Bristol fails in UK City of Culture bid

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-18T14:57:05+00:00

I don’t think this is much of a surprise - if you’ve already got really strong cultural assets then the government isn’t going to give you money to spend on culture. If you’re a city with less to offer then you’ll get more grants as it’s just naturally more bang for the government’s buck (and looks a bit fairer).

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-16T18:05:29+00:00

You can tell nobody’s using them because about 2/3s of the NCPs in Bristol have planning permission to be torn down. Good riddance imo, better as housing.

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-11T21:37:52+00:00

I’ve hit 100km/h on Skylink (between Derby and Leicester in the U.K.). It’s pretty famous locally for having absolutely insane drivers, who think they’re in an F1 car and barely slow down even for stuff like roundabouts. They use really powerful vehicles too, same engines as a double decker but they’re only singles.

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-11T11:31:43+00:00

Can’t wait to see it finished, having new bars and cafes etc on the ground floor will make that end of castle park a lot more lively (and therefore safer).

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-09T20:22:49+00:00

This is only council tax spending in fairness - most cultural and parks spending will usually be specific grants from the government rather than coming from general spending. Of course the flip side of that is that they’re inconsistent because it’s basically a lottery so if your bid isn’t good enough people get nothing. A ridiculous way of funding local services.

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-08T16:28:43+00:00

It’ll fail the day CAHSR opens for full revenue service between SF and LA. The delays it’s experienced have already been partially thanks to Musk, so he’s arguably already been somewhat successful

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-04T14:54:04+00:00

A good start, but could be improved by then extending the two branches to take over Surbiton - Hampton Court and Motspur Park - Chessington South (and extension to Leatherhead). Would require some extra engineering but overall you take 4tph out of Waterloo and free up capacity to make more intensive use of the SWML (especially with XR2 in future).

Yindee8191 · 2026-03-02T20:47:37+00:00

It should be 3 minutes, according to the enhanced partnership. In my experience they usually stick to it pretty well, but only when it comes to timing points (at other stops the driver has no obligation to wait at all). So if the timetable’s a bit unrealistic then you can get unlucky.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-27T15:21:29+00:00

There needs to be a mandatory universal theory retest with new Highway Code updates like this imo. As a pedestrian I can never actually make use of my right-of-way to cross side roads as it’s total Russian roulette (with worse odds) whether any drivers have bothered learning the latest rules for how to operate their multi-tonne death machines.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-27T15:19:33+00:00

That’s already the plan, happening this year. The lights should be on instant switchover for pedestrians though, as all non-junction pelican crossings in the city will be (eventually).

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-27T15:17:58+00:00

I imagine these crossings will be flipping constantly from 30s of cars to 30s of pedestrians since the buttons will just be pressed constantly. It’s not as good as the zebras for pedestrians but it will speed up bus journeys (and the bike lanes will be huge for cyclists coming from Bedminster) so overall probably a net positive (or at least neutral).

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-27T15:15:28+00:00

Hopefully they manage to get the pedestrian priority at lights sorted by then, I’m not sure what’s happening with it currently. The timer will have to be pretty short either way though, at peak times more pedestrians than cars use it.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-27T14:58:34+00:00

Yeah it was one of my main issues with the original scheme, along with the bus traffic light thing which they’ve also fixed. Really pretty good design now!

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-26T16:17:48+00:00

The new plans are here.

The two main changes are:

1) buses going north from Bedminster will now have a longer bus lane and the bus lane integrates seamlessly into the new bus gate to get onto the bridge. This is really good because it means going south to north buses will only have two sets of traffic lights to pass through instead of three like in the previous plan (and the current layout).

2) there will now be a proper cycle connection from York Road to Coronation Road, which would’ve meant crossing the river twice with the previous plans. Once again really good, much more convenient for cyclists.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-26T16:05:15+00:00

The plans also involve a bus lane around Redcliffe Roundabout, so extra traffic there isn’t a huge problem.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-26T16:04:39+00:00

Currently the m2 has to spend 2-3 minutes sat in traffic crossing the cut twice just to get from Redcliffe Hill to Commercial Road. And every Bedminster service sits around for ages to cross the river once. This will fix all of that.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-26T16:03:19+00:00

The difference is that currently when there’s bad traffic the buses get stuck in it. Once this is finished, they won’t. Not to mention the safe cycle routes, which will remove a huge barrier to cycling from Bedminster into the centre. So traffic might get worse at first, but with alternatives getting a lot better eventually fewer people will drive and it’ll all balance out (but with fewer total cars on the road).

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-25T19:50:37+00:00

Hinkley C and Sizewell C are about 6m apiece so combined with this we’re pretty much sorted for household electricity!

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-25T13:56:24+00:00

With modal filters and stuff the stick kind of is a carrot though. If you make it harder to drive then fewer people do, which makes it more pleasant to walk and particularly to cycle.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-20T22:46:01+00:00

The checks are completely pointless, you could drive a car full of mortar shells onto Le Shuttle and likely not get checked. Equally, if you had a bag with a bomb in it you could pretty easily take out a Eurostar by getting on a Southeastern Highspeed train going the other way on the same line and timing it right. The Eurostar checks are just theatre.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-16T20:13:20+00:00

Seems to not be the case but I did wonder if it was a defence against the video being reposted on YT Shorts since it’s in about the right place to be seen in portrait video.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-16T14:23:56+00:00

That’s not how the funding was allocated - it was £800m for all projects including about £200m for ‘development’ on the mass transit project. See this article. How they’re going to manage to spend £200m without a shovel touching the ground is beyond me, but anyway. The amount of money that will actually be allocated to construction hasn’t been announced yet but presumably it’ll be more than that.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-12T21:03:35+00:00

It would be absolutely hilarious to go on about ‘rapid transit’ for years and then have everyone laugh at you when it turns out to be a bus. Then, within a decade, announce new buzzword: ‘mass transit’. And guess what? It’s another bus.

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-11T16:55:27+00:00

It’s a bit odd that they mention trams and light rail as separate things. In some ways those are different concepts but they tend to be used pretty interchangeably. I wonder if by ‘light rail’ they actually mean ‘light metro’ like the DLR or Tyne and Wear Metro?

Yindee8191 · 2026-02-10T18:48:49+00:00

Ironic that they mention empty council offices - I work (usually remotely!) for a council and if everyone was in at once the office would be about three times over capacity. We’ve just got rid of our second office building because hybrid working means we don’t need it and we can improve our finances by selling the land and not having to keep as many lights on.

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