chasing the sun…

I went along to the Watershed last night (together with great friends Sarah and Dave) to watch a film about cycling. Nothing to do with the Tour de France or professional bike racing… this was simply a documentary film about lots of cyclists endeavouring to ride 205 miles coast-to-coast (UK South event: Thames Estuary to Weston-super-Mare) in a day – the longest/summer solstice day.
It’s NOT about speed or being first across the line. It’s about how much of a land it’s possible to see, to feel, by bicycle in a single day (in 1973 an American university professor set out to discover the most energy efficient creature on earth… and he concluded that it was a human being on a bicycle!).
It’s now an annual event – and there are other similar coast-to-coast rides organised on the same day in Italy, Scotland and Ireland (with others being planned elsewhere). Ollie Moore (the person who first came up with the idea) views the event as giving people an opportunity to get away from their screens and daily clutter and creating a “space for thinking” and re-attuning the senses to being surrounded by nature and allowing individuals to see things they wouldn't normally see. Moore was inspired by Richard Long, the English sculptor/land artist – who attended last night’s film (Long would document his walks through nature by opening up his senses, drinking in the sights, sounds and sensations he was feeling on his bike or his walks). It’s also about the environment and ‘saving the planet’.
The film has interviews with people who have discovered (or re-discovered) the health and environmental benefits of cycling in their own cities, towns or villages… and many who are passionate advocates for ensuring greater provision of dedicated cycling space on our heavily-trafficked streets.
The film includes rather wonderful footage of (and conversations with) a couple of cyclists participating in the coast-to-coast ride – a woman who had never previously contemplated cycling any such sort of distance and a man who talked about how cycling had massively helped his mental health.
It’s a passionate, joyful film and I hugely enjoyed it.  

metrobus: bus rapid transit system…

I’m all for improving public transport links… especially in Bristol (which must rank as one of the worst cities for road traffic chaos in the country?).
The answer, we’ve been told, is MetroBus.
According to its website, “MetroBus is a new express bus service that’s coming to the West of England region. It is a joint project between Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council. MetroBus is a form of high capacity rapid public transport found in urban areas. It’s a smarter way of travelling that uses a combination of segregated busways and bus lanes”… and, of course, it will (again, according to the website):
·         reduce carbon emissions,
·         support sustainable economic growth,
·         promote accessibility,
·         contribute to better safety, security and health,
·         improve quality of life and create a healthy natural environment”.
The trouble is (well, ONE of the troubles) that it’s going to cost an AWFUL lot of money!
In these austere times, the project is due to cost £200million (which includes just £34million from Central Government)(actually, there are SO many figures banded about that it’s all very confusing – probably intentionally!). I’m unsure about the latest cost estimates, but delays have no doubt already caused a sizeable increase.
Oh, and just last week, as a result of central government massively reducing funding to local councils (which, according to the Green Party "make it impossible for local councils to deliver essential basic services"), Bristol City Council has announced that it will have to axe 1,000 jobs to keep up with budget cuts! Aaargh!!
In December 2014, “The Bristol Post” reckoned the Bristol work was due to start in early February 2015 - with the aim of opening the Long Ashton-Temple Meads route in summer 2016 (yeh, right!!). Other construction work was programmed, thus:
Phase1: Docks+Hippodrome area = Oct15-Apr16
Phase2: Road closures and associated works = Mar16-Oct16
Phase3: finishing works = Sep16-Mar17
Well, let’s just say that the programme has slipped somewhat!

At this stage, for many Bristolians, MetroBus simply means yet another way of disrupting the city by roadworks. On 9 August, “The Bristol Post” reported that there about 40,000 sets of roadworks being carried out on the city’s road network every year… and, believe me, this year is going to be a bumper year!! The trouble is that the MetroBus work seems to be being undertaken in an incredibly haphazard way… LOTS of things are started but never, it seems, completed. The zone between Baldwin Street and St Augustine’s Parade is a perfect illustration (see above photograph): a large area has been closed off by hoardings for virtually a year (causing inconvenience and disruption), BUT virtually no construction has actually been carried out (its principal use appears to be as a massive parking area for digging machinery). Sightings of actual construction workers are somewhat rare! I COULD provide countless examples of areas where work has been commenced, but then “stalled”!  

