Why is Bristol Temple Meads so far from the city centre?

[edwin_m]

It's already happening really. At the turn of the century they built Millennium Point which is where the science museum and an IMAX cinema were located but it always felt a bit removed from the city as the ground between there and the Bullring was largely filled with trunk roads, derelict warehouses and waste land. The roads got rerouted...

Most cities have some kind of inner ring road which tends to be seen as the edge of the city centre. If the main station is just outside, it feels much further from the centre than it actually is. Birmingham has indeed downgraded the southern part of Queensway.

Nottingham is in the course of downgrading Canal/Collin Street, which together with the rebuild of the run-down Broadmarsh centre should help with the perception of the station being in the centre. Queens Road to the south of the station is the new inner ring road so there is still reasonable road access to the station and room to expand the city centre around it. Derby and Bristol still have inner ring roads between their city centres and their main stations, with no plans to move them as far as I'm aware although the one in Bristol has been downgraded a bit.

 

[ooo]

Looking at both Weston and Southport, both stations are a fair trek from the sea.

Weston-Super-Mare really isn't far. Just 10 mins walk to the beach and even less to the centre

 

[HowardGWR]

I would be interested to see when the Filton Bank 4-tracking is complete if commuting in from Newport and Severn Tunnel Junction becomes the preferred option to living in parts of Bristol.

I suspect that the end of Severn Bridge road tolls will be affecting that development.

 

[satisnek]

Weirdly Poole (I know not a huge city/town) is hilarious, the train line cuts through the centre of the high st with a level crossing, then dumps passengers another 800m along the line well out from the centre

This brings us onto another aspect of railway station siting. Today we think of a station as a pair of platforms and associated infrastructure, but originally passenger traffic was only a small part of what constituted a railway station, and consequently they were situated where there was space available to lay out a goods yard, etc.

Two small towns I've come across where the railway passes over the High Street slap bang in the middle, but where the station is further away, are Market Rasen and Hungerford.

Of course, if you've already got a full facility station some distance from the centre then there's no reason why you can't have a second passenger-only one where the line passes over the main street, as is the case at Worcester.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Weirdly Poole (I know not a huge city/town) is hilarious, the train line cuts through the centre of the high st with a level crossing, then dumps passengers another 800m along the line well out from the centre

View attachment 54755

I don't know Poole at all, but was curious enough to check out Google maps. And that seems to put the station entrance a fairly reasonable 200m - about the length of a 10-carriage train - from where your photo was taken, not 800m (Could be significantly less if the entrance was at the Eastern end of the platforms, which I can see could be annoying).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Excluding the special case of London, all other large UK cities have a station near the city centre.

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Cardiff - They all have a station either right in the city centre, or very near the main shopping area, or not too far away. Except for Bristol.

So, what's the reason Bristol Temple Meads is so far from Bristol city centre?

I think Bletchleyite has cited a key issue:

And the centre shifts. Manchester Victoria used to be in a bit of a wasteland in the 1990s, but the centre has shifted back that way.

Most stations were built 150-ish years ago, which is ample time for a city centre to shift considerably, so I think the question would be better phrased as, why didn't the shopping centre in Bristol naturally move to be near the station. I suspect a key factor in general is that the city centre will tend naturally to move to where people who wanted to shopping could easily get to. And for most of the last 150 years, it wasn't really normal in most places for people to go shopping by train, which may mean that in many places, there was really no reason for the shopping centre to move close to the station. Interestingly, if you look at the large towns where there is an extensive suburban rail network - London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff - you find all except London have the shopping centre very close to the main (or one of the main) stations: I'm guessing that's because in those towns, the large urban rail network meant that lots of people would travel short distances by train, hence there was an incentive to build shops near the station. The exception to that - London - can probably be accounted for because of the tube network (notice that the biggest shopping area - Oxford Street) is sited by several tube lines, and by there being so many main rail stations, so no single exclusive hub.

In other towns, it's probably to some extent down to chance/luck whether the shopping centre evolve to be close to the station, although there are probably other factors: How well the buses integrated with the train, how far from the town the station was in the first place, and local planning decisions made through much of the 20th century when rail access wasn't much of a factor in decisions. Planning has possibly been key factor especially since the 1950s when decisions were being made on how to rebuild some cities following WWII destruction, and in many cases, whole new pedestrian/indoor shopping centres have been built, so much would depend on how much individual local authorities erred towards train vs bus vs car. I don't know Bristol enough to know how those factors might have played out there?

