Chaos? What traffic chaos

It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry as I sat in the city council’s traffic management control room on Thursday morning.

In all the build-up to the opening of Cabot Circus, much of the talk in our office here was of the impending traffic chaos which would doubtlessly follow.

So, while most of my Evening Post colleagues were dispatched to the new cathedral of consumerism in the city centre, I had the more prosaic task of heading to St Paul’s to visit the control room in Wilder Street.

I was greeted by a bank of monitors surveying CCTV footage from around the city, with a side-room containing a master computer which finely tweaked all the traffic lights in the centre to optimise traffic flow.

Part of me - my news hack side, I suppose - was keen to see some congestion, traffic jams stretching up the M32, overcrowded car parks or even city centre gridlock (the jackpot for all the doom-mongers).

It would have made great writing, watching the traffic boffins desperately coming to terms with an unstoppable river of fashion-crazed shoppers, as smoke crept under the door of the overloaded computer room.

So as I sat there eating biscuits, drinking coffee and chatting to those in charge... was I the only one there who felt a sense of anti-climax when nothing much happened?

There I was, with my fellow reporters sharing the excitement with the rest of Bristol, while I sat in an office in St Paul’s with nothing to do.

But there was also a sense of relief that Bristol, with its much-maligned history for organising major transport initiatives - supertram, anyone? - had for once pulled something off without a glitch.

Excuse any unfounded optimism here but perhaps Cabot Circus’ opening heralds an era where Bristol actually gets things done.

When I started working as a journalist in Bristol five years ago, the city’s roads were the number one issue which bugged many of our readers here.

I was amazed at the vitriol reserved for our bus operator and the contempt with which the local transport authority was regarded.

And for the last three years - almost two of which I have spent specifically writing about transport - the redevelopment of Broadmead has loomed large on the horizon as a massive challenge facing those in charge.

How on earth could thousands of shoppers be absorbed into a city centre which already creaks under the pressure of commuter traffic?

But looking at the roads around Newfoundland Circus on Thursday morning, I was impressed at how they had suddenly be transformed.

Perhaps the fire and brimstone of the developers, along with their multi-million pound pockets, held some sway over the speed and quality of the outcome.

And while no one could ever accuse Bristol of being especially spacious, once the new bus lanes were uncovered the wide, multi-laned area looked impressively modern.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still lots to do and Saturday morning may well prove to be the time when the lack of a park and ride site at the top of the M32 is first truly bemoaned.

But what we at the Evening Post must do here is hold those taking the decisions to account, criticise when necessary but also give credit where it is due.

So I couldn’t help feeling pleased for the people involved, that their plans had worked out and, as hoped, traffic was flowing fluently around the city.

There is still lots of work to do further afield, of course, with the public transport network needing particular attention.

But Cabot Circus’ opening was always going to be a landmark day in the city’s history and the same can be said from a transport point of view.

Little by little, the city is becoming the serious city it has always had the potential to be.

Some might argue that it is losing a vital part of its character in the process but, from a transport point of view, drastic measures need to be taken.

Now is when we see the transport masterplan for the area coming into fruition and those in charge have passed their first test.

Time will tell if they can put the rest of it in place equally as smoothly and Saturday will be a further acid test.