Mastermind’s famous phrase of “I’ve started, so I’ll finish” could never be applied to the MetroBus roadways!
From the onset, campaigners questioned the scheme’s viability (not to mention its impact on the green belt etc). And now, just this month, it’s been reported that the scheme – “due to be running in Bristol by 2017” (note that they’ve stopped predicting a month!) - still has no operator and may need public funds “to entice firms on board”. Brilliant!
You just couldn’t make it up!

the man who saved bristol harbourside…

You almost certainly won’t have heard of Jerry Hicks.

He died, aged 86, earlier this month but, if you live in Bristol (or are just enthusiastic about the city’s many charms), I thought you might like to know that this man, along with his wife Anne, effectively saved the city’s floating harbour in 1969.
The docks were no longer economically viable and the City Docks Parliamentary Act proposed taking up of large areas by roads crossing the harbour (including an extension of the M32 into the city and, ultimately, linking with the M5), the construction of three bridges to carry motorways and the decking or filling in of parts of the docks themselves so that these could be given over to other uses.
When this became public knowledge, there was an outcry and the Bristol City Docks Group, of which Jerry Hicks was a leading member (he was also an executive member of Bristol Civic Society), was formed to fight the ratification of the Parliamentary act in order to maintain the use of the docks both by smaller vessels – yachts, dinghies and launches – and by tall ships coming up the river and tying-up in the centre of the city.
Strangely, I became aware of the motorway proposals during my last year as an architectural student in 1972/73 – when I was using Bristol as the geographical focus for my final-year thesis. I came across initial plans showing the proposed new motorway routes through the city centre and remember feeling absolutely horrified by what I saw. It was only a week or so later that I realised that these plans had in fact been rejected – thanks to a passionate and vociferous fight by a local campaign group (which obviously included Jerry Hicks).
To many people at the time, the road scheme no doubt made sense – an opportunity to purchase substantial tracks of land at relatively low prices. It was, after all, largely run-down industrial properties and land associated with the docks plus the large sections covered by water (which, of course no one would ever want again!).
I’m afraid it was another case of a city being re-planned by highway engineers (my own home city of Birmingham was another case in point in the 1960s).
These days, I occasionally take sixth form groups of budding urban designers/planners/architects/geographers around the city and highlight how the city has evolved during the course of its history and, particularly, since the final demise of the docks in the early 1970s. Needless to say, as we wander along the vibrant harbourside and try to imagine what MIGHT have been, it seems almost unreal that people could have been so short-sighted.
Thank goodness for visionaries like Jerry Hicks.
Photo: Jerry Hicks on Bristol Harbourside (acknowledgement: The Bristol Post).

traffic chaos

Normally, the journey to and from school is unremarkable (boring, but unremarkable).
Today was somewhat different. It was my turn to drive Andy and Pete into work. As usual, we set out at 7am. The journey normally takes us about 35 minutes.
This morning it took us just over two and a half hours!
It transpired that there was a queue of lorries (and cars) lined up on the southbound A37 between Pensford and Whitchurch after drivers had decided that conditions on Husley Hill were too dangerous due to the icy road conditions (an 18 tonne lorry had apparently hit a milk tanker and was straddling the road; this was followed by a motorcyclist coming off his bike because he hadn’t realised he was on sheet ice). The ironic thing was that we were the first of the Bristol teachers on the road (and duly phoned other teachers to warn them) but were the last to arrive at school. As we hadn’t moved for over 20 minutes, we decided to turn round and seek an alternative route, like so many others, and found ourselves in huge queues of other frustrated drivers!
On the way home, we came across an overturned van in the middle of the A362 in Paulton (not the one shown in the photograph!)…. no one appeared to be injured, but it was almost surreal seeing this overturned vehicle EXACTLY in the middle of the road straddling the white line perfectly and pointing towards us as if it had been carefully positioned there by a crane.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be a quieter day (Pete’s driving!).