Bristol congestion charge limited to morning rush hour

“Come on George, lets see you explain your hypocrisy away then!!!!!

Awfully quiet aren't you?

Oh how the self-righteous mighty, have fallen!!

Deep joy........”

“I notice George is conspicuous by his absence now that his blatent hypocrisy has been exposed!!!!!!!!!!”

“if bcc want bristol moving get rid of a lot of the traffic lights”

“Julia Dean, spokesperson for WEP said:

"It (Congestion Charging)would only be part of a wider package of 'added measures' which would include rapid transit routes, extra buses, better ticketing, walkways and more cycling routes, park and rides and better road junctions."

That's just not good enough.

Let's examine exactly what they're offering here as a "step change in transport provision" - (these people love their "step changes" don't they!)

1, Rapid Transit routes. These are buses with bodykit, running (for 40% of the time) on bus lanes with kerbs. That's the only difference between "Rapid Transit" and buses - some bodykit and a concrete kerb.

2, Buses. See above. Yes, we've got plenty of these already, thank you very much. They're run by First, they're expensive and many of them aren't very good.

3, Better ticketing. What? First have already tried "better ticketing" on their Rapid Transit routes in Leeds and York. It was a total disaster and led to massive delays getting on the buses. This wonderful world of better ticketing was scrapped after a few weeks and the Rapid Transit buses in Leeds and York now have conductors, like they did in the olden days.

4, Walkways and more cycling routes. So we're going to have better pavements for walking on are we in this brave new world of Congestion Charging? In 40 years I've managed to walk along the old ones quite successfully. Better cycle routes? Most welcome, but haven't we already got £22 million to develop an extensive network of cycle routes through the Cycling City funding? Let's see how we get on with this for starters, let's face it, there's only so many cycle routes we can have.

5, Park and Ride. Great. A couple of acres of tarmac serviced by a bus. Cutting edge stuff this. Under the WEP proposals there are two planned, one in the Hengrove area and one by the M32 - surely this isn't the transport panacea we've all been promised for so long?

6, Better road junctions. Errm, I think that the Bristol City Council and WEP idea of a "better road junction" is very different from that of everybody else. And aren't we supposed to be concentrating on public transport and getting people out of their cars?

This hopelessly lame vision of Bristol's Future Transport simply displays the utter poverty of thinking that's going on in the minds of those paid for improving Bristol's transport. The solution is buses and that's it.

No tram, no Integrated Transport Authority to oversee fares and services, no integrated transport hubs, no fleet of yellow school buses, no zero fare central bus routes, no breaking First's monopoly, no accountability, no meaningful consultation, and no decent improvements to our local rail network beyond a skeleton service that they laughingly propose to call the "Bristol Metro".

Cllr Mark Bradshaw and Transport "Supremo" Colin Knight clearly have no idea what to do and now they're just clutching at ineffective straws.

No-one will benefit from these proposals, apart from maybe First's shareholders. We'll be left with a third rate transport system, thousands of people having to shell out First's ever increasing fares to use it, a Congestion Charge that will deter few from using their cars and a massive debt that Bristol Council Tax payer will have to service.

What a total nonsense.

By all means lets apply for TIF funding, but for goodness sake put it to a vote so we can at least have a say.

Once the voters reject these flaccid and impotent proposals then hopefully our illustrious leaders might just be spurred on to come back to us with something imaginative and above all effective.

Then they might just get the "step change" that they hope for.”

“Unfortunately Glenn the set up of this site makes it very easy for people to hide and therefore they are able to say things that they would not normally be able to say (Myself included) This is the strength of a site like this and also it's weakness.
It doesn't help matters either when the site Mods pull perfectly good posts and leave the more vindictive ones. I do feel at times that people that who post on here forget that their personal rants are not just directed at words on a page but that real people read them.
I may not agree with a lot of what is said by you or others but You have just as much right to say them.”

“Conservative Leader David Cameron in Bristol today has given his backing to directly elected executive Mayors, and said he would push for a referendum in Bristol if Conservative elected to the Government.

Then we can get rid Holland and Co - and get a politician who would be more accountable to you and me, the taxpayer.”

“'If they really are your views, why not publish under your own name, rather than trying to give your party publicity?' (Jon)

For goodness sake Jon - the views I express here are mine and not those of any party. The blog is my own and is independent of any party (the heading of the site states this). What goes on the blog is totally my decision with no input from anyone else. I just happen to hold and strongly advocate 'green' views as do many people who are not members of any party. I'm happy to label them as such and put my view 'out there' in the open for people to shoot at and criticise - however, I get far more insult, personal comment and 'humourous' attempted put downs than criticism of the facts or arguments I use, not least from you!! Why would you be against investment that is both green and job creating??”

“Sorry Craig. The latter half of the post was not aimed at you.! It was just my bad punctuation!”

“Come on Craig. You should know by now that the government wont be happy untill they have the whole of our pay cheque going straight into their coffers by direct debit each month! We already work for the chancellor for the first 6 months or so of the year if we add in all the other taxes and duties we pay I think we are nearly at that stage don't you? No government is going to give up it's grip on the motorist They only pay lip service to the notion of solving the traffic crisis. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a blinkered, naive fool”

“if this ever became reality it would grow and grow first a couple of pounds just in the morning then evenings then those with bigger cars will pay more etc etc just look at how residents parking zones are spreading and the costs will shoot up just like they have in london where some residents pay £300-400 a year for one car.

I can't believe after the massive NO vote in Manchester any political party would think about continuing this policy are they listening?

Motorists already contribute 45 BILLION a year to the economy that does not inlcude all the jobs created taxes payed by automotive businesses etc etc, we already pay to sit in traffic jams using fuel and wasting our time, sort out public transport so we have an alternative don't make things worse.”