You may have arrived from Twitter to read what I originally described as a rant. The rant has been removed from this page.

Instead … the word ‘thoughtful’ is often used to describe things written for this site, and I’d rather be thinking than ranting. So for now — covering many of the same issues, connected with City of York Council and its plans and visions — I’d like to draw attention to some earlier pages on this site. Still relevant, not only relevant to the rant but to current concerns and recurring themes and things we should all perhaps be concerned about. Particularly …

The (draft) Local Plan for York

Ah … the summer of 2013, when we sat on the grass making daisy chains and reading the thousands of pages making up the draft Local Plan, after queuing for hours outside the Guildhall so we could get our hands on a copy and be the first to read it.

No, not really. But as a recent Press story shows, there was some metaphorical banging on the Guildhall doors by a citizen who works hard to make sure that the oft-mentioned ‘transparency’ is working as it should be: Ombudsman criticises York council over draft Local Plan papers. You can also follow Gwen Swinburn on Twitter. (And perhaps follow me on Twitter at the same time.)

The draft Local Plan will one day become an actual Local Plan, and it will shape future development of the city. So it will have an impact for everyone who lives and works here. So although it’s quite a boring sounding thing, and too massive for anyone to get their head around completely, here are a few thoughts I had last year about the parts of it I managed to engage with.

— All pages tagged ‘Local Plan’

Ways of seeing the city: and Local Plan promotion

Connected with the above, an article promoting the council leader and the council’s Local Plan provoked some thought, and this — Ways of seeing. It’s one of the most important pieces of writing I’ve done for this site, I think.

I wondered whether the city really has improved massively and whether it really is all because of the current administration, and why everyone seemed so delighted at York being described as like a chunk of the affluent south-east. And tried to describe why people of my age often feel like we’ve lost so much of ‘our city’.

Lendal Bridge

The rant originally occupying this page was partly inspired by the chaos and wasted resources of the recently ended ‘Lendal Bridge trial’. More on that soon. Meanwhile:

— All pages tagged ‘Lendal Bridge’

And ‘reinvigorating’

Back in September I wrote a piece on some of the thoughts I’d had in response to the ‘Reinvigorate York’ work in King’s Square. It questioned whose ‘aesthetic sense’ was leading these transformations, and I guess it was also about what we’ve come to call ‘engagement’, and why we often get engaged only when it’s too late and things are already being pulled up/chopped down/demolished.

— A changing aesthetic

I have to say that from my perspective there has been definite evidence of ‘listening’, since I wrote the above. Something the council are said never to do. The plans for King’s Square have been subtly altered to preserve a tree, for example. Elsewhere, in plans for Fossgate and Exhibition Square, it was noticeable that the plans favoured keeping much of the existing paving, rather than expensive repaving.

— Pages tagged ‘King’s Square’

— Pages tagged ‘reinvigoration’

And heritage

Well, there are bits of heritage all over this website. In fact it’s mainly about heritage, built heritage, generally the kind of buildings not part of the tourist trail. Local List buildings, with no statutory protection, landmarks in their areas. Many have been demolished, some are about to be. Burnholme WMC is boarded up and awaits demolition. City of York Council, through some clever ‘weighting’ in their weighing up of options, doomed the Airspeed building to demolition. Or so it seems at the time of writing. That annoys me more than Lendal Bridge. I wish the processes involved had been challenged as much as the Lendal Bridge trial has been.

— Pages tagged ‘Burnholme WMC’

— Pages tagged ‘Airspeed’

Thankfully there are many people asking questions, encouraging engagement from as many people as possible, and trying to find ways to protect our heritage assets. I haven’t had time to write about this yet, but recommend:

— a recent article in York Mix, by Helen Graham and …

— this piece in the Press by Stephen Lewis, on the same project, here focussing on the area around Clifford’s Tower

And 20mph zones? …

Another current controversy … which was briefly mentioned in the removed rant …

The people who drive too fast down my street make me swear quietly to myself. Expensive signage wouldn’t stop them, though supporters of the signage seem to think it will have magical powers to transform behaviours and improve health and probably stop wars even. To me, it just seems like more pointless signs, more money wasted, and that’s all I can say.

