Earlier in the year Bristolians were invited to help shape the future of the city centre by responding to a consultation on the City Centre Framework (CCF) document https://bristol.citizenspace.com/growth-regeneration/city-centre-framework

The deadline for responses passed on 14 May. We hope you agree with our response:

We welcome the CCF document and agree that our City Centre should provide a high quality walking and cycling environment for all ages, abilities and genders.
People are already choosing to walk and cycle into the City Centre for everyday journeys in high numbers, often despite a poorly connected network of routes and facilities, and an environment which is dominated by motor traffic.

If we want to build a successful Bristol for the 21st Century we need to move away from machine dominance and to an environment built around people. The CCF, in our view, is overly influenced by urban planning and travel ideas from the mid 20th Century (eg motor cars, multi storey car parks and slow, stopping diesel buses on narrow streets).

Cities which prosper in the coming years, will in our view, be those which people find pleasant and enjoyable to visit and work in; in part because they have an attractive appearance and environment. Access by motor car will, in the next 50 years, not be anything like as important as it has been in the last 50.

The CCF movement framework should be based on the following key principles:

the objective must be movement of people, not movement of vehicles.
motor traffic volumes in city centres need to be reduced to improve air quality and encourage more walking and cycling, and this requires some physical restraint, with permeability for cyclists.
road space should not only be re-allocated from motoring to cycling, but also cyclists should be segregated from motor vehicles (including buses) on all busy roads.
people on bicycles should be segregated from people on foot where volumes of walkers and cyclists are high.  This avoids conflict and allows quicker cycling.
car-dependent travellers going to the city centre should be encouraged to transfer to a more sustainable mode (public transport, cycle hire, secure cycle storage, walking) as early as reasonably possible in their trips. 

Further detail can can be found on our full consultation response here: BCyC.Consultations.City.Centre..ND.4.5.18