M32 new speed limits

[spaximus]

I have just been reading up on the new Metro bus lanes on the M32 and the road works that will happen.

They are erecting average speed cameras which will be set at 30 mph during construction and left in place set to 40mph thereafter.

So by adding a bus lane to improve bus use they are slowing everything down, they really hate cars in Bristol.


http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/news/14755465.Avera...

[rs1952]

I tried to open the Gazette Series link but got fed up with the adware, so I looked elsewhere.

Here is what is actually going on, from the horse’s mouth:

https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.com/he/m32-br...

For those who can’t be arsed to read it (and there will no doubt be a few) the salient points are:

1. The matter is currently out for consultation. You have until next Tuesday 17th January to respond...

2. The proposal is to introduce a 40mph speed limit at the far southern end of the M32 from the railway bridge between junctions 2 and 3. So we are probably talking a little over half a mile. I don’t go that way very much these days since I retired, but most of the time you are lucky to be moving at all on that section, let alone exceeding 40mph

The reason being put forward is that they are providing a bus lane in what is essentially a concrete-sided cutting, and there is no room to widen the motorway at this point. In order to get a third lane in, they have had to narrow the two existing lanes and also narrow the hard shoulder and the central reservation. They say narrowed lanes, hard shoulder and central reservation = justification for the speed limit.

I don’t think you can blame Bristol City Council entirely for this, although it was their idea to provide the bus lane in the first place. The Highways Agency is actually behind the plans. The only real alternative, to provide a third lane and retain the existing lanes at their current width, would involve widening the cutting and therefore cost mega millions plus probably knocking a bit more of St Pauls down to accommodate it. All in all it is a typical British compromise – do it on the cheap and upset the largest number of people that you possibly can. Brexit will be the same you know...

[spaximus]

Sorry to disagree. Several years ago BCC wanted to buy the M32 to turn it into a bus lane and a single car lane each way, reducing the limit the whole way to 50 mph.

At the time they were refused as it was agreed that to restrict it would cause jams on the M4, which are already bad now. They knew at the time of planning that this was a problem and The highways who manage/ own it had little option but to allow the hard shoulder to be used.

The decision has already been made and no matter how many object it will be reduced, this consultation is merely a rubber stamping job. This will then extend further up as time goes on to make bus travel quicker than car.

I know a couple of councillors, not on BCC, who have said sometimes the greater good is the reason they do things and there is a legal requirement to consult.

Time and time again BCC have demonstrated their hatred of cars deliberately causing congestion around the centre.

[rs1952]

spaximus said:

Sorry to disagree.

No problem. It’s by far the best thing to do in order to keep a discussion going

spaximus said:

Several years ago BCC wanted to buy the M32 to turn it into a bus lane and a single car lane each way, reducing the limit the whole way to 50 mph.

Have you got any evidence to support this statement? I ask firstly because I’ve never heard of it before and, secondly, I’ve known a Bristol City Councillor for over 40 years (OK ex-Councillor since she retired in 2012) and it never came up in conversation with her either. Thirdly, a good half of the M32 is in South Gloucestershire anyway and I would have thought that they would have had something to say about the matter of an adjoining council buying part of their patch. Fourthly, I have never heard of a local authority buying a road anyway as, unless they are private roads they become public rights of way (which doesn’t necessarily mean that you can drive along a right of way of course). Fifthly and finally, can you imagine what the national press would have to say about such a move – just look what happened with Stoke Gifford Council and their barmy idea to charge “Fun Run”

spaximus said:

At the time they were refused as it was agreed that to restrict it would cause jams on the M4, which are already bad now.

Stands to reason

spaximus said:

They knew at the time of planning that this was a problem and The highways who manage/ own it had little option but to allow the hard shoulder to be used.

Which of course is what has happened.

spaximus said:

The decision has already been made and no matter how many object it will be reduced, this consultation is merely a rubber stamping job.

Most consultation is exactly that, as far as members of the public are concerned anyway. T’was ever thus

spaximus said:

This will then extend further up as time goes on to make bus travel quicker than car.