And who do I think I am … being so opinionated?

Just an ordinary resident. Someone who had the time to observe, and to think about some of the issues, and write about them. I don’t have the time free to do that now, but I know that many other people, like me, have become more ‘engaged’ in recent years with the plans and visions that impact on our lives in this city. I hope that continues and that it builds some bridges, and results in less of the ‘them and us’ conflict I’m seeing a lot of on Twitter and elsewhere. And that I don’t have to write any more rants.

And your thoughts?

Please fill in my survey on York and its changes, where you can also give your views on this website.

The post Not ranting, but thinking … appeared first on York Stories.

AA sign on Bootham

Last Sunday, heading up Bootham towards the Gillygate junction, I thought I’d have a better look at the Lendal Bridge related signage, as so many visitors have complained about it. These photos represent the point of view of the motorist, well, almost, as I was in the passenger seat.

Here’s the AA sign on Bootham as you approach the city centre. It’s like the one pictured earlier, but the right way up and on a post. Is it helpful? No. Where is Lendal Bridge exactly? I guess I need to look it up on a map, or via my phone, but I’m driving. (Well, I’m not, I’m imagining being a visitor who is driving, and this involves having to imagine not only being able to drive, which I can’t, but being unfamiliar with the place, which I’m not, but I hope other Yorkies will join in this imaginary scenario.)

The photos are enlargeable. I’m sorry that they’re not very clear, as the car windows were dirty and the light was poor. Anyway, we’re moving up Bootham now as the lights have changed.

We’re now at the end of Bootham Row, right outside the Sainsbury’s Local, with Bootham Bar ahead and the Minster just visible over the rooftops on the left. One of my favourite views, which would be much nicer without the road signs intruding on the scene. But of course they’re a necessary thing. If they have to be there cluttering up the place then they should properly inform. Does this one?

No. Again, where is this Lendal Bridge? Is it straight ahead? The yellow bit tells me about it, that it’s restricted, and the bit beneath appears to be pointing to it. There’s a right turn at the end of here too but it’s not on the sign. Cars and motorbikes not allowed to go straight on. I’ll go right then as I was planning to …

Is that how it is, if you’re a visitor?

I know, because I live here, that if you turn right and turn right again you’re on Museum Street which leads to Lendal Bridge. I also know that the sign around the corner, on the front of the Theatre Royal, is very often obscured completely by the buses standing at the stop there. Visitors are unlikely to know either of these things.

We didn’t turn right, we turned left down Gillygate, and as we did I was startled by particularly silly signage, which I captured on camera (badly, blurrily) on the return journey.

Top of Gillygate, at the lights, waiting to turn right into Bootham. This signage cluster looks particularly desperate. Looks like we now have five signs? One big one like that pictured above, and a couple to the left which I think must be connected (but I can’t read them on the blurry photo).

And between them this particularly desperate-looking cluster of yellow AA signs hung rather wonkily on the railings. It’s not often I feel embarrassed to be from York, but I was when I saw this ludicrous jumble. How much info are we expecting visitors to take in as they negotiate unfamiliar road junctions?

One of these signs, at last, seems to be presenting clear information. That one at the bottom in the stack of two. It does actually make sense, So why the one above it, and the others? The Minster Quarter sign is presumably necessary because the other signs are all discouraging us from going in that direction, and the businesses in the Minster Quarter want to remind us that they’re still there and accessible.

Someone please send Sir Ron Cooke and the ‘Reinvigorate York’ team to look at this street clutter ..?

How much money has been spent on these useless signs? They’re clearly useless, as so many visitors have been fined, as the Press reported recently.

And residents? How’s it been for us? Another story for another time I think. After all, this ‘trial’ is going on until February.

