The approach road at Temple Meads, I understand, is not part of the council's highway network and so belongs to whichever arm of the rail network controls the station.

I have always felt that the design of the approach road is very poor from the point of view of public transport movements, and this year I have often had to catch the number 8 bus here so have had more experience of it. That bus stops closer to the station entrance than other services, which is good (especially when the weather is inclement), but it means that the bus then has to follow the road past the entrance and back down to the traffic lights at the bottom of the approach road. In doing that, it has to compete with all the taxis and also with all the private cars that have to drive past the entrance to reach the drop off point.

Allowing private cars to come right up to the entrance to reach the drop off area has always seemed a particularly foolish bit of design, as they will inevitably block public transport. Last week, on a visit here, it took 15 minutes from when the bus left the stop to reach the traffic lights, as the whole road around the station entrance was in gridlock. I also noticed that this meant that taxis were using the drop off driveway as a means of avoiding the gridlock and then joining the approach road halfway down the road, and by doing so getting ahead of the vehicles that stuck to the approach road route, including buses.

In busy times, it must be impossible to run the number 8 bus to anything like the timetable, and must be very frustrating for its passengers and their drivers.

Will this all change once the new rear entrance to the station opens? I assume there must be some sort of liaison between the rail operators and bus operators about the traffic arrangements here.

 
In my opinion there are two many "cross over" movements.

I would ban private cars from entering the incline,if they "inadvertently" gain access to the bottom part of the incline,
another banning point could be where the airport bus routes turn round and continue their journey.
Private cars could drop near Wetherspoons entrance.

Taxis should use the left hand side of the incline and 8/9 bus's should use the space where the airport bus, use to stop,
by the W.H.Smith goods delivery doors on the right hand side.

Traffic lights are the biggest problem when coming off the incline,when the lights go green to come off the incline
the traffic lights on the City bound side turn straight to red and you get just six cars off the incline 

 
There are well-develped plans to improve access to Temple Meads.

The main car park will be at the new Southern Entrance, accessed via a new walkway across the New Cut starting near the old Cattle Dock and Platform 2. This will also have a pick up/drop off facility for people coming by car. This entrance has received planning approval.

Buses will access the station via Friary and the new Northern Entrance. There has been some resistance to this from bus operators as the planned highway design is too restrictive, but this will hopefully be improved. Terminators such as the 8, 70, 71, and 72 will very likely stop here.

The Western Entrance - what we currently think of as the Main Entrance, despite the fact that most people use the (currently rather modest) Northern Entrance - will be for taxis.

The Eastern Entrance will be mainly pedestrian, though there has been talk of buses serving it. The how, why and who of this does not seem to have been fully explored. This entrance is complete but will not be opened until the Bristol University buildings open.

 
This presumably means that intentions for terminating platforms in the former train shed have been parked.

Thinking of parking, is it known what the plans mean for the train shed car park?

Does anyone have a link to an overall map of this please?

Mark

 

Yes, ditched many moons ago now.

 

Ah, this has helped. I think. Though the page doesn't seem to allow deep linking in to the 'Bristol Temple Meads, City Gateway and Friary North: masterplan proposals'.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/ask/projects/temple-quarter/temple-meads

But it's that section that has the explanatory sentence: A dispersed approach to transport is proposed.

An issue might be that many changes between bus and train are going to be an even bigger hike than they are at present. But this might be mitigated in that there will be surprising new routes to walk between various nodes. Signage is going to be a thing, isn't it (and it's going to be key...)

Mark