COMMENT: Why make life harder for Bristol drivers?

Bristol City Council members and officers will tell you they do not have an anti-car policy.

They say this repeatedly and yet this same collection of people are going to close half of Prince Street bridge to traffic.

This single stretch of road will then be controlled by traffic lights and the other side of the bridge will be given over to cyclists.

In case the city council had not noticed, Prince Street bridge is one of only five road bridges crossing the floating harbour in the south of Bristol.

In closing half of it they are inevitably going to make life much harder for every driver trying to get into the centre.

And to what end? So the minority of people who cycle into the city can use the other side of Prince Street bridge unhindered.

If that isn't a blatant example of an anti-car policy then what is?

This is the action of a council which is hell bent on making life as difficult for drivers as it can.

Rather than understand that people drive in and out of Bristol because the public transport on offer is neither cheap nor reliable.

Rather than appreciate that the people who do drive in each day are vital to the city's economy.

Rather than work with motorists they work against them.

And all they do is promise jam tomorrow.

A rapid bus service but not yet.

Another park and ride site, but not yet.

And the completion of the south Bristol ring road, but not yet.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of people travel in and out of the city each day. Yet little if anything is done to make their lives easier.

The changes to Prince Street bridge will inevitably cause more delays, longer traffic queues and more frustration.

It will do nothing to ease the congestion on our roads and nothing to improve the environment.

It is spiteful, short-sighted and wholly without merit and it should be abandoned.

And, by the way, this bridge was built for traffic – not bikes.