Comments welcome. If you have received a penalty notice you may be interested in this comment on the previous post.

The post More on the silly signage situation appeared first on York Stories.

Seems like a good time for an update on the Lendal Bridge ‘trial’, prompted by recent comments.

In case readers missed the beginning of all this, it’s called a ‘trial’ because it’s said to be an experiment for a limited time, not because it’s a trial in the sense of something being trying or difficult. Though clearly it is that for many people.

One thing many people seem to agree on is that the signage is inadequate. This sign, pictured resting against a wall on Bootham, is particularly inadequate.

Of course locals know about the restrictions and avoid the bridge. The signage problem is most relevant to visitors. They’ve been crossing the bridge apparently unaware, and getting fined. I’ve been curious about why that’s the case.

Inner horseshoe

I’m not a motorist so don’t really think about this, but apparently the route over Lendal Bridge is part of our inner ring road. It doesn’t look like an obvious ring road like some of those 1970s concrete examples other cities have (and which York narrowly avoided having), but instead is made up of various bits of road which roughly make a circle close to the city centre.

Maybe motorists reading this can help with these questions. Would it be fair to say that drivers expect something called an inner ring road to function as a through route, and not to find bits of it cut off to them?

If it’s missing a chunk it’s not a ‘ring’? As one comment I saw on the Press website suggested, it’s more of an ‘inner horseshoe’.

Which is clearly not what visiting motorists are expecting. And I guess that if there’s a load of other traffic ahead of you, you wouldn’t necessarily think ‘Of course, they’re all buses and taxis and other vehicles with special exemption’, because if you don’t live here you wouldn’t know. You’d just follow the line of traffic?

Raising awareness

Efforts continue to ‘raise awareness’, as it’s not good for the city’s image to have so many disgruntled people complaining after they’ve had a penalty notice through their letterboxes.

Spare a thought for the travel reporters on BBC Radio York. Every morning I hear the same man having to repeat the same old announcement detailing the Lendal Bridge restrictions. I bet he wakes up in the night finding he’s saying it aloud in his sleep. Maybe to help with awareness and give him a rest Radio York could just record him saying it and play it more often, perhaps every ten minutes or so? Or just send a team of travel reporters out onto the approaches to the bridge, armed with megaphones, to shout the announcement directly at motorists through the car window.

Street clutter

The clearly useless AA sign pictured above has been cluttering up the pavement outside Wandesford House for weeks. It has been replaced by other signs, displayed more conventionally on poles, the right way up. And apparently various things have been painted on the roads to make it all clearer, but still many visitors are being caught out, unaware of restrictions.

Over recent months, as all the various signs have gone up, I’ve wondered how this fits with the aims of ‘Reinvigorate York’? Not that long ago we had Sir Ron Cooke saying it was his mission to reduce unnecessary street clutter, like ugly road signs. Now we’ve got a whole load more for the Lendal Bridge scheme. They’re big and ugly, and also apparently useless? Isn’t it all a bit silly?

Perhaps it needs even bigger and uglier signs, more of them, every few metres perhaps, or those massive ones on posts right across the street like you get on motorways, lit up maybe? Flashing? How many signs do we have to have before it’s accepted that this restriction isn’t going to work?

Of course, we’ve got those city walls standing about doing nothing. They could be better used in helping to display the important information to people approaching the city centre. Like this perhaps.

Or an animated projection, perhaps, as movement is more attention-grabbing …

I might go over to West Offices with these ideas and hang them on the suggestions tree, or tweet them to Dave Merrett. What do people think?

The post Lendal Bridge update: silly signage situation appeared first on York Stories.

Recently all eyes have been on Lendal Bridge. A less glamorous bridge deserves our attention: Clifton Bridge. This week marked 50 years since it opened.

I meant to mention this on the actual day (28 October) of the 50th anniversary of its opening, indeed had been planning to for months, but on the day I was grappling with the innards of a new WordPress theme for my ‘new-look’ site (more on that story later) and so I didn’t get around to it. Which is kind of appropriate, as Clifton Bridge is generally unappreciated.