Most cities have some kind of inner ring road which tends to be seen as the edge of the city centre. If the main station is just outside, it feels much further from the centre than it actually is. Birmingham has indeed downgraded the southern part of Queensway.

And this is a good example of where local planning decisions made in the 60s etc. would influence things heavily.

EDIT... Just thought of Brighton, which is a counter-example to my arguments. Reasonable local rail network with historically quite frequent services, but station not as close as it could be to the main shopping area. I wonder if in that case the reason might be the pull of the seafront, with the town centre tending to move towards the sea because that's where tourists would want to go?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Back to the subject of a proper concourse, I was there earlier and the extension to the Brunel shed is still a car park and is of a perfectly suitable size (and location) to be turned into a retail and food concourse.

 

[londonmidland]

Most Midland stations such at Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield require quite a walk to the City Centre/Town.

 

[221129]

For it’s size and importance, it’s fairly rubbish - cramped, very few shops, congested tunnel linking to most platforms (especially 13/15 for the paddington trains) and massive queues at the handful of ticket barriers. Most London suburban commuter stations have more exit gates!

Which has been dealt with by putting in more gates and 2 new entrances in addition to the one already there

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which has been dealt with by putting in more gates and 2 new entrances in addition to the one already there

Still a right dump, like most GWR stations.

 

[Wychwood93]

Which has been dealt with by putting in more gates and 2 new entrances in addition to the one already there

Once things are developed on the eastern side - new entrance etc. things will be better. Quite what will happen outside the entrance is another matter - there is little there as it is now - buses, taxis etc. will need space - anyone an idea of what is planned? As an occasional off-peak user I have never stumbled across the massive queues mentioned previously, picky but true. Given what the thread is generally about, an eastern entrance will be a touch further away from the city centre.

 

[B&I]

Most cities have some kind of inner ring road which tends to be seen as the edge of the city centre. If the main station is just outside, it feels much further from the centre than it actually is. Birmingham has indeed downgraded the southern part of Queensway.

Nottingham is in the course of downgrading Canal/Collin Street, which together with the rebuild of the run-down Broadmarsh centre should help with the perception of the station being in the centre. Queens Road to the south of the station is the new inner ring road so there is still reasonable road access to the station and room to expand the city centre around it. Derby and Bristol still have inner ring roads between their city centres and their main stations, with no plans to move them as far as I'm aware although the one in Bristol has been downgraded a bit.

A lot of cities are, thankfully, in the process of moving traffic further out. The eastern part of Liverpool's inner ring road has effectively been moved out past the university. Sheffield's has been pushed further north. Bristol has removed the limb of its one that used to run through Queen's Square.

There is a gradual process of city centre expansion in most of our bigger cities to which breaking what was once described (in the context of Brum) as the 'concrete collar' of innee ring roads is key. In some places this process (along, no doubt, with increased train use) is helping to re-animate what were often previously low rent areas around the stations

 

[B&I]

Most Midland stations such at Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield require quite a walk to the City Centre/Town.

Sheffield isn't too far from the city centre as the crow flies, but it's a fairly sharp climb.

Nottingham would feel more central if the natural gateway into the city along Carrington Street hadn't been destroyed by the brain dead decision to plonk the Broad Marsh over it

 

[B&I]

I think Bletchleyite has cited a key issue:

Most stations were built 150-ish years ago, which is ample time for a city centre to shift considerably, so I think the question would be better phrased as, why didn't the shopping centre in Bristol naturally move to be near the station. I suspect a key factor in general is that the city centre will tend naturally to move to where people who wanted to shopping could easily get to. And for most of the last 150 years, it wasn't really normal in most places for people to go shopping by train, which may mean that in many places, there was really no reason for the shopping centre to move close to the station. Interestingly, if you look at the large towns where there is an extensive suburban rail network - London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff - you find all except London have the shopping centre very close to the main (or one of the main) stations: I'm guessing that's because in those towns, the large urban rail network meant that lots of people would travel short distances by train, hence there was an incentive to build shops near the station. The exception to that - London - can probably be accounted for because of the tube network (notice that the biggest shopping area - Oxford Street) is sited by several tube lines, and by there being so many main rail stations, so no single exclusive hub.