This sentence is the major reason why I replied to you again. Whilst there are such things as the thin end of wedges, they can probably get away with the restriction at the far southern end of the M32 because of restricted clearances. From there back to almost the top of the hill there is already an extra lane to play with – the filter lane coming south between 2 and 3 and the crawler lane going north, and the position of the central reservation could be adjusted if necessary if a bus lane were to be installed there. Beyond the top of the hill to junction 1 there is grassland on either side so the road could be widened if necessary. They could therefore not so easily get away with narrowing the lanes further north and, by extension, extending the speed limit up there.

Since I became a government-recognised old geezer and they gave me a bus pass, I have used buses more frequently than I have in the last 50 years. It is an uncomfortable truth that buses are often quicker than cars already when trying to get into the centre of the city from the north east, especially when one takes into account the congestion on the inner ring road between Temple Meads, Old Market and the Horsefair.

spaximus said:

I know a couple of councillors, not on BCC, who have said sometimes the greater good is the reason they do things and there is a legal requirement to consult.

Time and time again BCC have demonstrated their hatred of cars deliberately causing congestion around the centre.

Yes. So what is the “greater good” in this context? Although I agree with you that Bristol City Council have been embarking on ever more intricate traffic-jamming schemes for the last 40+ years, another uncomfortable truth is that there are more cars potentially wanting to get into the centre of Bristol than there are parking spaces there to accommodate them. The days when local councils could get away with knocking down an inner city slum or two to build multi-storey car parks went when they ran out of inner-city slums to knock down, so the only answer is to reduce the number of cars coming into the city centre.

When I was being dragged up in Staple Hill in the 1950s very few people had cars. Of my entire family, only one uncle actually had a car, and he only taxed it for 8 months of the year, laying it up over the winter! Everyone by necessity used buses (or indeed trains from Fishponds, Staple Hill, Mangotsfield, Warmley and Yate until Richard Beeching had his little fling) and the world went on. There was a brief period, say between 1965 and 1995, when having a car was useful to get around Bristol, but I am not at all sure that it is now. And somehow I very much doubt that we will ever see those days return

[spaximus]

I have never worked out how to do the selective quoting you have done as I am a bit thick really. So trying to answer your comments.

No I have no evidence. But this link from Piston heads in 2003 would suggest I was on the money.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

It was all happening when it was not going to be the metro bus but a tram system, must be 15-20 years ago, but as I say at the time it was said whoever owned the road then, Highways authority? said a bit fat no. I was told by an ex highway engineer.

There were all sorts of grand schemes then with a park and ride near Almondsbury, but the bridge was too low for the pantograph, it would have gone down Gloucester rd on to Mullar Road and then M32 with spur to Bradly Stoke at the top or the M32.
South Glos are just as mad, remember we have the road to nowhere in Yate as an example of folly.

They are not building additional lanes, they have taking the hard shoulder on each carriageway as I understand it the buses will then cross to the centre before the flyover to join the existing bus lane into the centre. They could have built extra lanes but this is cheaper.

What you are experiencing is the plan is working. Make junctions not work, make cars expensive, remember BCC wanted to charge work place parking which was dropped when Newport's Mayor tried to get business to relocate and that kicked up a stink. They also lost a referendum on parking passes for residents some time ago, but that has happened in Clifton since regardless.

Public transport is the greater good they see and it is working. Last years was the first time that less younger drivers were taking driving lessons, I read. They see it as expensive and pointless as many flats they can afford have no parking and Urban living, hence the explosion of flats in Bristol centre, is seen as trendy, close to bars clubs etc.

I hope you are right and I am wrong on the M32 but I suspect re reading that article form 2003 that is the plan

[rs1952]

spaximus said:

A lot of interesting stuff

Thanks for the link to the old thread. I was posting on here back then but I either never noticed it or have forgotten all about it. It was also interesting to see some old user names that appear to be no longer posting!

It all becomes a bit clearer now. “De-trunking” was a wheeze dreamed up by the Blair administration, or could even have come from the previous Major one, and was intended to save the Treasury some money. Rather than them having to fork out for road repairs, a de-trunked road became the responsibility of the local authority to maintain, which would of course have implications on local authority budgets and therefore Council Tax levels.

Rather odd then that the Evening Post didn’t point out to its readership that de-trunking the M32 would probably put their Council Tax bills up – I wonder why they didn’t mention that angle...