It tends to be upstaged by the more glamorous bridges in town. The Press had a photo competition marking the 150th anniversary of the opening of (photogenic, ornate) Lendal Bridge. Perhaps in a 100 years there will be a similar focus on Clifton Bridge. (Or perhaps it will be a crumbling wreck in a desolate landscape, after we’ve used up all the resources, polluted everything and destroyed the planet. A few survivors might be living on Mars, looking nostalgically at these old photos of mine of Clifton Bridge on some big backup of the internet they took with them.)

Here it is, pictured a few years ago. I don’t know why I’ve got photos of Clifton Bridge, but I have. It’s kind of concretey-looking, without the fancy ironwork and painted bits of Lendal and Skeldergate bridges, and not handsome stone and curves like Ouse Bridge. It just goes straight across the Ouse, no messing about, a proper 1960s bridge, quite sleek and clean. Well, clean lines, grubbied by mud and graffiti and river water.

It deserves our appreciation though, this plain-looking road bridge, as it carries a heavy load these days. All the extra vehicles diverted from Lendal Bridge between the hours of 10.30 and 5. How many more, I’m not sure, but predictions suggested that this, the next road bridge along from Lendal on this side of town, would see a large increase in traffic.

Apparently when it was built some people thought it wouldn’t get used. Doesn’t that seem funny and strange now.

It’s hard to imagine it not being there. This image from the archives (© City of York Council) might help. Where the brick wall and railings are, on the right, is now the concrete of Clifton Bridge. The slope still exists down to the river and the riverside path, as does the brick wall on the left.

Before the bridge there was a ferry here to take you across to the opposite bank. Many residents born before 1963 will remember it.

Lendal Bridge also replaced a ferry. The ferryman’s redundancy is one of those oft-quoted historical snippets. ‘Records show that he received compensation of £15 and a horse and cart.’

I wonder what happened to the Clifton ferryman. Perhaps compensated with a car?

Anyway, here’s to Clifton Bridge, and its fifty years of usefulness.

Elsewhere on the web

A nice article on The Press website: Bridging the gap at Clifton on the construction of the bridge

Their archive of photos includes a photo of the temporary bridge erected before Clifton Bridge was built and another of crowds on the bridge after it was officially opened

The post A tale of two bridges appeared first on York Stories.

It could be proof that walking is quicker than driving in York city centre. Or that it isn’t. It could be proof that too many people drive along Gillygate and Bootham. Or it could be proof that the traffic lights at that junction are badly organised. Or that they’re deliberately set to annoy drivers so that everyone will give up trying to drive up Bootham or Gillygate. It could be proof that on sunny Sunday afternoons most residents don’t want to go into the centre of York but would rather be stuck in traffic on the A64. It could be proof that Lendal Bridge isn’t actually a particularly congested place after all. It could be proof that Bootham and Gillygate are almost always congested and therefore you might ask whether the Lendal Bridge restrictions will help with that or make it worse.

There’s no such thing as ‘the truth’. There are different truths. There’s also, increasingly, skilled manipulation of the facts to suit particular agendas. The agendas only matter really if they’re the agendas of the people with the power, eg local authorities, wealthy investors. The rest of us, we’re just thousands of small journeys, making our way across and around the city.

But many of us, me included, are suddenly a lot more interested in traffic flow. Today I saw two photos posted online taken by pedestrians. One at Lendal Bridge, showing it looking just as it used to do, before the trial, with cars and vans travelling along it. Presumably because the message hasn’t quite got through and people haven’t seen the signs or haven’t understood them. The other showed a traffic-free Gillygate. They were taken by two different people about 20 minutes apart. I found it interesting and amusing that a traffic-free Gillygate was taken as a sign that the bridge trial was working, while the photo from the bridge appeared to reveal that everyone was ignoring it and driving across as normal.

