the Bristol rd blue route is good for its intended audience of peoplewhoaretooscaredtocycleonbristolrdwithcars.
The intended audience is everyone who cycles: The BCR people actually listened to feedback that providing poor-quality shared-use-pavement infrastructure for people who don't want to mix with cars, while expecting faster cyclists to use the carriageway (perhaps with the 'help' of magic paint) was the worst of both worlds, and that we'd rather the money be spent on a smaller amount of high-quality properly segregated infrastructure.
As such, the key question is whether it's good enough for less able cyclists (including unaccompanied children) while being sufficiently attractive for the lycra brigade. I'd say it's a definite win on the former, and just about scrapes through on the latter - while it's not too bad for sight-lines, side-road priority and wandering pedestrians, there are a lot of tight corners and you do spend more time waiting at traffic lights than you would on the main carriageway.
As someone who's not usually afraid to mix with the cars on the Bristol Road, my main personal concern is that it's good enough not to be an inconvenience, given that we will now no doubt receive harassment for not using it. I'll have to ride it a few times to get a feel for how fast it actually is, but I expect that using it will trade maximum speed for more consistency, as you'll be able to ride past the congestion easily in rush hour (in a way the previous shared-use pavement didn't really facilitate, because you couldn't maintain a decent pace on it).
