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BRT on the railwaypath is back on the table

category bristol | transport | news report author Wednesday April 02, 2008 10:36author by SteveL - Campaign to Save the Railway Path Report this post to the editors

-After ony four days "on the shelf"

We knew that putting the plans for BRT down the railway path "on the shelf" meant they could be picked up in the future -we just weren't expecting it to be so soon. At Tuesday night's Bristol City Council meeting, the green and lib dem amended motion to keep BRT off the path got watered down enough to leave BRT-on-path as an option.

Given that Mark Bradshaw and other labour councillors were at the Celebration on Sunday, you'd think they would have noticed that a lot of the city's residents were utterly opposed to running buses down the bristol-bath railway path. Maybe they did, but they still watered down a green motion, lib-dem amended, which would have told the West of England partnership to "get off my path". They replaced it with weasel-words that promise to protect any changes to the cities paths which reduce cycling/walking numbers.

This may sound good, but it still allows them to cut down all the trees, move the path to one side and run buses alongside a narrow tarmac strip, as long as their simulations show that the path will remain popular. Presumably these will be by the same consultants that didn't think the original proposal would harm the path. But the council is still looking at BRT-on-path.

Mark Bradshaw: "No decision has been taken to share the cycle path with Rapid Transit. No awards have been made. Full and fair consultation will take place on all the options. BCC have no preferred option other than the goal to bring BRT to the city at the earliest opportunity."

Now, the final amended motion may seem cycling friendly, but it isnt path friendly. And the West of England Partnership is still briefing councillors in favour of the path, as evidenced by the conservative councillors who spoke, councillors who are clearly in favour of running buses down the path, especially now the WoEP have convinced them that we will welcome it in exchange for easier links to temple meads:

Councillor Lewis (conservative): How many have been to briefing sessions offered, probed the figures? If BRT is to run alongside the path. There will be advantages. The cycle path will be widened to 4m along its length he missing link between lawrence hill and temple meads will be added."

Well, the apparent back-down by the council on Friday seemed too easy. It was. At least now we know that it was nothing but a bit of hand-waving.

Related Link: http://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/repor...ting/
author by Truth Seekerpublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:16Report this post to the editors

What about all those Labour councillors who said they were against using the path and vote vote against it? There were enough of them to have won the motion if they had voted as they said they were going to.

Dont they remember this link they posted HERE on Indymedia?
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/688078
Some people would say this kind of thing is called 'lying'

Labour must take us for utter fools. We have Labour's Paul Smith leading the charge saying it is nothing to do with them, and then Labour's Cllr Bradshaw leading the charge to keep the option of using the path alive. If it's nothing to do with them why are they protecting it?

author by boredofnewspublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:21Report this post to the editors

to be fair, the council never said it was scrapping the plans - listen to mark bradshaw on the council website. the media badly spun this - and got it wrong. if anyone is to blame, it is the evening post for its bollocks reporting - picked up and not checked by everyone else

author by xpublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 13:57Report this post to the editors

The abbreviation BRT gets thrown about quite a bit. What does it mean? Is it Bristol or Bath? Is it rapid transit? rapid transport?

I've got news for you. There is already a Bristol - Bath rapid transport or transit system. It's called the train. The trouble is that the train is useless. Improve the train 'BRT' and you don't need a cyclepath 'BRT'.

author by woodsypublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 17:08Report this post to the editors

BRT = Bus Rapid Transit

author by Where was everyone?publication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 17:10Report this post to the editors

I'm not surprised by the news, though I'm very disappointed.
But I'm also very disappointed with the thousands of people who have been 'supporting' the save the path campaign - where were you? There were fewer than 30 people outside the Council House yesterday evening, and far from filling the publich chamber, we looked a bit of a joke. Hardly the firm pressure we could have exerted on the bastards, if even half the people who claim to care about this issue had bothered to come down.

author by Sypublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 18:37Report this post to the editors

Perhaps most people decided to stay home having been told by the evening post on Friday that the plans had been shelved... Why would people go to put pressure on a council who they thought had just agreed to do what they wanted? Especially the day after over 1000 people celebrated what they thought was their victory...

The people you should be angry aren't the people who've supported the campaign, but those who misled them into believing that the campaign had already won.

author by Truth Seekerpublication date Wed Apr 02, 2008 21:00Report this post to the editors

That's a good point, Sy. {puts conspiracy cap on} Maybe that was Labour's plan??

author by MJ Ray - Another misled cyclistpublication date Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:13Report this post to the editors

I had been planning to head to Bristol again on Tuesday evening, but after learning that the plans were shelved, I saved the tenner bus+train cost and stayed at home. D'oh! After so many years in this game, I should know better, but I thought I read the shelving news on here too, though.