Some things can be scientifically measured of course, already have been for some time, like pollution, at certain points in the city. It’s also true that all the data gathered can be and no doubt will be interpreted in different ways. I think most York residents believe that whatever happens the bridge restrictions will remain.

It seems that a central concern is to look impressive and brave to people beyond the city, to get attention for doing things that grab the headlines elsewhere and get the city noticed. And to put a positive spin on everything, regardless.

I’ve found it interesting that there’s been more focus on air quality on the bridge, as if this was the main point of the exercise. The leaflet delivered to households had absolutely no mention of pollution or air quality: it seemed to be all about how things looked.

Maybe worth mentioning though that one of its ‘Did you know?’ points was ‘many more people cross Lendal Bridge on foot, bicycle or bus than drive over it every day’. Yet now we’re seeing suggestions that somehow it was a smog-filled hell suddenly transformed into clean-air heaven.

(In the interests of transparency, if you can see through the smog, I should point out that all the photos on this page were taken at various times in the last couple of years. I haven’t been monitoring the ‘trial’.)

Observations, questions, utter confusion

I hadn’t given much thought to the automatic fines that would be incurred, and it seems that motorists haven’t either, as many are still driving over the bridge as normal. Aren’t people who are about to be charged a fine supposed to be given a clear advance warning of this? And why wasn’t the whole trial presented with this as the headline, rather than the whole ‘closure’ or ‘trial’ thing?

Why wasn’t it presented as ‘congestion charging about to begin on Lendal Bridge’? As that’s what it is, isn’t it? Or not? The ‘congestion’ may be open to question, but it seems there’s definitely a charge. So are we welcoming visitors with our big ‘unclogged corridor’ of grandeur or are we thinking ‘good, let’s get a load of confused drivers on the bridge and then get their dosh before they’ve even got to the shops’?

The inaccurate descriptions of the thing haven’t helped. I’ve seen people refer to it as pedestrianisation — it clearly isn’t, and anyone who thinks it is is likely to be rudely awakened from their idyllic wanderings by a looming bus, taxi or cycle. Or perhaps a bin lorry, or a Royal Mail van, or that NRM road train mentioned earlier. Because one of the things that has come to light, aside from the lack of clear signage, is that these other categories of vehicle are also exempt from the restrictions. There are probably others by now, it looks like we’re making it up as we go along.

And if there are these exemptions, why those and not others? Apparently minibuses aren’t allowed through, though buses are. Blue badge drivers aren’t allowed through, which seems particularly indefensible. If someone already has difficulties with access, why would a local authority think it reasonable to increase those difficulties by sending them on a long detour? I think I’d just give up coming in to town and go to Monks Cross instead.

I heard an interview on the radio suggesting that funeral processions aren’t included in the exemptions, and that this would affect funeral services at the churches in the vicinity. It would mean, I guess, that either the cortege trails its way round the roads on the outskirts, going the long way round, or the fine is added to the undertaker’s bill. Either way, it can’t be right, can it? I’m hoping I’ve misunderstood or misheard, as it would mean a mindset exists I really don’t want to believe exists. The dead can’t really get on a bike, can they. And of course if Richard III ends up getting buried in York Minster his cortege wouldn’t incur a charge would it. Some are more equal than others.

That’s the worst thing about this experiment, as we get into the detail of it. What it says, about who is welcome and who isn’t, whose journeys are considered important and whose aren’t. Some of the people being inconvenienced by this really shouldn’t be, they’re ordinary hard-working people doing a range of jobs which depend on using their own transport. Or people with mobility difficulties. Or indeed, dead residents. Maybe we could transport their coffins to the churches on one of the vehicles with special privileges — the NRM road train perhaps, that goes at a suitably slow pace.

Like I said before, I’ve no need to drive over Lendal Bridge, or indeed anywhere. But that doesn’t stop me noticing the issues involved, the confusion, value judgements, lack of information, and spin.

