Planning application for the MetroBus route connecting Ashton Vale with Temple Meads has been approved by the Central Area Development Control Committee of Bristol City Council after a revised route taking in Cumberland Road, Commercial Road and Redcliffe Hill was put forward at a Cabinet meeting.
Construction on the route could start this summer and be operational by 2016. It is set to vastly improve access to and from the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone as part of the £50m city-wide MetroBus scheme. The approval of the revised route comes hot on the heels of the news that a further £20.85m is to be spent on transforming the transport infrastructure around the Enterprise Zone.
Elsewhere, Bristol was named as the best city to live in the UK by The Sunday Times. The newspaper highlighted Bristol’s excellent transport links and low unemployment rates as two of the factors behind the accolade. In further cheer for the city, new figures released showed that the number of people who cycle to work in Bristol has almost doubled in ten years – the second sharpest increase in the country behind London. It is estimated that around 10% of all journeys to work are now made by bicycle, further reinforcing Bristol’s status as the UK’s first cycling city and as European Green Capital 2015.
