The war on Bristol’s motorists

by Rick Johansen

Edging past the ‘No Riff Raff’ signs, I went to Clifton last night and saw for myself the absolute mess Mayor George Ferguson is making with Bristol’s transport system. Everywhere you look, the speed limit is an absurd 20 MPH and almost everywhere else features yellow and double yellow lines. Clifton is notorious for a lack of parking – I am not aware of that many NCP car parks – but the council does little to help matters.

We all know that Ferguson’s 20 MPH zones have so far cost a whopping £2.3m, even though the council itself appears to be backtracking on the policy, but how much is he spending on stopping people parking? For the life of me, I could not understand the logic of some of the double yellow lines, certainly not in terms of managing parking. It seemed very obvious that this was, like mobile speed cameras, designed for something very different, which is revenue raising. Why have restrictions on wide roads when it is blindingly obvious that people need to park their cars? How can this possibly help local businesses? In large parts of Bristol, buses do not exist, or if they do they take people into the city centre and nowhere else and they are hideously expensive, as befits a bus company that exists purely for private profit. So, if you want to go somewhere in Bristol, you either drive or you don’t go there at all.

It as if the likes of Ferguson want to uninvent the wheel, or at least uninvent the car wheel. No consideration is given to people who need to get from A to B in their jobs, even less is given to those who simply want to go about their business without using an expensive, uncomfortable and unreliable bus service.

I used to scoff at the so called ‘War On Motorists’ but I am convinced now this really is happening. The politics of ‘Something Must Be Done’ has been replaced by making it harder for people to drive, to park and to drive at more than snail’s pace. The 20 MPH zone is designed for cars from the 1950s, with their primitive braking systems, not the cars of the new century technology.

How long before Ferguson introduces road pricing in order to penalise those who work for a living and bans cars from some areas completely?

None of this is what the public wants nor voted for. It is true that some people use the bus to work, many out of necessity than choice, and pay a premium so to do in the laughably titled ‘Rush Hour’.

I’m afraid that in the absence of a public transport system that is run as a public service, it’s time for Ferguson to stop his war on motorists, forcing them to pay extortionate fares just to get to work, to end his absurd 20 MPH limits and to provide additional parking areas in order to give people more choice.

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1 comment

Julian Pirog March 4, 2015 - 10:12

Let’s hope he gets voted out this year. He has been a disaster and his nepotism is not even covered up. The man’s a Buffon, an eccentric buffoon. No more no less

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