A PARK and ride planned to take drivers off the M32 has been shelved.
Plans to build a car park near the Hambrook junction with the Avon Ring Road have been under discussion for more than 20 years, but were frustrated by a failure to find and agree on a suitable site.
Leaders and officials insist they remain committed to reducing congestion on the motorway, as part of a sustainable transport project allocated £39.5 million of government funding in 2021.
The park and ride was planned alongside other measures, including new bus lanes on the M32 to speed up journeys on public transport at the expense of road space for private vehicles.
Now traffic modelling for the West of England Combined Authority has suggested drivers would simply use residential roads in Frenchay and Fishponds as alternative routes if there was less space on the motorway.
An update was given to WECA’s overview and scrutiny committee, which includes councillors from Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath & North East Somerset, on July 22.
The combined authority has overall strategic responsibility for transport in the region.
WECA interim delivery director for transport infrastructure Malcolm Parsons said the scheme had potentially “damaging impacts”, including traffic spilling over into residential areas.
He said: “Effectively, you would reduce the capacity of the M32 to move people into a park and ride scheme, when in reality the satellite navigation systems in people’s cars just mean they’ll find another route.”
Transport planners are now looking to “reset” the project.
At a WECA committee meeting on July 26, chief executive Stephen Peacock said: “Just for clarity, the M32 sustainable transport project has not been scrapped.
“Put simply, the original plan, because of the nature and scope of it, would not have passed the [Department for Transport] value for money test, so it was clearly not going to work as it was.
“The scope of that piece of work has now been broadened, so it’s a broader geographical area, and it will look into things like travel behaviour, not just along the M32 but around it, including making sure that if we make it harder for people to get onto the M32, we don’t make it as easy for them to take alternative routes.”
Nobody at the second meeting mentioned a park and ride.
Metro Mayor Dan Norris said: “We have got to get this right because the traffic, as it currently is, is wholly unacceptable.”
South Gloucestershire Council co-leader Ian Boulton added: “We want to be evidence-based in everything that we do. At that time, the evidence wasn’t stacking up as was originally hoped. Widening this project, so we can look at how people are using the M32 and the destinations they’re going from and to, I think will really help this.”
Afterwards a WECA spokesperson also did not mention a park and ride when asked to confirm whether it was still part of the M32 project, but said the authority was “fully committed” to addressing congestion.
WECA expects to submit an outline business case for the project early next year.
By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service