But in any case the whole idea was crackers and doomed to failure before it started. Nobody anywhere in the entire country has de-trunked a motorway, and even if they did they would have to deal with the inevitable consequences, in this case as you say of traffic backing up onto the M4 and causing chaos. The idea was doomed from the word go so, even if the City Council had contemplated it in a moment of collective madness many years ago, I doubt it would ever have happened anyway – it would have cost them a fortune.

I have to say that a lot of the rest of the Post article from the time was pure speculation – “if this and that and the other does happen then this COULD be the consequence... It no doubt sold papers at the time. I suppose

And of course we all know the eventual fate of the M4 bus lane – now dispensed with, so the jam that used to appear at junction 3 has now moved back to where it was before the bus lane was introduced, at the start of the elevated section. The result being that there is no longer an irritating jam at J3, just a reincarnated jam before J2, the same as it used to be in the old days...

But to go back to the real topic under discussion, I believe that the ideas the council had in 2003 were flawed, and the fact that they have not happened some 14 years later suggests that I am probably correct. They had a daft idea at the time, it proved to be more trouble than it was worth, and they quietly forgot about it. Only on PH do we remember it

I would certainly not subscribe to any conspiracy theory such as: “ah yes but they were thinking this way in 2003, and they still have the same intention” because the world has moved on; probably a good half or more of the councillors in 2003 are no longer councillors, and I have no doubt that the City Councillors of 2017 will be able to come up with stupid ideas of their own without resurrecting the daft ideas of their predecessors almost a generation ago.

For those who still drive regularly in Bristol I wish them well, but as old age comes upon me I increasingly find less need to join them. A couple of months ago before I came out to Cape Town for the winter I walked from Pucklechurch to Temple Meads down the old railway path, taking the bus from Bath to Pucklechurch and then getting the train home. It was a bloody sight easier than driving, and the last time I drove from Pucklechurch to Temple Meads was longer ago than I care to remember

Finally, as regards selective quoting, try clicking “quote all” against my last post, and have a look at the way I did it. It’s quite straightforward once you get the hang of it

[rs1952]

spaximus said:

South Glos are just as mad, remember we have the road to nowhere in Yate as an example of folly.

A late addition to my earlier post, and completely off topic

I lived in Yate between 1975 and 1980, and the “road to nowhere” was there then.

Its origin was with the Yate New Town concept of the late 1960s. So the present situation can’t be blamed on the current South Gloucestershire Council, or even Northavon – this comes from the days when Yate was still part of Gloucestershire “proper” prior to 1974.

It was originally intended that Rodford Way would be linked to the main A432 somewhere near Nibley but, as ever, finance was a problem; the estate developers paid for the section of road that was built, but the Council couldn’t afford the cost of bridging the railway, so the full link road was never finished.

It now seems unlikely that it ever will

[spaximus]

rs1952 said:

A late addition to my earlier post, and completely off topic

I lived in Yate between 1975 and 1980, and the “road to nowhere” was there then.

Its origin was with the Yate New Town concept of the late 1960s. So the present situation can’t be blamed on the current South Gloucestershire Council, or even Northavon – this comes from the days when Yate was still part of Gloucestershire “proper” prior to 1974.

It was originally intended that Rodford Way would be linked to the main A432 somewhere near Nibley but, as ever, finance was a problem; the estate developers paid for the section of road that was built, but the Council couldn’t afford the cost of bridging the railway, so the full link road was never finished.

It now seems unlikely that it ever will

The new MP has allegedly had a promise to get funds to finish it. Unfortunately S. Glos could have done it themselves but they chose not to, instead they have made Rodford Way into a single carriageway to dissuade drivers.

[rs1952]

spaximus said:

The new MP has allegedly had a promise to get funds to finish it. Unfortunately S. Glos could have done it themselves but they chose not to, instead they have made Rodford Way into a single carriageway to dissuade drivers.

OK - we appear to have done the M32 to death so let’s have a go at Rodford Way

As I said earlier, I lived in Yate from 1975 to 1980, and at that time Rodford Way was a NSL dual carriageway (and come to that so was the A432 Chipping Sodbury bypass). It was built at the time of the “master plan” that many councils adopted of separating pedestrians and cars; there was at least one pedestrian underpass near to the end of Sundridge Park, and the idea was (sweetly naive now one looks back on it) that all the pedestrians would use the underpass(es) provided and remain in perfect safety.

