Turned off: Trees could replace the fountains in Bristol city centre

Trees could replace the fountains in Bristol city centre as part of a major overhaul of the area.

Bristol's transport leader Jon Rogers spoke of the need to radically alter the centre once again, just 10 years after flower beds and trees were dug up to make way for the fountains.

Nearly 100 people came to hear him talk about the city's transport problems and how to fix them at an event at the Friends Meeting House in Redland hosted by Bristol Civic Society last night.

The city centre fountains were installed in time for the Millennium but suffered a catalogue of faults. They were switched off after a few weeks because they failed to "pulse" to create water displays, as intended.

A few months later the water feature was covered in thick green algae when a fault developed in the filter system. Repairs lasted for months and they were altered after just three years.

Councillor Rogers said the current lay-out of the centre did nothing but ensure it seized up every day.

An image shown to the audience to illustrate how a remodelled centre could look featured two paved areas, each surrounded by trees in place of the fountains.

As the Post revealed in December, traffic could be banned from crossing from Park Street to Baldwin Street and cars and other non-public transport would be limited to a single lane in each direction from Park Street, past the Hippodrome and the cenotaph, to Rupert Street.

Only buses, including the new bendy buses, would be allowed on Broad Quay.

Dr Rogers said: "Buses go round the centre at the rate of one a minute at the moment but the problem we will have is that this will go up to one every 30 seconds – we have to have routes that are car free."

The overhaul of the centre is part of a £186m package to create a bendy bus route from the northern fringe to Hengrove.

Dr Rogers' wide-ranging talk encompassed the proposed rapid transport system, a review of bus routes, smart cards to replace money on buses, cycling and a pilot scheme in which traffic lights will be switched off in the city centre to improve traffic flow.

Bristol has just been allocated £2.2m by the Government towards the introduction of 'smart' cards, which will mean cashless bus travel, speeding up journey times.

About £1m of this money has to be spent on the scheme by March 31 and the rest next year. Bristol is working with neighbouring South Gloucestershire on the scheme, which runs successfully in other cities, including London.

Dr Rogers said: "We are looking to break out of the vicious circle that people are not using buses because they take too long, fares go up, fewer people use buses and services get withdrawn."

He said the city council was going to review all bus routes, which he said had remained largely unchanged since the 1940s and 50s, and introduce more direct rapid routes where the bendy buses will be used.

And £10 million will be spent this year on making the city safer for cyclists.

During a lively question and answer session Dr Rogers said it would be "politically impossible" to introduce a congestion charge in Bristol.

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone brought in a congestion charge in the capital in 2003 but no other cities have followed suit. The people of Manchester voted four to one against the idea.

Transport campaigner David Redgewell said private companies such as First had more say over transport than the city and the four councils in the area could not agree over the issue.

Bristol's neighbours rejected Dr Rogers's call to create an Integrated Transport Authority to take charge of road, rail and bus networks last year.