre to cycle through, and that’s if you can work out a safe route to where you are going which doesn’t abandon you at a junction, such as the “new and improved” bearpit. And a town that has committed to spend so much on metrobus that we are fucked for anything else for decades.

    Reply
  3. The Bristol Blogger

    Middle aged males in lycra are a problem as anyone who has used the Bristol and Bath Railway Path knows.

    There’s a group who consistently cycle too fast in shared space and when confronted start shouting “it’s a cycle path”. No it fucking isn’t and never has been. These men (and it is virtually always men) are a menace and have simply replaced their aggressive anti-social driving with aggressive anti-social cycling.

    A lot of people do not want this bullshit in Victoria Park.

    Agree with the rest of what you say, especially the reasonableness of most cyclists who can and do use the Victoria park route as is without a problem. Why substantially change it to encourage faster cycling and encourage an anti-social minority? It’s a park not derelict land available for a commuter route.

    This proposal will be a disaster for the park and its regular users. Any changes need to be led by park users not pro-cycling lobbyists who need to be held on a tight rein.

    Agreed. Go spend the money where it’s needed.

    Strength of feeling in the community can be gauged by the objections. The majority of which raise the issue of speeding cyclists: http://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=OHD0KLDNG6G00

    Reply
  4. Cotham Cider

    Why’s BCC suddenly so keen to splash money around this area? I wonder whether the choice of location (and other cycle proposals on Windmill Hill and Whitehouse Street) has anything to do with the developing Urbis ‘masterplan’ for a load of buy-to-let skyscrapers around what they’re laughably branding ‘Bedminster Green’. After all, ticking the ‘sustainable transport connection’ boxes does help smooth the planning process a bit…you’ll probably find this has all been cooked up in a meeting somewhere.

    Reply
  5. TM

    Under the protection of the previous mayor Sustrans and Highways have set up what is in effect a parallel administration in Bristol, which bypasses all the democratic and consultative processes such as the neighbourhood forums and partnerships.
    I’m surprised that they actually bothered to have even a half-a***d public consultation over this – usually they just talk to their chums, line up paid “volunteers” (also chums) to run their schemes and the first the public knows is when a press release appears in the papers or even when work starts on the street.

    Reply
  6. James

    Another great legacy from Green Capital. First allotments are bulldozed for MetroBust. Now a park is having a tarmac superhighway rolled across it. All for vanity and useless to residents, but paid for it by the hard-working majority who will never benefit. Does Marvin have red trousers too cos these two mayors are cut from the same cloth.

    Reply

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