“As an alien from NE england, I landed here in 1987 and have watched the car slowly choke this lovely city - Old Market has recently been put on a pollution blacklist. I don't own one myself, will never buy one as I prefer to commute 8 miles a day via bike on the railway path. Staple Hill to Bedminster in under 30 mins. sorry if this comes across as a bit 'holier-than-thou', but for me, it's a choice of the most effiecient and less polluting transport I can have - my faithful bicycle!. It saddens me to see folk, most of whom could get the bus/walk/cycle to work in the city centre but who still cling to the entrenched belief that the car is somehow a symbol of freedom and luxury. It isn't anymore, it's just a drain on your wallet that takes you longer to get from A to B.

I sometimes use company vehicles as part of my job and hate getting stuck in the jams, often longing for my bike. If possible, I avoid taking the firm's vehicles home with me as I know it'll take ages to get home. I'd rather cycle, put up with a bit (and it is just a bit!) of wet and cold weather than sit in endless jams. I honestly don't know how some folk tolerate it when there are alternatives.

But with global warming moving up the political agenda, to reduce emissions means, in time, curbs on car use. For anyone who would like to 'convert' to cycling, I suggest getting in touch with Sustrans or Lifecycle UK to learn about getting started. Come on Bristol, join the revolution:)”

“I'm not arguing geographics or economics, I merely brought up a few examples. That said of course, all your points are taken on board.

There were of course less cars in 1988, and of course a Mars Bar does cost more now, in fact lots of things have changed. You are right about the inflation rate of a decent Cod and chips though...but that's more supply & demand right? Don't want to upset any Spanish fishermen who might be reading this.

I don't even know what it costs to park in town for the day now, or even where you can park for a day ;o) - But, the question remains...what to do?

Bristol has always had a problem with too many cars, once upon a time it had the highest cars per capita of any City in the UK (if statistics are to be believed in all cases) which is pretty frightening given it's one of the only places that hasn't had a pop at some kind of decent public transport.

Fad idea after fad idea has popped into the heads of Councillors in some vain vote hunting way. City car club, bus lanes, 2+ lanes, what's their next solution? Residents parking to curb commuters parking for free, congestion charges and whatever else is worth wasting money on investigating.

Most of what I write is laced with sarcasm for which I apologise. Take it for what it is. The ramblings of a 39 year old who's seen it go from bad to worse. Trouble is, it's taken me until I'm 39 before I've even noticed it going on ;o)

Good night everyone.”

“Daniel also £1 in 1988 was a lot more than it is today.
For example house were a fith what they are now so it could be £5 straight away. Fish and chips was £1.60 and it's now about £460 so say £2.50 for your £. Mars bar was 18p and now they're £55p £3 today.”

“Daniel and Bighands you're both out of date... Fishponds is East Bristol and the ringroad is in East Bristol and South Glos. The reason it took so long is because of the politically correct brigade who didn't want a ringroad and delayed it for 15 years. Now they probably use it and promote it.
It goes from East Bristol to South Bristol and is nowhere near North Bristol. It touches Keynsham at one end and Filton at the other (technically some of the outskirts of North Bristol). Industry isn't better in East Bristol.”

“@James of Highbridge.
Not necessarily home workimng, satallite offices in Yate, Radstock, even Highbridge and Portishead because I agree many need the social interaction and discipline of going to the office. Schol runs are of course mostly local”

“Slightly confused here. The road networks are appalling, agreed. The public transport sucks, agreed. How does my perspective differ? I just don't think that making roads bigger makes any real difference. You'll just have more cars.

I'm self-employed and prefer not to travel "south of the river" for exactly the reasons you describe by the way. You can't make the road network any better over there in the same way you can't improve it in Clifton...you'd have to knock everything down and start over.

Less cars & better public transport. Agreed?”

“Ridiculous really isn't it. That long to build a road.

No it didn't take that long, it took 23 years to argue about it, I see you are from north bristol so prehaps you have a different perspective, prehaps if you lived in south bristol and most jobs were 2 bus journeys away or through bristol's appaling road network you would have a different view.”

“Yep. Ridiculous really isn't it. That long to build a road, which begs the question, how long would it have taken to improve public transport in that time? Wasn't there a tram scheme that went away after lots of money had been spent "investigating" its effectiveness?

You're kind of proving the point with your argument there. Having grown up in Fishponds/Staple Hill when the ring road that's there now (and the countless new builds) WERE the rural area surrounding Bristol, building roads to complement all the new developments must surely be argued will aggravate the problem? More houses & more roads generally means more cars. Which of course is fine for a ring road, not so fine when they are forced down the M32, Feeder Road or via Brislington into the Centre. Even then, the Centre can't cope (which was my initial argument).

I remember starting work in Bristol Centre and taking a car was still a sensible solution, this was however in 1988. You could park in a large open-air car park for a quid a day where the @Bristol and several overpriced properties now reside. Nowadays, I can't see the logic in it. There isn't the same level of parking available, there are far more vehicles and more importantly, the overpriced public transport can't use the normal routes in a timely fashion (from Fishponds, as this is my only experience of travelling into Bristol by Bus) due to congestion from cars.

Blackberry Hill is a good example. There's absolutely no way a bus lane could be created there, so what is the solution? You need less vehicles on the road, more faith in the bus service, more passengers, drive the costs down as a result and almost everyone will be happy I guess.

Of course the usual "I'm not getting on public transport" crew will take their cars as they're so special and important, but what then? Charge them individually? You could argue that charging them the cost of a bus fare to use that stretch of road may be considered fair. Charge less for car sharers? No idea really. :o/”

“daniel " I've seen Bristol change over many years from many different perspectives"

REALLY Daniel, you've seen it change? you mean 25 years to build a third of a ring road? It's not unreasonable for the sixth biggest city in the country to have a ring road is it? Prehaps you have seen the entire south side of the city remain poor while all the jobs have been built near the decent road links in the north. Sure we need better public transport but we also need to be realistic Bristol is surrounded by rural areas where public transport will never be any good, the road network must be improved, basically next to nothing has been done for ages.

I doubt it will while we all sit in traffic jams paying lots of luvly tax for the pleasure, prehaps when electric cars are common place the incentive to do nothing will be removed.”

“I feel like I must have missed a memo when I read things like "...build the road infrastructure needed to meet predicted demand."

You must be very naive to think that's the solution in an old City like this one. Adding lots of arterial roads with massive capacity into the centre like some kind of hub & spoke solution will only make things worse for the centre. Where do you stop predicting capacity by the way? I expect the M25 planners thought they'd nailed it on the "future-proofing" when it was designed originally.

I'm not some namby-pamby tree-hugging liberal about this kind of thing either. I've seen Bristol change over many years from many different perspectives, people decide to use their own cars because the alternative is apparently awful. Public transport in this City is a disaster from what I can tell. Expensive, subject to delays (but let's face it, that's down to the cars in the way right?) and from what I read, being run by a monopoly.

Leave the car at home incentives coupled with a better public transport system would be a better solution in my opinion.

If there are train lines being left to ruin, bring them back online. Try and create some kind of underground/overground (don't sing it!) solution that brings more of Bristol into the public transport re-revolution, without the delays of some bus routes hopefully.

I now regularly use the train line from Clifon Down to various places along the network, but until I lived here, I had no idea that train line even existed. I just wish it went to more stations than the four in a straight line that it currently services.”