There are many people about whose idea of getting any exercise is running late, or perhaps putting the bins out once a fortnight. You may as well try to herd cats down those underpasses than expect pedestrians to use them – in fact, herding cats down the underpasses would probably be easier...

Then along came “Elf & safety” and more importantly, the compensation culture. Now, if you walked out in front of a car doing 70 on Rodford Way and found out first had whether there is an afterlife or not, your weeping relations would be suing the council for all they were worth because they hadn’t put a barrier up, or a sign up saying that was dangerous to walk out in the path of a car doing 70, or reduced the speed limit, or thought of the children etc etc ad nauseum...

So first the speed limits were reduced and, more recently, lots of white paint has been applied to make it a single carriageway to make sure that evil drivers don’t overtake each other, and speed while thay are at it.

Unfortunately that is the way of the world these days. The council is damned if they do anything, and damned if they don’t do anything. As councillors usually take the line of least resistance, then the more shouty people tend to get their way. I suspect the anti-car brigade make more noise in Yate than the motoring fraternity.

[Dr Jekyll]

rs1952 said:

spaximus said:

A lot of interesting stuff

Thanks for the link to the old thread. I was posting on here back then but I either never noticed it or have forgotten all about it. It was also interesting to see some old user names that appear to be no longer posting!

It all becomes a bit clearer now. “De-trunking” was a wheeze dreamed up by the Blair administration, or could even have come from the previous Major one, and was intended to save the Treasury some money. Rather than them having to fork out for road repairs, a de-trunked road became the responsibility of the local authority to maintain, which would of course have implications on local authority budgets and therefore Council Tax levels.

Rather odd then that the Evening Post didn’t point out to its readership that de-trunking the M32 would probably put their Council Tax bills up – I wonder why they didn’t mention that angle...

But in any case the whole idea was crackers and doomed to failure before it started. Nobody anywhere in the entire country has de-trunked a motorway, and even if they did they would have to deal with the inevitable consequences, in this case as you say of traffic backing up onto the M4 and causing chaos. The idea was doomed from the word go so, even if the City Council had contemplated it in a moment of collective madness many years ago, I doubt it would ever have happened anyway – it would have cost them a fortune.

I have to say that a lot of the rest of the Post article from the time was pure speculation – “if this and that and the other does happen then this COULD be the consequence... It no doubt sold papers at the time. I suppose

And of course we all know the eventual fate of the M4 bus lane – now dispensed with, so the jam that used to appear at junction 3 has now moved back to where it was before the bus lane was introduced, at the start of the elevated section. The result being that there is no longer an irritating jam at J3, just a reincarnated jam before J2, the same as it used to be in the old days...

But to go back to the real topic under discussion, I believe that the ideas the council had in 2003 were flawed, and the fact that they have not happened some 14 years later suggests that I am probably correct. They had a daft idea at the time, it proved to be more trouble than it was worth, and they quietly forgot about it. Only on PH do we remember it

I would certainly not subscribe to any conspiracy theory such as: “ah yes but they were thinking this way in 2003, and they still have the same intention” because the world has moved on; probably a good half or more of the councillors in 2003 are no longer councillors, and I have no doubt that the City Councillors of 2017 will be able to come up with stupid ideas of their own without resurrecting the daft ideas of their predecessors almost a generation ago.

For those who still drive regularly in Bristol I wish them well, but as old age comes upon me I increasingly find less need to join them. A couple of months ago before I came out to Cape Town for the winter I walked from Pucklechurch to Temple Meads down the old railway path, taking the bus from Bath to Pucklechurch and then getting the train home. It was a bloody sight easier than driving, and the last time I drove from Pucklechurch to Temple Meads was longer ago than I care to remember

Finally, as regards selective quoting, try clicking “quote all” against my last post, and have a look at the way I did it. It’s quite straightforward once you get the hang of it

So let me get this right.....

It is difficult to use a car in Bristol.

Therefore it must be made more difficult.

Otherwise people will insist on using cars even though it would be easier to walk to the station and catch a train.

This would be bad because it would cause congestion making it difficult to use cars.


Is that it?

[rs1952]

Dr Jekyll said:

So let me get this right.....

It is difficult to use a car in Bristol.

Therefore it must be made more difficult.

Otherwise people will insist on using cars even though it would be easier to walk to the station and catch a train.

