Sustainable Bristol

Transport

A city in which it is safe and pleasant to walk and cycle; in which jobs and local communities are easily accessible and designed in ways that reduce the need to travel by fuel-intensive and polluting vehichles. A city with a local transport system that provides a mix of affordable, low-carbon, integrated transport choices.

Measures to make the City move

by Paul Rainger

25 August 2011

Ask anyone what the least green aspect of Bristol is, and nine out of ten will cite the traffic. The city suffers from a higher than average car dependency. But September signals the latest in a series of low carbon transport improvements that are helping reverse this trend in recent years.

Three years ago, Forum for the Future helped launch a walking website for Bristol which is taking over 22,000 short car journeys each year off the city’s congested roads.

Over the same period, Bristol was named the UK’s first ‘Cycling City’, a campaign that’s seen over 5,000 extra people abandoning their car in favour of a bike, with some large rises of 44% on some routes, thanks to almost
30 new or improved cycle paths and road junctions. By 2020 Bristol wants to be one of the top European cities, achieving at least 15% modal share for cycling.

Watch the Video: One of the new Cycling City routes to the Station

Bristol much maligned bus network is improving too. Forum for the Future helped the development of a smart travelcard for the region which will soon be introduced on Bristol buses, enabling more reliable services and a further modal switch from car to bus.

And September marks another important milestone for Bristol’s buses. The City Council and its partners submit their final bid to the Government for Bristol’s Bus Rapid Transit Network. Running for much of the route on fast, dedicated lanes, the Network would provide a fast, high-quality alternative to commuting by car.

Watch the Video: BRT services stopping outside the Arnolfini

Given the state of the economy, it’s almost certainly the city’s last big chance to secure national finance for this major transport scheme. There simply aren’t going to be more huge slugs of central government investment money in the future.

The City Council plan to raise the money for their part of the investment required by introducing a workplace parking scheme in the city’s central area. As well as paying their share for the transport improvements, making
firms pay for people to park will also make them look hard at alternatives, such as working from home, car-sharing and putting in showers and racks for cyclists.

Bristol’s Bus Rapid Transit Network will cut journey times by as much as 40 per cent, and that will be just the ticket if Bristol is going to successfully retain its current business crown as the most competitive city outside London.

 

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Business should do their transport bit with workplace parking

by Peter Madden

14 July 2011

Plans to improve the city transport network are the focus of July’s Planet Bristol column in the Bristol Evening Post. Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, Peter Madden, urges Bristol businesses to do their share to support the planned transport improvements.

Local government is putting in cash, people are paying through high fares, and business is being asked to support a workplace parking scheme. Without everyone playing their part Bristol could grind to a halt Peter warns -

Read any of the surveys about what people loathe in our city, and guess what always comes out top? Yes, transport. We hear motorists complaining about congestion, bus passengers complaining about fares, and cyclist complaining about safety.

This is a quality of life issue – one of the things that brings the city down. It affects social inclusion, because people don’t find it easy to get to work or the doctor’s. And I think it will increasingly affect our economic competitiveness. Whole sections of north Bristol are already chock-a-block in the morning and evening rush-hours. Companies won’t want to locate here – or even stay here – if things get worse.

Why does this feel so much worse than in other places? After all, most of our big cities were built around the old medieval road grids, so the centres are always going to be pinch-points. But Bristol, more than most, has grown hugely without putting the public transport infrastructure into place.

Some of these pressures might be eased by the new bus rapid transit system. These routes will be particularly important for connecting up South Bristol with the economic life of the city.

However, we can be sure that there aren’t going to be more huge slugs of central government money to build the new railway lines that London is getting, or the shiny new trams that criss-cross our northern cities. Bristol will have to find more of the answers itself.

We should do more to reduce the need to travel in the first place, through more flexible working and making sure people have shops, services and offices near where they live. We should keep investing in walking and cycling, which are the cheap and healthy options, and where we’ve seen a real boost over the last couple of years.

Ultimately, however, the council will need a steady stream of money to invest in improving our transport. So, it really does need to bite the bullet on charging for workplace parking.

Making firms pay for people to park will make them look hard at alternatives, such as working from home, car-sharing and putting in showers and racks for cyclists. It will also give the council some money to spend on improving our transport.

Of course, there will be the moans from the usual quarters. But hey, everyone said congestion charging would kill London, and the opposite has happened. Congestion and pollution have dropped dramatically. Public transport has improved immeasurably. And the capital is booming.

Some businesses are bound to complain in the short-term, but I hope they will then realise the long-term economic benefits for themselves and for our city. Workplace parking charges will take some political bravery to push through. We need to see all the political parties getting behind it and showing the leadership that Bristol needs.

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North Bristol’s New Sustainable Commuting Map

by Paul Rainger

17 May 2011

Major employers in North Bristol are taking a lead in helping tackle the daily commuting congestion in the area which is costing businesses dear, with the publication of a new sustainable community map showing the best options for getting around.

