Bristol City Council Attempts to Ban Public From Cycle City Meeting Tonight

bristol | transport | news report Wednesday October 08, 2008 09:19 by Josh Hart - The Public velorution at yahoo dot com

Public Invited to Mass Cycle Ride Demonstration to Meeting starting at 5:30 from Fountains in City Centre

Bristol City Council today attempted to put the lid on a growing crisis of disillusionment with its handling of the Cycling City project by indicating to the Evening Post that the public would not be welcome at a meeting to be held this evening in Horfield to review the secretive contents of the Cycling City plan. Members of the public, for whom this is the first opportunity to examine where £23 million in taxpayer funding is to be spent, are outraged. Cyclists are inviting the public to bring their bikes and attend an emergency mass cycle ride to the "closed" meeting in protest, meeting at the sails by the fountains in the City Centre at 5:30pm, and riding to Horfield.

Bristol City Council Runs Roughshod Over Public Feedback on Cycle Plan

Sources indicate that the Evening Post rejected an investigative article about the growing concern from cycling groups in Bristol about the plan, instead running with a fluffy piece about Councillor Terry Cook's idea to have patrols on bikes.

See: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Traffic-wardens-pro....html

In response to queries, a spokesman for Bristol City Council said: "The meeting, which has been arranged by the Cycling City team following on from an earlier meeting on the 12th September, is not a public event as such. Invites have gone out to all those people who are on our database of cycling groups, such as bike forums, and the people at the previous meeting. Tomorrow's meeting is intended to report on what is in the work programme and to clarify the role of the wider stakeholder group.

The Council are clearly terrified of accepting adequate public feedback, and are scared to the point of paralysis to do anything that would actually make Bristol a true Cycling City, such as restrictions on car traffic in the City Centre, creating a continuous network of cycleways, and taking proper action to deal with the growing transport crisis in our city.

Specifically:

* Over 100,000 people in Bristol live in areas where the government says nitrogen dioxide levels from tailpipe emissions are harmful to health

* Over 500 people are killed or injured on Bristol's roads every year

* For every child killed or injured by car in Clifton, over 25 are killed or injured by car in Easton/ Lawrence Hill

* Bristol has the most congested traffic of any city in the UK- with an average traffic speed of 16mph (easily reached on a bicycle)

When will the City Council act with the necessary urgency to address this crisis?