‘Transport in Bristol is a right royal mess’

Transport in Bristol is a right royal mess and the reasons are manifold. Regional transport infrastructure spend per capita is anything between five and ten times less than that in London, despite the fact that about 85 per cent of the UK population does not live in London.

Bristol used to have an extensive tram network, which Bristol24/7 did a piece on some time ago.

Trams were pretty well abandoned post war in the UK in favour of buses and the motorcar. This was almost certainly a strategic mistake. Modern trams work wonderfully in many European cities and by ripping up our tram lines we’ve simply allowed Bristol to get clogged up with cars and slow moving buses.

The Metrobus started out as a modern tram system and was downgraded over the years to a regular bus with a dedicated path, for want of cash from central government. But compared to Cross Rail the cost of putting in a modern tram system in Bristol would have been pretty small.

Regional cities are effectively starved of infrastructure funds compared to London and thanks to the austerity policies of our current government that situation isn’t going to change for a good few years now.

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Read more: ‘Bristol transport is in crisis and people are already paying with their lives’

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Successive governments’ policies favouring the privatisation of public transport has fought against an integrated transport system, as each mode is set in competition with each other, rather than working collaboratively to make an effective, joined-up system.

The UK has never had an integrated transport policy and the short term thinking of recent governments isn’t going to implement one.

A good integrated system should enable people to take bikes on various forms of public transport as they can in Denmark or Germany. Taking bikes on buses is pretty impossible in Bristol, but even in Los Angeles the buses have racks on the front to take bikes.

It’s now harder than ever to get bikes on trains; the trusty Intercity 125 introduced 40 years ago had plenty of room for bikes in the guards van. The newly introduced trains offer very little in the way of bike space. So inter-city travel by train and bike is not that easy.

Then there’s the power of the road lobby, which effectively led to the ripping up of local railway lines under Marples and Beeching and the building of the motorway network. This forced people onto the roads and away from public transport, and with its enormous marketing budget the motor industry lured the public into believing that individual car ownership was the only way forward.

Bristol has the second slowest roads in the UK

Status, machismo, speed, adventure and glamour are all used to persuade people to buy bigger, uglier, heavier cars, with the result that all the gains in engine efficiency are lost to size and weight, with the resulting air pollution that we are now all concerned about.

Like the tobacco industry, which knew in the 1950s of the link between smoking and poor health, the motorcar manufacturers have known about the nasties coming out of their tail-pipes for decades and they know it’s not good for us. It simply takes decades for governments to catch up and pass legislation to force them to make changes. But too late for many.

When it comes to consultations on transport the road lobby has a powerful voice used to maintain the status quo, when what we need is a radical re-think of how people can move about our cities.

Individual car ownership is a crazy notion when looked at rationally. All that money spent on a bit of kit which spends the bulk of its life stationary at the side of the road.

It’s not an efficient use of resources however you look at it, and the constant renewal of cars with easy-terms lease-plans must be one of the biggest cons this side of 2008. These deals are driven by the finance houses rather than the consumers need for a new car and thrives on the fear of not keeping up with the Joneses.

So the myth of the need for individual car ownership is perpetuated with all its failings. City car clubs, taxis, shared car journeys all help to reduce car use in cities but there could be greater incentives put in place to help people reduce their need for private individual car use. Electric bikes are a great solution for some and there could be greater incentives for their use.

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Read more: The Bristol invention set to revolutionise cycling

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I’ve cycled in Bristol for over 40 years. Cycling infrastructure has improved without doubt in certain ways, but it’s so disconnected and patchy that it is often actually safer to pretend to be a car.

Do I feel safer cycling on the roads now than I did in the late 1970s? Certainly not. I’m experienced enough to know how to keep out of trouble but I would find it hard to persuade a newbie that Bristol was a truly welcoming and safe city for cycling.

The European cities that have excellent, integrated public transport, often favouring cycling and walking, were not achieved through consultation. The changes were imposed and the public learnt to love them. We know that democracy doesn’t always generate the results we need.

What we need is strong leadership when it comes to transport policy changes, otherwise the vested interests dominate and the status quo endures.

Bristol transport planners can only tinker at the edges. It will be many decades before the city has the public transport system its population deserves. Central government is simply not going to put the cash on the table to build the necessary infrastructure and who else is going to do it?

David Sproxton is one of the co-founders of Aardman Animations