In other towns, it's probably to some extent down to chance/luck whether the shopping centre evolve to be close to the station, although there are probably other factors: How well the buses integrated with the train, how far from the town the station was in the first place, and local planning decisions made through much of the 20th century when rail access wasn't much of a factor in decisions. Planning has possibly been key factor especially since the 1950s when decisions were being made on how to rebuild some cities following WWII destruction, and in many cases, whole new pedestrian/indoor shopping centres have been built, so much would depend on how much individual local authorities erred towards train vs bus vs car. I don't know Bristol enough to know how those factors might have played out there?



And this is a good example of where local planning decisions made in the 60s etc. would influence things heavily.

EDIT... Just thought of Brighton, which is a counter-example to my arguments. Reasonable local rail network with historically quite frequent services, but station not as close as it could be to the main shopping area. I wonder if in that case the reason might be the pull of the seafront, with the town centre tending to move towards the sea because that's where tourists would want to go?

Topography and competing land use must play a part too. Would Brighton station have ended up in mid-air if it had been much further seaward ? Did the river discourage development in Bristol's case towards the station, or did the proximity of the docks and competing land uses play a part ?

 

[B&I]

To me Bristol's city centre is from where the Watershed is to where Cabot Circus is and on the north western side of Bristol Bridge - sort of banana shaped.

Others have suggested walking it which, depending on your fitness ranges from 10 to 20 minutes or there is the Temple Meads Connection.



Looking at both Weston and Southport, both stations are a fair trek from the sea.

The whole town of Southport - 'seafront' included - is a fair trek from the sea !

 

[matacaster]

At least Bristol Temple Meads Station is close to the Marriott Hotel if you need a bed for the night!

 

[randyrippley]

If the main line had been taken further west into Bristol city centre, any further westward extension would have been a problem. Its difficult to see how a route could have to be found to cross the floating harbour and the Avon without blocking shipping, while the high ground of the Avon gorge to the west would have blocked any route circling to the north of the city. Bristol was an important port, and Brunel would have been acutely aware of the need to not interfere with ships

 

[Brissle Girl]

The growth of office developments adjacent to Temple Meads over the last 20 years (still continuing) means that the station is now very convenient for a large proportion of office staff. And that trend will only continue with the Temple Quarter development over the next 3 years.

With retail sales inexorably moving online or to out of town centres (Cribbs being the local example), then much better that the station is usefully cited for essential commuters than discretionary shoppers.

As for the comment that there are very few retail outlets at the station, then for me that’s a definite positive.

The main problems at the station have been the limited entry/exit points, hopefully about to be solved, and the cramped and limited ticket selling facilities. Oh, and the 10mph limit imposed since the resignalling in May, which has had the effect of slowing everything down.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As for the comment that there are very few retail outlets at the station, then for me that’s a definite positive.

Why? You don't have to go in the shops.

 

[didcotdean]

Sheffield isn't too far from the city centre as the crow flies, but it's a fairly sharp climb.

Nottingham would feel more central if the natural gateway into the city along Carrington Street hadn't been destroyed by the brain dead decision to plonk the Broad Marsh over it

Plus Leicester station is really on the south-eastern edge of the centre. It seems further out because over the last 50 years the gravity of the centre in particular for shopping has shifted over to the north-west side, with that close to the station in long term decline.

 

[yorksrob]

Plus Leicester station is really on the south-eastern edge of the centre. It seems further out because over the last 50 years the gravity of the centre in particular for shopping has shifted over to the north-west side, with that close to the station in long term decline.

Which, as it happens, is towards where Central station was.

 

[didcotdean]

Indeed so, although this would also be outside the inner ring road. This is also somewhat of a return to the medieval core centre location, as opposed to what developed to the south in the 19th century, even before the coming of the railway.

 

[Brissle Girl]

Why? You don't have to go in the shops.

No, but the presence of additional retail outlets would reduce the space for the large numbers of passengers the station now sees and thus would exacerbate the circulation problems referred to. And I’d rather keep the current historic buildings than undergo a vast modernisation simply to provide retail opportunities which are incidental to the main purpose of the station.

 

[trash80]

Yep all good points. You've also got the UCE recently moving up to Aston University so with a few more halls of residence that part is a proper Student village now which will also change perceptions.

