Your say / cycling
‘Walking and cycling through the Centre is currently a confusing mess’
Every week I ride my bike through the Centre past where the fountains used to be to get to either City Hall or the office. And every time navigating the busy throng is a confusing mess.
I usually cycle in from Bedminster as it’s quicker than walking, cheaper than the bus and I don’t have to pay for parking. Going elsewhere, I might walk, drive or get public transport.
My route into town includes busy roads south of the river, two narrow bridges and a decent bike lane along Prince Street.
But once you get to the Centre, you may as well be cycling on the pavement. Which is of course terrible for people walking along the pavement, when you suddenly and unexpectedly have a bicycle hurtling towards you.
It’s terrible for people cycling too, having to swerve out of the way.
The bike paths through the Centre are a slightly darker shade of grey from the rest of the pavement, with tiny bicycle logos feebly indicating their existence.
The initial thinking from transport bosses, when they first designed the area, was this would slow down people on bikes.
This thinking unfortunately proved optimistic.
Personally, I slow right down when going through the Centre to a walking pace, aware of how annoying a fast bike on a pavement can be.
A few people on bikes, however, particularly carrying a delivery, sometimes shoot through like a bolt.
The old fashioned thinking of getting pedestrians and cyclists to share space is now getting gradually replaced among transport experts, with separated paths falling into favour instead.
In Bristol, transport bosses have paved new bike paths with black tarmac, so they look different.
This month, Bristol City Council revealed plans to turn some bike paths bright red, as part of a trial to make them look even more different and reduce conflict.
A trial will paint two bike paths red at the Bristol Bridge junction, and between Castle Park and the Old Market roundabout.
The cycle path at ‘Old Market Gap’ between Old Market roundabout and Castle Park will see a new high friction red surface trialled – photo: Martin Booth
The obvious location for this trial, you might think, would be the infamously invisible bike path through the Centre.
This is not the case, at least not yet. Instead, contractors will replace the brick-style paving there with black tarmac, before probably turning the path red at some point later on.
The reason given was the council is in the middle of signing up a deal with contractors to carry out the work.
Asking them to make the path red will delay any work from actually starting, so councillors decided it was best to press ahead with some upgrades instead of waiting longer.
One problem is that the area next to the bike path, where the fountains used to be until they were recently removed, is also black tarmac.
When the plans to take away the fountains were revealed, the council promised artwork covering the floor there, although this hasn’t appeared yet.
Another problem is that the Centre lies in the middle of many journeys across Bristol, and there has always been a throng of people trying to travel through in different ways.
Deciding how to efficiently guide thousands of people through a relatively small area will always be quite a hard task. But at the moment, both walking and cycling through there is a right pain.
This is an opinion piece by Alex Seabrook, a local democracy reporter funded by the BBC
Main photo: Alex Seabrook
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