[Contents are free for all use, including commercial. Also, this site is bloody stupid claiming cookies "prevent" spambots - there's an example bot with cookie support in the wget manual page if you want.]

Related Link: http://mjr.towers.org.uk
author by Chris Millmanpublication date Thu Apr 03, 2008 14:02Report this post to the editors

Wrong to say there was a poor showing. My son and I were refused admittance because the public gallery was full, and I was consequently unable to speak in support of my statement. There were a couple of dozen more in the conference room watching the web cast. Any gaps on the public benches were because supporters of Care homes, Caretakers, and a statue of Field Marshall Slim left after their business was concluded.

author by Posterpublication date Thu Apr 03, 2008 16:11Report this post to the editors

MJ Ray - I looked at your link and you seem to know your web stuff, why not help the indymedia people with the site then? After all the project is made by you and me...
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/getting_involved

author by Sypublication date Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:53Report this post to the editors

MJ - you say that you heard that the plans had been dropped on BIMC... Having looked through all the relevant threads the closest things I have found to your claim are a comment by someone linking to the Post story, and this text in an article on the protest/celebration

'We all breathed a sigh of relief when we read the Evening Post yesterday, which reported that the plans had been put on hold. Today felt like a celebration of an important victory - but we must not give up yet! As several speakers said, these plans are still in the background and we must not forget that...'

This seems somewhat different from reading a story here saying that the plans have been axed and we have nothing to worry about any more.

If there is an article that I've missed which does say this could you please post a link here.

author by MJ Ray - Another misled cyclistpublication date Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:38Report this post to the editors

@Sy - yeah, it was almost certainly my misinterpretation of posts here and on nscycle that's to blame. I was short of time for this last week and didn't really read in detail or think things through. It seemed like victory was near enough that Bristolians would probably suffice, without me travelling in from Somerset after a long day's work. Like I wrote, I should know better.

@Poster - I've described the reasons I'm not currently helping BIMC on other sites in comments here before. In short, I don't travel to Bristol for its face-to-face meetings, it doesn't publish its source code for remote contributors (at last check) and I disagree with the anti-commercial bits.

[Comment content under same terms as earlier.]

Related Link: http://mjr.towers.org.uk
author by imcvolpublication date Mon Apr 07, 2008 23:12Report this post to the editors

The source code used on this site is published - and always has been. The site uses the oscailt system, which is developed by volunteers from a number of imc sites and organised though;
http://www.indymedia.ie/oscailt/

author by MJ Raypublication date Wed Apr 09, 2008 18:58Report this post to the editors

Dear other anonymous imcvol,

I don't know if you really don't see the problem in pointing at oscailt. Trying to bugfix BIMC by changing oscailt is like trying to bugfix BBC News by holding an event: it's just one input and without seeing the rules BIMC are using, that's rather indirect and uncertain. So if I got the cookie/spammer error corrected in oscailt: how long for BIMC to change?

Also, some of the problems have been added BIMC because they don't exist on ie.indymedia.org - for example, bristol.indymedia.org/comments exists but looks unlinked to me.

BIMC can publish a git repository and invite patches if they'd like to enable cooperation.

[once again, comment is free for all use]

Related Link: http://mjr.towers.org.uk
author by imcvolpublication date Wed Apr 09, 2008 20:46Report this post to the editors

We feed our development into the oscailt main sourceforge development, so a bug fix for us becomes avalible for all. Different imc sites do run different versions, but we try to co-ordinate the development as a whole. There is an email group where the developers co-ordinate thier efforts - http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/oscailt (this was linked from the last link I posted). If you want to get involved in the tech development of the site, not being based in Bristol is not a huge problem.

author by MJ Raypublication date Thu Apr 10, 2008 13:03Report this post to the editors

"We feed our development into the oscailt main sourceforge development" is the exact opposite direction of what I was asking about: how quickly and reliably does the main development feed into BIMC?

You suggested I should bugfix the main development when I want to fix BIMC, but BIMC do not appear to publish their development. There is no branch called BIMC or bristol or anything like that at sourceforge.

Bah, forget it. I've explained how BIMC is blocking cooperation and missing out on tech help. Fix it if you want: the ball's in your court.

[comment is free, like before]

Related Link: http://mjr.towers.org.uk
author by imcvolpublication date Fri Apr 11, 2008 09:14Report this post to the editors

There is also a tech list, with people better informed about the spesifics of the process, to answer your questions - imc-bristol-tech (at) lists.indymedia.org

Thanks

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