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1st Annual Celebration of Bristol-Bath cycle path

Save The Railway Path: 30/03/2008
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Given the news that Bristol City Council has halted plans to run Bus Rapid Transit down the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, a cheerful crowd of families and friends came out Sunday March 30 to Celebrate the Path - but they insist that it's too early to declare victory!

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Although the press are saying that the plans to run BRT down the path have been "shelved," we need to find out exactly what this means. If it comes off that shelf and into the funding tray in two years time, we are in trouble. "Off the shelf and in the bin" should be the rallying cry for the BRT plan.

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We also need to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. No traffic consultant should pick up their Sustrans route map and discovers a "disused" railway to turn into a bus lane, nobody should try to take a bit of the railway path away for some reason, such as bit more bypass, or some house-building project. And that is a risk.

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The dangerous Z-bend at Clay-Bottom, the destruction the A4174 Northern Ring Road made of the path, these are things we don't want to see repeated, any more than some more plans for buses down the route ten or fifteen years from now.

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There is still going to be a vote on Tuesday, April 1, about leaving the path free of buses. It's been amended, and we have more support promised. We still want this vote to win! If it goes through, it becomes much harder for that plan on the shelf to be picked up and used. Meet on Tuesday evening, 5:30 pm, outside the Council House.

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The forecast for Sunday was "sunny spells and scattered showers, some of them heavy." Bristolians came out to have fun, and celebrate the fact that the campaign is winning.

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We haven't won yet, but the fact that the council have had to issue a last-minute video announcement, is a sign that things are going well.

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We just need to show everyone how much we love the path as it is, at this, the FIRST Railway Path Celebration.