Bristol's Temple Gate layout change planned in £21m revamp

[whole diary]

[martyjon]

Central Area Local Plan.

What a work of fiction that is.

Talks of City Promenade, really only City Centre given a posh name.

Talks of Arena Quarter, scuppered by current Mayor.

Talks of regeneration of Cumberland Basin area and Plimsoll Bridge swings, current Mayor wants get rid of bridge and flatten area and start again.

Talks of Arts Quarter, news to me, where's that, Christmas Steps and Colston Street.

And how many quarters are there in a whole ? Me the village idiot says only ever 4, this reports contains so many that added to the current physically existing ones could amount to 13 so with any luck this report will as has occasioned to its predecessors be consigned to the same place, the waste paper basket.

[martyjon]

Oh and I forgot, what's the difference between a Primary Shop Front and a Secondary Shop Front, to me a shop front is a shop front, FULL STOP.

[Red Squirrel]

What a work of fiction that is...

Well that was the 2015 version. The current draft reflects some of the changes you refer to, though it still states:

Station redevelopment plans will see Temple Meads become a modern integrated regional transport hub. This will include enhancing the connectivity of Bristol Temple Quarter. This improved connectivity means a new approach to development and renewal beyond the station area into a better connected St. Philip’s Marsh can be brought forward.

[martyjon]

Oh,  there is a new draft of the work of fiction is there.  Have to browse another time. Had a long day.  07.45 m3x stuck in traffic on ring road this am due to the total b???s up by SG council over the Hambrook Lights saga, 1 hour 10 mins late arriving at City Centre, sorry City Promenade.            

[johnneyw]

I will state my opinion here. Plot 6 is the ideal point for a, hopefully, meaningful future bus/rail hub. No esoteric knowledge required, no complicated signage, just a very simple link to out and in going bus services. Will it happen? I'm more confident of my forthcoming telephone call from Barbara Brocoli to be the next James Bond. So I suppose the prospects are actually rather promising!

[martyjon]

I presume plot 6 is the current station car park. When finally they demolish the Bristol Panel Signal Box I thought the plan was to bring the electric services into a modern railway station constructed in the shell of a 1800's structure. When I saw the artists impressions I commented that pax would be accessing the farthest of the reinstated platforms by a subway then as there was no indicative provision of a foot bridge shown. The answer was, "It hasn't been decided yet". I didn't let on to the consultant team who are the experts that there is a third option. Walk all the way past a 10 coach train to the buffer stop on platform 0, cross the pedestrian walkway past the buffer stop for platform -1 (minus one) to access the train which for holders of first class will be well pleased with their reserved seats being in the first coach at the London end of the rolling stock. Thus there would be 3 options to gain pedestrian access to plot 6, subway, footbridge or a walkway to a transport Hub ? on plot 6 but where would the car park currently located on plot 6 go, Oh go completely I see. I have heard mutterings that current thinking proposes to move the taxis and passenger drop off / pick up to plot 6 and give the whole of the station forecourt up to buses widening the pedestrian areas under the canopies on the forecourt to allow all bus services to be operated by double deck buses as the current 8, 9 and 72 route have to be single deckers as the road surface to canopies is insufficient headroom for a double decker. The irony of this is a few years ago the pedestrian area under the canopies was narrowed to provide a bus pull-in / lay-by so as to provide an addition lane for waiting taxis.

Must sign off now or I'll miss my 07.45 m3x MetroBus departure for its scheduled 40 minute journey to the City Promenade but I'm not hopeful of the schedule being achieved but I hope not a repeat of yesterdays 1 hour 50 minutes journey.

[grahame]

...  . The answer was, "It hasn't been decided yet". I didn't let on to the consultant team who are the experts that there is a third option. Walk all the way past a 10 coach train to the buffer stop on platform 0, cross the pedestrian walkway past the buffer stop for platform -1 (minus one) ...

I've trimmed that to help me understand it.   Sounds like a lesson learned from Cambridge.   You join a 12 car train at the buffers of the suburban platforms at King's Cross and when it gets to Cambridge it pulls in to the new platforms (are they 5 and 6?) where you have to walk all the way to the front to the footbridge, at the extreme country end.  Having crossed the footbridge, you walk back down the original platform opposite the middle of the train you have just got off - walk approx 18 carriage lengths in total or just under 400 metres.  But accessible, of course, because the new footbridge has lifts - never mind the distance.