‘Reinvigorate York’

This ‘trial’ is just one part of ‘Reinvigorate York’, as the ‘Lendal Bridge Trial’ leaflet makes clear. This transformational programme continues on its journey, obsessively decluttering the streets, except where it needs to put up new road signs on the theatre advertising the Lendal Bridge changes (which no one can see past the buses parked there). And next stop King’s Square, with far more permanent and damaging effects, including the felling of a tree.

It all makes sense, doesn’t it?

. . .

All facts are correct to the best of my knowledge at the time of posting this page. If not, please add a comment and I’ll amend accordingly. I’ve no wish to add to the massive confusion already out there.

Elsewhere on the web

Why Lendal Bridge is closing to traffic, 13 June 2013, The Press
Lendal Bridge — who can use it, Minster FM

The post Going for a spin over Lendal Bridge /2 appeared first on York Stories.

So here we are, on Bootham, about to join a queue of standing traffic. It’s 3.03pm. It’s a Sunday, so it should be quite quiet, but it’s also the Sunday of the last Bank Holiday weekend of the summer, and it’s a lovely day. What will this mean for traffic? I have no idea. I’m an occasional passenger, not a driver. But on this occasion I’m carefully observing.

I wasn’t intending to present you, dear readers, with a load of photos taken through a grubby car windscreen. I was just trying out the replacement compact camera I finally got around to getting, making sure it worked. It vaguely crossed my mind that these photos could illustrate a page, but that only seemed worthwhile when looking at them later, when I realised that the time stamp told a story in itself. One that many drivers are no doubt familiar with.

The queue began around the end of Marygate. It’s a very short distance from there to the traffic lights, at the junction near Bootham Bar (the top section of Bootham Bar is visible on this photo, above the roof of the car in front).

We were sitting here for some time. The queue edged forward very slowly. I walk past these queues of traffic often, and often they’re stretching back much further.

I got so bored I forgot to take more photos for documentary purposes. We discussed traffic light timings.

Through the lights, turning right, no other traffic ahead, so we reached the next lights in a matter of seconds after leaving the end of Bootham. It’s 3.11pm. Eight minutes, waiting in the queue at the lights on Bootham. I could walk that stretch in a minute or less.

As we passed the Theatre I looked for the massive sign I’d seen a photo of which advertised the imminent restrictions on Lendal Bridge. It was completely obscured by a bus at the bus stop.

Suddenly a whole load of things I’d never really thought about much came to mind. Like, how was it going to be enforced, and where were the signs to tell drivers they were about to incur a fine, etc.

So now we’re on Museum Street, approaching the famous bridge, focus of so much attention of late. It has been presented as being constantly in a state of gridlock, heaving with traffic, so the trial is a brave move at ‘unclogging the corridor’.

Seems to have worked already, two days before it starts.

No visible traffic. Just us and a bike. Just like so many other times I’ve been over it, as a pedestrian.

A couple of days later I’d see photos like this, views of the bridge (without the dashboard and car windscreen) posted online as evidence that the Lendal Bridge trial had achieved some kind of pedestrian nirvana never before seen.

Oh, but hang on, another vehicle. It’s the NRM road train, trundling along taking people from the NRM to the Minster. I wonder if this will be fitted in somehow in the ‘bus’ or ‘taxi’ category. I expect so.

Even though it appears to be causing a congestion problem of its own, with bored motorists in cars behind it.

And so we escape the hellish gridlock of Lendal Bridge and head under and around the walls, by the station.

And as that handy timestamp shows, we’re on Nunnery Lane by 3.14pm, having gone through three sets of lights since we arrived on St Leonards Place at 3.11pm.

What does it all mean?

I don’t know. It could mean anything you want it to. Like all the other photos I’ve seen in recent days and weeks of Lendal Bridge and other parts of town with or without traffic.

Further discussion needed, clearly. And another page …

The post Going for a spin over Lendal Bridge appeared first on York Stories.