This would be bad because it would cause congestion making it difficult to use cars.

Is that it?

Short answer - No. That is not it.

Longer answer:

Dr Jekyll said:

It is difficult to use a car in Bristol.

Yes

Dr Jekyll said:

Therefore it must be made more difficult.

I think you need to ask yourself a fundamental question here. If you made it easier to use a car in Bristol, would that encourage more people to use a car in Bristol? I think we both know the answer to that. You would end up with more cars in Bristol than there are now.

So where the fk are you going to park it when you get there? If you can’t park it now, how are you going to manage to park it in the future if there are even more cars in the City Centre. Sky hooks?

Dr Jekyll said:

Otherwise people will insist on using cars even though it would be easier to walk to the station and catch a train.

You can probably see how this argument is becoming circular

A bus is probably a better idea, because most of the local railway service was decimated by Beeching and the station was not particularly well-sited anyway, until recent years when a lot of commuter’s destination offices started to be built towards that end of the central area.

Dr Jekyll said:

This would be bad because it would cause congestion making it difficult to use cars.

Perhaps you meant to put this sentence earlier in your post? But as I’ve already said, driving into Bristol is one thing - parking it when you get here is another thing altogether. If you know of a supplier of a trans-dimensional device that will make your car vanish when you leave it in Baldwin Street and reappear when you come back to it, please let us all know. That company is going to make a fortune

[spaximus]

rs1952 said:

OK - we appear to have done the M32 to death so let’s have a go at Rodford Way

As I said earlier, I lived in Yate from 1975 to 1980, and at that time Rodford Way was a NSL dual carriageway (and come to that so was the A432 Chipping Sodbury bypass). It was built at the time of the “master plan” that many councils adopted of separating pedestrians and cars; there was at least one pedestrian underpass near to the end of Sundridge Park, and the idea was (sweetly naive now one looks back on it) that all the pedestrians would use the underpass(es) provided and remain in perfect safety.

There are many people about whose idea of getting any exercise is running late, or perhaps putting the bins out once a fortnight. You may as well try to herd cats down those underpasses than expect pedestrians to use them – in fact, herding cats down the underpasses would probably be easier...

Then along came “Elf & safety” and more importantly, the compensation culture. Now, if you walked out in front of a car doing 70 on Rodford Way and found out first had whether there is an afterlife or not, your weeping relations would be suing the council for all they were worth because they hadn’t put a barrier up, or a sign up saying that was dangerous to walk out in the path of a car doing 70, or reduced the speed limit, or thought of the children etc etc ad nauseum...

So first the speed limits were reduced and, more recently, lots of white paint has been applied to make it a single carriageway to make sure that evil drivers don’t overtake each other, and speed while thay are at it.

Unfortunately that is the way of the world these days. The council is damned if they do anything, and damned if they don’t do anything. As councillors usually take the line of least resistance, then the more shouty people tend to get their way. I suspect the anti-car brigade make more noise in Yate than the motoring fraternity.

We do have the vocal lobby groups to thank for so many wrongs around Yate. They have convinced S. Glos that speed kills and as a result they have slashed limits down from NSL, to 30mph and been around with white paint everywhere. And even now there are those who want to impose 20mph and make it even worse.

The junction from Shireway on to Rodford has been treated to a pot of paint and even though this was, as you say an NSL dual carriageway, now down to 30mph, people still want it altered as "it is an accident waiting to happen" although none have happened, so we are still waiting.

I could go on and on but we need a balance on how we get to work. Many would use public transport if it was cleaner, cheaper and linked together well, but this biggest thing is we need jobs near to where people live. In that way cycling to work becomes viable but that needs joined up thinking all the way along.

[Dr Jekyll]

Making it easier to travel by car would encourage some extra car travel but only up to the point where it became as difficult as it was before. It couldn't possibly make it more difficult. If a rail company lays on extra carriages nobody says 'oh no, this will encourage people to travel and increase overcrowding'.

Secondly, people don't travel on crowded roads (or trains) to cause congestion and annoy everybody. They do so because it's the least worst way of getting where they need to be. Restricting travel therefore has a cost to the country.

[rs1952]

Dr Jekyll said:

Making it easier to travel by car would encourage some extra car travel but only up to the point where it became as difficult as it was before. It couldn't possibly make it more difficult. If a rail company lays on extra carriages nobody says 'oh no, this will encourage people to travel and increase overcrowding'.

