“This latest half million pound wheeze will be yet another total fiasco from a council so blindingly incompetent when it comes to transport that they shouldn't EVER be allowed to make another decision about how we get around our city.

As usual, the losers will be motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and users of the diabolical WorstBus. The winners will be the shareholders of WorstBus and the buffoons who dream up with bonkers, traffic-light obsessed schemes.

Labour have had over 11 years, both locally and nationally to sort out Bristol's traffic problems and to date they've done SOD ALL.”

“Tina falls into the trap of so many people. Motorists do not pay a road tax at all. They pay for an excise licence. The idea of the Road Fund Licence was discontinued almost as soon as it was started. The excise is a general tax used for all sorts of government expenditure. The traffic engineers at Bristol City Council seem an ineffectual bunch. Remember the nonsensical Whitchurch Lane traffic calming put in at tens of thousands of pounds and then having to be taken out for almost as much? Goodness knows how many thousands were spent on the West Town Lane/Bath Road junction which was worked on for a year. The result is that traffic queues are just as long. Why cannot traffic lights react to sensors which measure traffic flow? Fifty years ago we had traffic light pads which certainly could. The other day at 5pm the inbound Bath Road lane at West Town Lane junction was empty yet the outbound turning right lane into West Town Lane was solid with traffic yet still had to await the pre-programmed traffic light sequence before traffic could move. Sensors would be able to over-ride such occasions.”

“Tina, you said "... the only reason the roads are ever altered is to improve the use of them for motorists, it is motorists after that pay the road tax... "

If this is the case, and sadly, I think you're, therein lies the problem. The very reason why roads are congested. why pedestrians and cyclists feel at danger all the time. If this is selfishly the reason, we'll never find alternative means of transportation and it will remain where people pay £1000s each year to sit gridlocked, getting fatter in a traffic jam.

I think people are slowly coming round to realising cars are not the future of urban transportation, people are slowly becoming educated through discussion like this. Certainly not from local councils.”

“They' have recently spent about the same amount of money, £500,000 or so "Improving" the roundabout at the bottom of Jacob's Wells Road, where it meets Anchor Road and the Hotwell Road.

It has succeeded in causing bigger jams than used to be there, especially coming down Jacob's Wells Road as you now have to wait at a Red Light when you can clearly see the roundabout to be completely clear. It is totally illogical.

HOWEVER it has made the crossing much easier and safer for pedestrians, as they now have their own set of lights. Trouble is they have put in those bloody-awful "Puffin" lights, so you have to look at the side, instead of in the direction you are crossing. The logic defies me. Can someone explain?

Also the pedestrians, at least 99% of the time run across in natural traffic breaks, so their light-sequences are totally and utterly wasted. One would think in this day-and-age that some logical sensors would tell there was no-one waiting and skip that light-sequence, same goes for non-existent cars as well. Grrrr.”

“Just before last Xmas, the traffic lights on the junction of Victoria Street and Counterslip (i.e. Between Bristol Bridge and Temple Meads) were out of action for about 2 to 3 weeks. The result was free-flowing traffic, drivers slowing down to let each other out and taking it in turns to have priority, and no queues of traffic backing up Victoria St to Bristol Bridge - and most important of all reduced journey times. Once the traffic lights were reinstated it was immediately back to the usual gridlock. If Bristol CC really gave a toss about traffic flow it would have sent somebody down to monitor the position with a view to removing these unnecessary lights. Alas as is evidenced by this wasteful scheme at Blackboy Hill we know it is hell-bent on using our money to skew the argument against cars by paving over the roads!”