Transport interventions need to follow Bristol’s direction of travel: towards the fast, reliable, active, and environmentally conscious network that residents need and deserve.
In June last year, I laid out the reasons why Residents’ Parking Zones are falling short of serving Bristolians and why reform continues to be necessary.
When Mayor Rees was elected by our city in 2016, it was with a promise that parking zones would be reviewed and not expand past the central and inner areas that they cover without overwhelming local support. We have worked towards ambitious transport interventions that make a real difference to residents lives: liveable neighbourhoods, improved active travel infrastructure, cleaner air, and new public transport options including a push towards a segregated mass transit system.
Our attitude to shared road space
As a city we need to transform our attitude to shared use of road space, for pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooter users, and motorists. Our residential streets need space for more street trees, sustainable drainage systems, electric vehicle charging points, cycle hangars, and other features.
Residents’ Parking Zones are a failed attempt at managing our city’s limited parking space, outdated for tackling modern day challenges. Bristol’s transport challenges need big ideas, an overhaul of the way we move around our city.
This administration has moved forward the design of two Liveable Neighbourhood trials. Designed with local communities, these new schemes are light-years ahead of RPZs, aiming to counter the growing tendency for short, local trips by car, that the RPZs can drive, when walking and active travel should be considered.
The first liveable neighbourhood scheme in East Bristol in Barton Hill, Redfield, and parts of St George, goes to consultation next week. The second scheme is in the early stages of being developed, hand in hand with local businesses and organisations as well as local councillors.
Our wider aim has been to provide more reliable transport options to Bristolians, creating effective, sustainable travel options, improving Bristol’s air quality and better managing our crowded streets and congestion. We have successfully pedestrianised the Old City and Cotham Hill; created brilliant new segregated cycle paths on key travel routes; and delivered Portway Park & Ride, Bristol’s first new railway station in almost a century, with work also already underway on Ashley Down station.
Failure to have an impact
Our administration inherited this flawed system from the previous mayor. At the time, this was Bristol’s primary transport debate. The schemes were implemented in 2013 without having being previously tabled, without being campaigned for in any manifesto and despite intense public opposition. RPZs have simply failed to deliver.
Launched with a promise to reduce car journeys and limit commuter parking, their real world impact has been to provide opportunities for shorter car journeys within the zones, promoting bad behaviours among people already benefiting from city centre spaces, while reducing the general availability of parking for all road users, blocking cycle parking opportunities.
Given the data, it is strange to see Green Party councillors and self-appointed environmental leaders calling for an increase to RPZs. We must be led by the evidence.
What Bristolians really need and deserve is a fully segregated mass transit, separate from other modes of transport to ensure its reliability. Connecting people to jobs and opportunity, will transform our transport network and reduce commuter congestion. To prevent crippling road closures that would take our city’s transport system back to square one, we must include underground sections where there is no reasonable other option.
Road space is for everyone
RPZs are not the future and it’s time to have the mature conversation that some politicians are failing to join. We need an honest assessment of how we share space and stop discriminating over road space.
Tomorrow, I will present a paper that aims to bring the RPZs more up to date after over a decade of remaining largely unchanged without any review of their operation or effectiveness.
The proposals that the paper will set out include:
- consideration of further development of RPZ policies for future – including replacement of discriminatory visitor permits with a fairer Pay & Display system
- immediate reduction in business permits in the Clifton Village area of 10%, for those businesses who currently have over seven customer permits or more
- removal of third vehicle permits
- increasing the cost of a first permit from £56 to £178
Costs are being brought into line after years of under valuation. If you were to hire a skip in BS3, on the road or on other public land/property, the permit cost for a year would be around £900. When put under this spotlight, it highlights how little is paid for the privilege of city centre parking.
We must find ways to discourage short car journeys and find fairer alternatives for everyone. Moving away from visitor permits to a more accessible Pay & Display system, alongside removal of third permits, are the start of big changes we need to move away from private car use.
I’m hoping that these proposals begin a serious conversation about Residents’ Parking Zones and the use of our land, as well as the need for a segregated mass transit system.