If you want shopping in Brum then Moor street and New Street are the stations to alight from. Pubs and it's Snow Hill that's the better bet (few city centre ones and the Jewellery Quarter).

UCE? BCU thanks guys, i don't want to feel that all that work on the rebranding when i was working in the uni's marketing dept at the time went to waste

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, but the presence of additional retail outlets would reduce the space for the large numbers of passengers the station now sees

I was proposing turning a car park (the post-Brunel trainshed extension) into a retail and restaurant concourse. Provided that (not very large) car park was replaced in some form, e.g. by double decking some of the existing parking or building a multi storey to replace all of it, how would creating that concourse disadvantage you?

A good way of trying this out for effectiveness might be to stop it being a car park now and get "pop-up" food vendors in?

 

[Brissle Girl]

Do you mean the covered space that is intended to be rebuilt as two additional platforms once the signalbox is demolished? If so, then I would be averse to any permanent retail development there that made those plans less likely, even if they are currently not funded. I can understand the need to provide "retail therapy experiences" at airports, as people have considerable time to kill due to needing to arrive in plenty of time. But I don't see the same passenger need at rail stations (although Network Rail will have different motivations for providing them), and so the main aim should be to enable a good flow of passengers through the station and comfortable places in which to wait for short periods.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I'd love to see the path along the river signposted better. At the moment if you don't know about it already, I can't see how you'd know its there to use (and atm is a better choice due to the roadworks going on etc).

Do you mean the covered space that is intended to be rebuilt as two additional platforms once the signalbox is demolished? If so, then I would be averse to any permanent retail development there that made those plans less likely, even if they are currently not funded. I can understand the need to provide "retail therapy experiences" at airports, as people have considerable time to kill due to needing to arrive in plenty of time. But I don't see the same passenger need at rail stations (although Network Rail will have different motivations for providing them), and so the main aim should be to enable a good flow of passengers through the station and comfortable places in which to wait for short periods.

To be fair, I do think Temple Meads is in need for some more retail / food outlets. At the moment, compared to other stations of similar size and importance, the choices are pretty limited, especially when you consider the lack of places nearby. Apart from the hideously expensive pasty shop, there isn't really an option for hot food for example (and even that is pretty useful after around 6pm when they start to run out of things).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do you mean the covered space that is intended to be rebuilt as two additional platforms once the signalbox is demolished? If so, then I would be averse to any permanent retail development there that made those plans less likely, even if they are currently not funded. I can understand the need to provide "retail therapy experiences" at airports, as people have considerable time to kill due to needing to arrive in plenty of time. But I don't see the same passenger need at rail stations (although Network Rail will have different motivations for providing them), and so the main aim should be to enable a good flow of passengers through the station and comfortable places in which to wait for short periods.

The bit at the end of Platform 1? I didn't know that was the intention? If it is, perhaps we are back to the need to take back the lease on the actual Brunel trainshed and to use that.

It's not about "retail therapy", it's about providing a good selection of primarily food and drink on the station premises for taking on the train with you, and there just isn't room for the kind of thing that would be really quite useful such as a decent-sized M&S Food or Sainsbury's Local or both, though knowing the culture in Bristol perhaps something with smaller vendors would be preferred. FWIW, Euston does have a couple of stores that sell "stuff", but most of it is food and drink for either before, during or after the journey, and those are very useful and not in the way if you don't want to use them.

I agree regarding somewhere to wait, though - if either of the areas I mention could be used, they would be ideal set up as a "food court" with various outlets along the sides and a central seating area with tables available to all station users regardless of whether they have made a purchase or not - a larger version, if you like, of the old Euston food court but not dark and dingy like that was.

 

[SoccerHQ]

UCE? BCU thanks guys, i don't want to feel that all that work on the rebranding when i was working in the uni's marketing dept at the time went to waste

Was about to put Perry Barr Poly but thought better.

 

[bnm]

At least Bristol Temple Meads Station is close to the Marriott Hotel if you need a bed for the night!

Both Marrriots (Broadmead, College Green) are at least a 12 minute walk away.

Far closer are Holiday Inn Express (bottom of Station Approach), Ibis (Temple Quay), Novotel (Victoria St), DoubleTree Hilton (Redcliffe Way) and Garden Inn Hilton (Temple Way).