North Bristol commuters are download the new map here.

The maps has been produced by ‘North Bristol Sus Com’ a group of major employers, located along the A4174, who have come together to promote sustainable commuting for their 40,000 employees. 

As well as producing the map, the group are working together to influence and improve local transport provision to combat traffic congestion and reduce the impact upon our environment through a commitment to exploring innovative ways in which the transport problems in North Bristol can be addressed.

Leading local employers involved in North Bristol Sus Com include Airbus, BAE Systems, Friends Life, GKN Aerospace, HP, MOD, National Composites Centre, North Bristol NHS Trust, Rolls Royce, the Bristol and Bath Science Park (SPark) and the University of the West of England.  

Together North Bristol Sus Com is working to help their 40,000 employees choose more sustainable ways to commute to work, and reduce the impact commuting has on congestion in the Southmead, Filton and Emersons Green areas in Bristol.

Work together, the group aim to improve access to their sites in North Bristol for employees, customers, suppliers and visitors through reducing traffic congestion, enabling more desirable and affordable choices of public and shared transport and encouraging more healthy walking and cycling.

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Go Low – a smart solution for public sector workplace travel

by Paul Rainger

10 February 2011

Last week, Bristol City Council hosted a Forum for the Future seminar looking at a smart solution for sustainable work-based travel being piloted in the West of England.

Go Low is a concept developed for the Avon & Wiltshire Partnership NHS Trust, which is helping reduce the millions of miles driven each year by health staff. The Go Low scheme provides a pool of low-emission vehicles and bikes for work-based journeys, supported by a sophisticated electronic management system.

Representatives from public sector bodies and businesses across Bristol attended the seminar to examined how the scheme could be scaled up to help collectively solve the travel problems faced by city staff who need to drive for work, without driving to work.

Public sector organisations such as hospitals and councils have many staff who need to drive as part of their job. They also often operate from city centre locations with a great deal of pressure on a small number of workplace parking spaces.

Bristol City Council, ambitiously aiming to reduce it’s own carbon 40% by 2020,  sees the potential for such a scheme to improve its own workplace travel arrangements. The Council already has some pool cars successfully serving its city centre offices, but there is an opportunity to expand this across all council services.

Successfully scaling up the pioneering Go Low across the public sector would:

• reduce staff’s reliance on their own cars even in the outer districts
• reduce commuter travel and congestion
• improve air quality
• give staff options for healthy work-based travel

The Go Low pilot for the Avon & Wiltshire Partnership NHS Trust has also shown that having a large pool of low carbon vehicles to draw from brings major benefits in terms of access, efficiency and cost savings. Go Low has found there is potential to have them made available for low carbon staff travel to and from work as well.

Councillor Gary Hopkins, Bristol’s Cabinet Member for Strategic Transport, Waste and Targeted Improvement, says: “We need a sustainable solution which inspires other organisations and businesses with its simplicity and sustainability. Bristol is a forward thinking city and it does business in a way which reflects that. The future is low-carbon, fuel-efficient, less car miles, more cycling and walking. Staff travel should reflect this and the council and public sector should lead the way. I applaud any sustainable transport initiative that avoids the extra mile.”

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Walking to a healthier Bristol

by Fran Forman

17 April 2010

Nearly 9,000 Bristol residents are taking at least an extra hour of exercise a week, thanks to walkit.com, the city’s online walking route planner.

Walkit was launched in Bristol in October 2008 by Forum for the Future, in partnership with Bristol Primary Care Trust, Bristol City Council, and Triodos Bank. In its first year it has been used by 14,616 people sparing the city’s congested roads more than 22,000 car journeys, boosting Bristol’s ambitions to be the UK’s “Green Capital”.

The urban walking route planner – walkit.com – generates easy to read maps between any two points whilst also showing the health and environmental benefits of making the journey by foot. In 2008, the website won an award for most innovative transport project in the National Transport Awards. It has also appeared in the Sunday Telegraph’s 101 most useful websites.

“Walking is brilliant for your health.  It reduces heart disease, lowers your blood pressure, keeps your bones and muscles strong, keeps your weight under control and improves your overall feeling of wellbeing.  If there was a medicine that did all that people would pay a fortune for it, yet walking is free,”

says Dr Angela Raffle, a consultant in public health with Bristol Primary Care Trust.

“Walkit Bristol is helping local people do their bit to improve the city’s air quality and reduce its contribution to climate change” adds Paul Rainger of Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Programme. “Each person who switches to walking to work saves about a tonne of CO2 each year.”

Forum’s Founder Director, Jonathon Porritt, emphasises the green benefits of walking in cities.

“Ditching the car for short journeys has always made sense, both for the wallet and personal health” he says. “Now that we know what kinds of carbon savings we need to make, there’s even more reason to follow our instincts.”

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