Redcliffe Way proposals

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christhebull
Redcliffe Way proposals

This is of somewhat local interest to Bristolians but I think this is still quite important. There are proposals afoot to turn Redcliffe Way into a "Spanish style boulevard", which would complete the red trousered mayor's "Brunel Mile" vision.

For those of you who didn't go to the AGM last May and may be unfamilar with the area, Redcliffe Way has spare capacity due to it being part of the former ring road that was closed off at Queen Square further west (and most of the often somewhat limited improvements to cycling in Bristol have occured since then which kind of disproves Chris Juden's idea that we can't follow the Dutch model in regards to route seperation without road building).

Whilst the scheme has clear mayoral support, this is actually a neighbourhood level scheme as the 2011 Localism Act allows for Neighbourhood Planning Forums to convene for specific areas within a city, and alterations to this area are the first major priorty for the forum.

To the immediate west, part of Redcliffe Way has a segregated cycle track across Redcliffe Bridge the former 2 lane westbound carriageway has been reduced to 1 lane with a kerb and the inside lane turned into a 2 way track. It would be good to see a continuation of this track to the east so that there is a continuous link to Temple Meads station.

In terms of the design, the idea is that it is community lead under the CABE "Design Your Neighbourhood" programme, but the professionals involved include Jan Gehl and Ben Hamiton-Baillie, the former of whom will be among the speakers at an event on the 22nd January at the Arnolfini.

Whilst the situation to the immediate west is OK, my chief concern is how this will all link up at the eastern end at the existing Temple Circus gyratory. There is a huge amount of space here - if you are fortunate enough to have access to the EDINA Digimap or similar service with historic maps, you will be able to see how much space has been taken over by the present road system. At present there is an awkward mix of on and off road farcilities, so it would be good to see how the immediate station entrance will be. Bristol does have a 20% modal share target by 2026 (for all journeys), and therefore I would argue that the quality of the infrastructure needs to be at least as good as in those cities with such a modal share due to the central location meaning that if there was a 20% modal share overall, the city centre modal share would be higher.