Walk & Cycle Bristol

Three quarters of people do not feel safe to cycle on our roads...we need to do more and quickly, with buses being cut and the need to drive less/clean air zone approaching

Three-quarters of people do not feel safe cycling in Bristol Do you feel safe cycling in our city?

📣 One week to go!

Please give us your thoughts on how we can improve Concorde Way at Lockleaze to make it safer for cycling and walking by 4 September.

Have your say: https://orlo.uk/OgoCR

Sad, but until we can tackle people's willingness to vandalise, these kind of schemes are screwed

🚴Big Issue Bikes to stop hiring bikes due to relentless vandalism😥: "It is with sincere regret that we are writing to let you know about a significant change to our current rental e-bike service in Bristol.

Since we launched the service six months ago, we have experienced extensive and relentless levels of vandalism to our e-bikes. We have taken many measures to try to overcome this issue, including making changes to the design of the e-bikes and trying to work with the local authorities, the police and our subscriber community.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the vandalism has not reduced. Having begun with a fleet of over 400, we currently have around 200 e-bikes on the street and approximately 10% of these are damaged every day. In practice, this means that our entire fleet is vandalised every two weeks. We have more e-bikes destroyed in Bristol in one week than in all our facilities combined anywhere else in the world.

This means that we are left with no choice at this time but to pause the current open, public rental e-bike service. This will take effect from this coming weekend (20/21 August).

This is not a decision we have made lightly, and it is disappointing that the actions of a minority of people have put us in this position. Big Issue eBikes was set up as a not-for-profit partnership between Norwegian micro mobility experts ShareBike and the Big Issue to deliver ‘biking for good’ in Bristol – providing sustainable and affordable electric cycling in the city whilst creating job opportunities and training for long-term unemployed people. Bristol was chosen as the first city in the UK to offer the service because of its green credentials and aspirations.

As one of our current customers, we would like to thank you for your support and loyalty and apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment that this decision may cause.

Please be reassured that if you have a current subscription when the service is paused, you do not need to take any action. All subscribers will be automatically refunded for the remaining time on their subscription. Our customer care centre will remain open, and can still be called or mailed.

We are planning to provide an alternative service in Bristol in the short term, offering businesses long-term rental of our electric bikes. This means that anyone signing up will get exclusive use of a small e-bike fleet, with BigIssue eBikes providing the maintenance and repairs. If you are interested in finding out more about this new service, please email us ([email protected]) to register your interest and we will contact you once the service is up and running. You can also look out for updates on our website www.bigissue.bike and on our app.

We sincerely hope that this is a temporary decision and that, with the support of the police and local authorities to tackle the issues we have encountered, we are able to resume and increase the open, public rental service in Bristol.
With eBike love,
The BigIssue eBike team

Two-thirds of UK adults feel that it is too dangerous to cycle on the roads, according to research by the Department for Transport. 🚲 It doesn't have to be this way. We need to invest in safe, accessible cycling infrastructure so that more people can choose active travel for their everyday journeys.

It's obvious we need to get serious about driving less, with climate change threatening lives, food security and creating health damaging pollution. The record temperatures and fires (in the UK too) are an alarm bell.

I hope we can improve the alternative travel options to help people choose to use travel more by walking, buses, rail and cycling.

We need investment in these and a fair amount of reallocation of space for these modes. With so many wanting to cycle for instance, but finding the roads are unsafe and congested with too few bike lanes.

Expensive unreliable buses/rail seem to be baked in by profiteering private companies and nationalisation of transport with more government/council control would actually give us better services.

Expensive road building needs to be vastly reduced/stopped and we need to see acceleration in investment in Liveable Neighborhoods, safe space for walking and cycling, bus prioritisation and new rail stations and services.

The clean air zone is coming but this will only prevent a small % of driving in the city. More needs doing. I know it's inconvenient, and some of us do enjoy driving, but it's clear we need to start using the more sustainable alternatives fast!!

It's a great time to try cycling with the council offering free bike loans and lessons, maps and advice. Good gears and event ebikes can make the hills feel insignificant. Great fun and keeps you fit. Walking is amazing for us too.

