Statement from Councillors Mark Weston & Bador Uddin
We wish to put on record our objections to the short-sighted misery that you are going to inflict on the residents of north Bristol.
Soon this Council will begin it's A4018 Improvement Scheme on Passage Road. A two year construction project that will deliver little other than road rage.
This will include a new crossing over the busy road and a new cycle path - both of which we support (although we think that the latter is in the wrong place - but that's another story). Sadly though it will also include the imposition of bus lanes between the Crow Lane Roundabout and the top of Brentry Hill. These will be peak time only and have been slightly shortened which is at least something but our opposition remains for the following reasons:
- Only one bus uses this route.
- Hold ups are rare and are caused by the pinch points over the hill not this stretch itself.
- By forcing traffic from two lanes to one very quickly you risk backing up the traffic over the roundabout and brining our communities to a stand still.
- By congesting the Crow Lane roundabout you will create a rat run up Brentry Lane. The original consultation spoke about traffic calming along this stretch. This seems to have been quietly dropped. This would need to be urgently added back into the final design.
- Very few people in the area (those that know the roads) want this at all.
- The modelling was done in 2020 and traffic events have moved on since.
- You will also remove a large number of mature trees.
What will happen is you will take a road that copes and turn it into a road that doesn't. It will be engineered congestion.
We urged the last administration to think again and we have urged this one to.
Work will being in a matter of weeks so we know that it is inevitable that this misery before Christmas will happen but please let's not delude ourselves, this was a deliberate act of traffic vandalism.
Even at the 11th hour we hope that the Council walks away from the project or at the very least heavily edits it.
