#Bristol's High-Flying Dreams & Grounded Realities.
Why Our Grand Transport Visions Keep Crashing While Police Cars Can't Even Pass a Planter.
(Image: Bristol Post/Rob Hutson)
Oh, the deliciousness of it all! Well, strap yourselves in, folks, because Bristol is once again proving itself to be at the absolute bleeding edge of… well, something not so bleeding obvious to the rest of us. Today's Bristol Post brings us a truly refreshing tonic for the soul: a plan for an "Aerial" transport system! That's right, while the rest of the world is faffing about with mundane concepts like "functioning road networks" or "public transport that actually arrives," we're aiming for the skies, and a deliciously satirical pie!
Forget the traffic jams, the endless bus gate fines, and the sheer existential dread of trying to navigate our fair city's streets. A visionary architect (who clearly hasn't tried to drive from Bedminster to, well, anywhere during rush hour) has proposed driverless pods whizzing along five meters in the air. £5 million per kilometre, you say? Cheaper than rail? On-demand? Sounds absolutely dreamy. I can almost picture it now: sleek, silent pods gliding effortlessly above the chaos, ferrying eight lucky souls at a time from the airport to Temple Meads in a breezy 10-15 minutes. It's almost enough to make you forget you live in a city where two buses can't pass each other on Avonvale Road.
And bless their cotton socks, this isn't even our first flight of fancy! Remember our former Mayor's grand, ludicrous vision of an underground railway? Ah, the Bristol Metro. Billions, they said. Billions of pounds. For a city that struggles to fill potholes, the idea of tunnelling beneath our historic foundations for a network that would make the London Underground blush was peak Bristolian optimism. A glorious, fantastical dream, much like a unicorn with a bus pass. While other cities actually built trams and light rail, we were busy debating geological surveys for our subterranean masterpiece. It had all the hallmarks of a truly great British transport project: eye-watering cost, dubious feasibility, and an almost certain guarantee of never actually happening. It was our very own, locally sourced, cut-price HS2. Or, so it was suggested.
Speaking of HS2 – as in my previous post, the project that has so spectacularly redefined the concept of "value for money" that it deserves its own dedicated wing in the Museum of National Fiascos. From a mere £37.5 billion, it spiralled past £100 billion, shedding entire sections like a snake sheds its skin, until it became less a high-speed railway and more a very expensive, very fast line from… somewhere to somewhere else, but definitely not where it was originally intended. The only thing truly high-speed about HS2 is the rate at which its budget accelerates.
But I digress. While we’re contemplating our glorious aerial future, and reminiscing about our subterranean past, our present reality remains… firmly on the ground. Specifically, in a police car with lights and sirens blaring, trying desperately to respond to an emergency call, only to be utterly thwarted by a "pocket park" and "modal filters" in the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood scheme. Yes, you read that right. A police car, on an emergency, had to U-turn because some aesthetically pleasing planters got in the way.
It's not just the bobbies, mind you. Ambulances are getting stuck, and fire engines are apparently playing a thrilling game of "guess which bollard needs a key this time." One almost suspects these "liveable neighbourhoods" are less about making life pleasant for residents and more about creating an elaborate, real-life maze for our overstretched emergency services. Perhaps the new Metro Mayor, Helen Godwin, who prioritises connecting the airport with mass rapid transit, could also prioritise connecting emergency services with, you know, the actual emergencies. Before they all need to replace 999 ambulances with mortuary vehicles, and, you know, cut out the middle man, so to speak, because it’ll be more economic.
So, here we are, Bristol. A city where we dream of elegant, elevated pods carrying us effortlessly above the fray, where we once envisioned a sprawling underground network rivalling global capitals, but where our everyday ground-level infrastructure actively impedes the very people trying to keep us safe. It's a truly brilliant paradox, isn't it? Why bother getting the roads right when you can just build over them, or under them, or simply decide they're not for you anymore? If all else fails, indeed, let's reach for the sky! Just, for goodness sake, make sure the aerial pods don't have to navigate any low-flying bollards.
For more on Bristol's soaring ambitions and grounded realities, check out these truly brilliant stories in the Bristol Post:
Plan For Aerial Transport System To Link Bristol Airport And City Centre
Police Car On Emergency Call Blocked By Bus Lane Bollards In East Bristol
