There’s still a lot of anger in Easton as the final phase of a council traffic scheme, designed by Sustrans, is implemented with the CLOSURE of All Hallows Road at the Bannerman Road School site.
Critics of the HAREBRAINED TRANSPORT SCHEME claim that in a ward of approximately 14,000 people, just 855 people – about six per cent of residents – were involved in an expensive £180k ‘consultation’ based on hookie stats such as the claim that “39,883… vehicles enter and/or leave the area during a 24 hour period” (by comparison, 60,000 vehicles use the M32 every day). However, since NO RECORDS of this consultation were kept, the council can’t confirm that the people who took part even live in Easton and they can’t deny that the same people attended multiple consultation meetings.
The closure of All Hallows Road is especially controversial as this “additional filtered permeability” didn’t appear until the final phase of the consultation which had less than 92 participants. So, even assuming every single one of them was enthusiastic, we’re talking about LESS THAN 1% OF THE POPULATION in favour. Residents say they were never offered any different ideas or plans. There was never any vote held nor public meetings to discuss options. There was just an announcement “WE’RE CLOSING THE ROAD“. The closure has been opposed at public meetings; opposed in a resident-run survey of over 1,000 people and opposed by local businesses, faith groups and the community centre.
Residents recently fought the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to close the road and requested evidence of how the closure would achieve any of the things being claimed for it such as a REDUCTION IN TRAFFIC, CLEANER AIR and SAFER STREETS? Indeed, they asked, how would the council even measure success since they made no effort to quantify their aims, goals or success level?
A resident says, “They are literally spending money with no way to tell if it has done any good. And you know that this is the case because they have REFUSED at every opportunity to address any of our concerns. Instead, at every phase we have been told “PEOPLE WANT THIS” and “IT MEETS OUR TRANSPORT OBJECTIVES“. Who wants this? Because I can find no-one outside of a tiny group of a dozen people who actually want it. How does it meet their transport objectives? Which ones? In what way?”
Residents continue to say there is an alternative. Close the road between 8am and 9am and 3pm and 4pm. Two hours a day and open on weekends. Simple. Straightforward. Protects the children, makes the area safer at the times when it needs to be safer and doesn’t disrupt traffic into well-known accident hotspots. The council and their councillors just say, “IT’S TOO LATE“.
Welcome to democracy, Bristol-style.