Green spots on Bristol residential street are for 'traffic calming'

BBC News

13-06-2025

The mystery behind a series of large green spots that appeared on the surface of a residential street in Bristol earlier this week has been solved.Residents described how dozens of the markings"popped up" seemingly overnight on Greville Road in Bedminster.Bristol City Council said that they are part of a traffic calming measure but have not explained how they calm traffic."Local residents were consulted in 2023 but this part of the project needed to wait until the road was resurfaced, which took place as part of our citywide maintenance recently," said Councillor Ed Plowden, chair of the transport and connectivity committee.
"The project is similar to several other creative traffic calming schemes in South Bristol and has also included the installation of planters," he added."Creative road marking has been used for several years right across Bristol."The council have not commented how the green spots work as a traffic calming measure.
'Very Bristol'
The spots appear in three clusters in the middle and at each end of the road and range in size from around 30cm (1ft) to 1.2m (4ft) wide.Residents were initially surprised to see the spots but reactions were broadly positive."They seem quite cool, anything that's colourful is nice," said local resident Brook Morris."It's just very Bristol. The city is very creative so this is nothing unusual," said fellow resident Caggs Diep.Some residents suspected they were a traffic calming measure but questioned their effectiveness."I don't think it will make much of a difference," said Claire Ogden."I wonder if they're maybe waiting to paint little frogs or lilies or something else on them?"