THOUSANDS of disgruntled petitioners are demanding an end to the “roadworks madness” as bus lanes are being installed in north Bristol.
The works along the A4018 involve building a segregated bike path and upgrading pedestrian crossings.
But the roadworks are due to last for two years, forcing traffic into one lane on the busy road and spilling cars out on to nearby residential areas instead. Conservative Councillor Mark Weston, representing Henbury and Brentry, urged a rethink of the long-running roadworks.
Speaking to the city council transport policy committee last month, he said most of the local community opposed the “unnecessary” scheme and buses rarely got held up. He was told the upgrades were needed as thousands of new homes are under construction nearby.
Cllr Weston, who set up the petition with over 3,000 signatures, said: “There is all kinds of madness afflicting my ward. At the moment it’s causing complete mayhem for local residents, with complete disruption to their lives. The road worked, the bus moved around. We have another 15 or 18 months of these relentless roadworks.
“In total I’ve found two people in favour of it — they’ve lovely by the way — but everyone else is completely against it. If you stuff up a main road, traffic doesn’t evaporate or vanish, it flows down the neighbouring roads. And that’s exactly what it’s done, all over the place. Cones have been sited in such a way that we’ve encouraged rat-running onto residential roads.
“This is a ridiculous and expensive proposal, and we would love for it to be stopped.”
Contractors are digging up the A4018 between the Crow Lane roundabout and the top of Brentry Hill, as part of a £6-million project. Demand for public transport is set to increase with the homes being built in Cribbs Patchway. While only one bus service uses the route at the moment, new services are likely to be launched in future.
The bus lane will be in force during peak times to stop the Number 1 bus being delayed. The plans began under the former Labour administration, and initially included very unpopular banned turns in Westbury-on-Trym. After a public consultation, the council dropped this part of the plans.
Green Cllr Emma Edwards said: “We’re always going to have a bit of a paradox unfortunately. People don’t want to give up their cars, and when you ask them why they say the buses are rubbish. The only way we’re going to get better public transport is if we build more bus lanes that we can put public transport in. To do that, we create roadworks, which upset drivers.”
Labour Cllr Kaz Self added: “Doing nothing is not an option. There might be a limited number of buses using this route at the moment, but we need to plan for the future.”
By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service