Of course they don't, but there is a fundamental difference. If you come by train it is the railway's responsibility to "park" it or use it somewhere else. It won't be sitting in Temple Meads station for 8 hours like a private car will be when it is occupying a parking space. Ditto for buses.

If you could get 30 former private motorists on each of 20 buses, that would be 600 less car journeys into the Centre, and those 60-odd-seater buses would have run into town anyway. That's half a multi-storey car park...

Dr Jekyll said:

Secondly, people don't travel on crowded roads (or trains) to cause congestion and annoy everybody.

Once again of course they don't, but unfortunately that is what happens. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that the council is right or wrong, but just pointing out the other side of the argument, so to speak.

I am old enough to remember when you could still drive into Broadmead (it was pedestrianised 1972 or 1973 IIRC). When it was built in the late 40s/ early 50s, the planners of the time said that it would enable everybody who had a car to be able to park up outside the shop of their choice. And in the days when there were whole streets in Bristol where nobody had a car, and even more where the number of car owners could be counted on one hand, thaat approach worked. By the late 1960s it was failing as, rather than being able to park outside the shop of their choice, gridlock was being created by people driving round and tound the area trying to find a parking space somewhere within half a mile of the "shop of their choice" (I was one of 'em, incidentally - in a 1963 Rover P5 coupe ) It almost sounds daft today, but that was how it once was.

Dr Jekyll said:

They do so because it's the least worst way of getting where they need to be. Restricting travel therefore has a cost to the country.

PH being a motoring site you would expect a pro-car bias to exist. However, I often wonder what planet some posters are on (not referring to you BTW) when they talk of filthy trains and buses full of smelly people. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have used more buses in the last couple of years since I got my bus pass than I have in the previous 50. Sure you find some junk about (there's a fair bit of junk in most people's cars come to that) but not to an excessive degree, and you come across as many smelly people as you do walking down the street or in Sainsbury's (ie. not many if any).

If there is more than one of you going to the same place, then a private car usually has a definite cost advantage, but if there is only one person in that car it can often be cheaper to use public transport. Fo example, my train fare for the 25-minute journey from Chippenham to Bristol is only just higher than the cost of the diesel for the trip (I don't use the bus pass for that one because a one-way traip takes over 2 hours and requires a change at Bath). When you add a bit for servicing and repair costs, parking fees at the Bristol end and trying to find a parking space in the first place, the train usually wins hands down.

If you really need a car in the centre of Bristol because you're carrying something heavy or cumbersome (when I was still a Surveyor I'd hardly take my ladder on fking bus...) then that's another matter. If you've got some bulky shopping to do then you're probably better off heading for Cribbs Causeway anyway because that place was built with cars in mind. The centre of Bristol and most other large towns weren't.

[bristolracer]

You be praying to actually get to the M32 and 40 will seem like heaven when you see what's happening to the ring road next!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-38650...

Another year (more like 2 when the contractors have milked it for all the easy council money they can get) of misery.

[GloverMart]

bristolracer said:

You be praying to actually get to the M32 and 40 will seem like heaven when you see what's happening to the ring road next!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-38650...

Another year (more like 2 when the contractors have milked it for all the easy council money they can get) of misery.

I commute each morning from Oldland Common to Aztec West and the last 12-18 months have been hell on Earth. Ring road down to one lane for a while in several places, heavy congestion in Winterbourne and traffic before Christmas was queued back to the start of Trench Lane some days.

I genuinely think that before long, I'll be better off going the other way and getting on the M4 at Junction 18, merging onto the M5 then coming off at the Aztec West turning. Can't take any longer than what it will once this viaduct bit of road is closed.

[spaximus]

bristolracer said:

You be praying to actually get to the M32 and 40 will seem like heaven when you see what's happening to the ring road next!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-38650...

Another year (more like 2 when the contractors have milked it for all the easy council money they can get) of misery.

Interesting the first one was built in 1968 and the new one in 1988 and yet the new one is in a shocking state. Looks like shoddy work in the first place.

This will make people want to go via Winterbourne instead so that will be screwed and all other routes. Any one coming from Yate will be better going on the M4 but you know that will screw up the M4 junction to the M32 as well due to traffic backing up from the bus lane road works on there.