We really need to get ahead of the game with such scary images from Europe and people now dying attributed to climate change caused Heatwaves and fires

🥳More FREE adult cycle sessions announced! 🚴Bike St George is a new project in BS5 helping more people to cycle more often. For dates see https://www.bikebristol.com/free-adult-cycle-sessions. The sessions are suitable for a range of abilities, whether you're completely new to riding a bike, returning after a long break, or wanting some tips for the road. Several different types of sessions will be run that include:

🚴Learn to Ride
🚴Cycle Confidence
🚴Cycle Skills
🚴Leisure Rides
🚴Maintenance courses

We're delivering this in partnership with St George Community Centre with funding from Travel West (Bristol City Council).

Electric cargo bikes are cleaner, greener, and often quicker than vans. ⚡💚 In this article we look at how e-cargo delivery businesses are changing the logistics industry: http://ow.ly/hAxQ50IGrKT

We’re delighted to be one of three cities to have received £500,000 to work up plans to make our transport network greener.

This will include how we can introduce more cycle hangars, electrify Bristol’s bus fleet, expand freight consolidation centres and more🚌🚲

Read the full story: https://orlo.uk/U3Qlc

Good walk and cycle design should put the emphasis on drivers giving way to users crossing and taking care at junctions especially with the highway code change meaning drivers would need to stop anyway.

The raised intersection with continuous foot/cycle path is ubiquitous on Dutch streets, but the benefits are universal:

✅ It conveys priority over motor vehicles
✅ It is more accessible for mobility devices
✅ It slows cars entering/exiting the street

https://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/continuous-paths-across-minor-junctions/

The future of this potential new railway path for walking and cycling, creating an open space/park environment will be decided next Weds 16th!

The exciting new railway path in Brislington is being decided next week. The council's transport team has OBJECTED and recommending refusal based on the fact it may interrupt their consultation on the A4 and prejudice this. However, it is councillors who will decide. What it sounds like is they are worried that people will enjoy and fall in love with the railway path being open and prefer that option - is that really a bad thing!? It seems to me the transport department have fallen in love with the idea of a road or bus corridor at any cost and despite community anxiety about this and huge support for the walking and cycling path. There's still tile to comment, submit support or attend the committee on Thursday 16th. https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=138&MId=8939&Ver=4

The word on the grape vine is the options that will be presented for consultation on the wider A4 project, not yet viewable I understand, will include 2/3 options including a road either bus or private vehicles included.

See Bike Bristol's report here:https://www.bikebristol.com/assets/site/The-Tramway-report-Jan2021.pdf

"The Council’s Transport Development Management Officers (TDM) have raised an objection
to the proposal as they consider the proposed pedestrian and cycle route to be premature
and prejudicial to the above policies and to this end entirely contrary to the NPPF, the Joint
Local Transport Plan, the Bristol Transport Strategy and the Bristol Local Plan." :

https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/documents/s70990/2.%2021.00894.F%20-%20Former%20Railway%20Land%20Bath%20Road%20-%20Final%20Committee%20Report.pdf

If you wish to make a written Public Forum Statement, the deadline for your submission is 12pm
on Tuesday 15th March 2022.
However, if you wish to register to speak at the meeting, there is a separate deadline – 2pm on
Monday 14th March 2022. Please also note that, if you wish to register to speak, you MUST
submit an accompanying written statement by the written statement deadline.

Please send your written statement as well as any register to speak to
[email protected]
Please note that you will only have 1 minute to speak at the meeting since the Committee
Members will read your written statement in advance. Please limit your comments to a summary of
the key points from your written statement.
You should note that the above deadlines for speaking and submitting written statements are very
strictly enforced by the Chair of the meeting. Therefore, you are strongly requested to make sure
that you adhere to them.
All the Public Forum written statements for this meeting will be published on the afternoon before
the meeting on the relevant page of the Bristol City Council website. Please see the relevant link
below for each Development Control Committee:

More info https://www.bikebristol.com/brislingtontramway

I hope we will we see Bristol City Council take the bold step to remove a tiny fraction of parking to declutter pavements and support sustainable travel. Benches, plants and other positive ideas can

The battle for public space is something every city must face. In Gemeente Den Haag, it centers on bike parking on the pavement.

In search of solutions, the City democratized this discussion by partnering with Arup on (digital) stakeholder engagement.

https://dutchcycling.nl/en/news/blog/the-battle-for-public-space-cycle-parking-in-the-hague