[Red Squirrel]

Possibly martyjon is referring to the artist's impressions produced by AHR, which you can see here: https://www.ahr.co.uk/Temple-Meads-Regeneration

These appear to show mutually exclusive options - you can see that where there's a train in one view, there's an odd 'Space 1999'-style waiting module occupying the same space in another. I think the main point of these pictures is to give an idea of what a new roof might look like.

Access to Platform 0 will presumably be considered along with the question of how the rest of the station will be accessed from the Friary (Plot 6) side - I'm sure they won't want to block that access, and it seems most likely that a subway will be used given that the station stands on vaults.

[Bmblbzzz]

If there will be more platforms accessed via the subway, presumably there will be more passengers using it. Are there any plans to install a second lift?

[Red Squirrel]

If there will be more platforms accessed via the subway, presumably there will be more passengers using it. Are there any plans to install a second lift?

Until plans are published, we can only guess...

[martyjon]

Yea, that was the docs. Would be interesting to see a map of TM^‡(resolve)'s subterranean world.

[martyjon]

Must sign off now or I'll miss my 07.45 m3x MetroBus departure for its scheduled 40 minute journey to the City Promenade but I'm not hopeful of the schedule being achieved but I hope not a repeat of yesterdays 1 hour 50 minutes journey.

Weeeell caught the said service which was on time and arrived at the City Promenade terminus stop 5 minutes early. Yesterdays debacle could only have been weather related as this morning when those fair weather cyclists / motor cyclists surfaced and drew back their bedroom curtains to see the bootifull sunshine decreed thay'd use the bike today whereas yesterday morning their same action was greeted with p*****g down rain and used the car.

On this afternoons return I was talking to the bus driver and she told me that yesterday morning she arrived at the City Promenade terminus to return to EG behind the previous service so she radioed contral requesting instructions and was told to run NIS to EG and return to the City as soon as she arrived there and was then just 5 minutes late when she arrived at Rupert Street for her relief.

Don't laf, new timetables posted at m3 MetroBus stops bear the wrong effective from date, printed timetables and websites all state 15th September, posted timetables state 16th September. Only 24 hours later but if that was a booked cruise ship the boat will have been missed.

[Red Squirrel]

Spotted an item on the very excellent roads.org.uk about the Army and Navy Flyover, in Chelmsford... an interesting read, I think. Like the erstwhile Redcliffe Flyover, it was designed as a temporary fix ahead of a planned major new junction, and like its Redcliffe sibling the new road happened somewhere else. Another similarity is that the local authority is having a hard time explaining why it has to go, and why it won't be replaced.

[Bmblbzzz]

In terms of temporary flyovers outlasting their allotted span (sorry!), back in 2000 I was working in Warsaw, living on "Good Street" to give it a literal translation, on the left bank of the river very near a rickety old bridge which, I was told had been constructed right after WW2 by army engineers. All bridges in Warsaw (and most of the rest of the city) had been destroyed in 1944 so temporary bridges were the order of the day. This one was a wooden structure which you couldn't walk across (forbidden, no pavements), I certainly didn't dare cycle across (way too busy and narrow) and wasn't strong enough to carry buses. About a month after I left, they finished construction of its replacement, which is a rather splendid bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Świętokrzyski_Bridge

[Bmblbzzz]

Spotted an item on the very excellent roads.org.uk about the Army and Navy Flyover, in Chelmsford... an interesting read, I think. Like the erstwhile Redcliffe Flyover, it was designed as a temporary fix ahead of a planned major new junction, and like its Redcliffe sibling the new road happened somewhere else. Another similarity is that the local authority is having a hard time explaining why it has to go, and why it won't be replaced.

"This is an emergency situation," according to the council's deputy leader Cllr Kevin Bentley, "and I would ask for patience and understanding during this challenging time." He has also bravely pledged that he will "not place any Essex resident in danger". If you listen carefully you can hear his superhero cape rippling in the breeze.

At long last Essex Man joins the Marvel Universe.