Oxford’s Transport Issues

Oxford is a beautiful city, a jewel with international and global appeal. From afar it is known as ‘the City of Dreaming Spires’; a poetic title. But on the ground the experience can be sadly different. Residents, students, workers, shoppers and visitors to Oxford breathe a cocktail of toxic gases on very many of Oxford’s central streets. Walking routes are interrupted by hazardous traffic. This particularly affects wheelchair users and people who are unable to move fast. Cycling numbers in Oxford are declining, although cycling is the most energy-efficient form of transport.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

The Green Party view the hierarchy of road users with the most vulnerable road users at the top, and the least vulnerable with the most choice at the bottom. If our built environment were constructed with wheelchair users and people who can’t move fast in mind, we would have true accessibility for all.

Wheelchair Users and Pedestrians

A Green Council will:

• Plan networks of walking routes in all towns using the most direct ‘desire’ lines

• Give walking routes priority wherever possible, e.g. at junctions

• Put pavement extensions across side roads, creating a level and continuous surface along main roads

• Prevent parking on pavements

• Put cycle lanes on the roads rather than on the pavements.

• Free pedestrian routes of clutter and ensure they are wide enough with a good, even surface.

• Support the introduction of 20 mph zones in all residential areas and throughout Oxford City

• Improve safety for pedestrians and wheelchair users especially in villages and on rural highways

• Prioritise pedestrian and wheelchair safety over car capacity when deciding on the need for pedestrian crossings.

• Ensure visually challenged pedestrians are considered and consulted when charges are made to the road network.

Cycling

Cycling is the most energy-efficient form of transport and is un-polluting. However, in recent years cycling has declined in Oxford. In particular, children and elderly people feel unsafe cycling in Oxford. Cycle routes are poorly thought out, they stop and start awkwardly, and are often closed off or blocked by markets, cars and vans, and/or buses with engines running. Cycle routes also force conflict between cyclists and pedestrians by going on and off pavements, confusing cyclists about the rules of the highway. Despite being highly vulnerable road users themselves, cyclists are frequently the targets of the anger of other road users.

A Green Council will:

• Place most cycle routes on the major roads in urban areas, and never on pavements. To improve cycle safety, traffic speeds will be reduced, and cyclists given priority over motorised traffic at junctions.

• Upgrade or allocate space to cycle paths along all major roads between towns, and work with Sustrans to extend safe and direct off-road routes between towns. The Green Party, however, does not support the Sustrans practice of putting cycle-ways on pavements.

• Increase on-street parking for cycles in and around shopping areas, and in urban terraced streets, where parked cycles might otherwise block the pavement

• Ensure cycle routes are not blocked by parked vehicles, or by buses standing for long periods with engines running.

• Make cycle routes as continuous as possible; they should not disappear at hazardous junctions and in narrow streets.

• Ensure cyclists can cycle conveniently and directly both north-south and east-west across Oxford city centre

• Work with councillors, officers and agencies like Sustrans and the Pedestrian Association to carry out a feasibility study on a new foot/cycle bridge linking East Oxford at Aston's Eyot and South Oxford at Eastwyke Farm on the existing indicative cycle route.

Public Transport

Since bus deregulation in 1985, services in Oxfordshire have been under private control. Competing companies run frequent services along the most popular routes but ignore the less popular routes. This makes for inadequate services throughout much of the County, and pushes people to feel they can only drive everywhere. In Oxford City, especially in the centre, even if the ‘cleanest’ engines possible were installed in buses, air pollution would still breach air quality targets for the ‘safe’ minimum of particulates and other toxins in the surrounding air.

A Green Council will:

• Commission a feasibility study into a modern lightweight electric tram system for Oxford city, running north-south and east-west.

• Free up space for the smooth-running of public transport by closing off Longwall Street and Hythe Bridge Street to through private traffic (except disabled drivers), meaning private traffic could drive into and out of Oxford city but not through Oxford city, which would cut air pollution and congestion whilst still allowing accessibility. Separate access permits would be available for delivery vehicles and students unloading/loading their belongings at the start and end of term.

• The Green Party will encourage the use of cycle rickshaws and other pedal-assisted vehicles for deliveries.

• Continue to subsidise essential but uneconomic bus routes, and consult with parish and district councils on the level of provision

Railways and Trains

Rail privatisation has reduced opportunities to co-ordinate and improve rail use in the County. Train services in the UK are amongst the poorest in Europe.

A Green Council will:

• Work in partnership with train and rail operators

• Strongly resist any attempts by train companies or government policies to reduce train services or close rail routes or stations

• Promote and support the opening of new stations or currently disused railway lines

• Welcome any interim proposals to open disused railway lines for cycle use or walking

• Seek co-ordinated integration of rail and local bus services

• Work with rail companies to address air pollution issues arising when residents live near railways and their sidings.

• Work with rail companies to ensure bicycles can be carried on trains

Policy for Delivery Vehicles

The Green party will seek to encourage delivery from shops rather than individual vehicles driving to shops.

Policies for Builders’ Vehicles

The Greens will clamp down on the current practice of allowing builders’ vans to park on pavements and in cycle lanes.

There needs to be parking spaces in areas (e.g. 4 per hundred households) where workers with a valid need to park a vehicle in the vicinity (including health visitors etc) could park outside rush hour.

Policies for Cars

For many people, the car has now become a vital part of daily life. People are forced to depend on cars when they live in places with inadequate or absent public transport links and no safe cycling routes. The vicious circle of car use leading to an undermining of local public transport, leading to yet more car use, has led to many localised problems; traffic congestion, noise, pollution, a dirty hazardous environment and a shortage of public space for activities other than getting from A to B. Children are unable to play outside or walk to school. These problems are spread across urban and rural communities alike. Traffic use is rising steadily throughout Oxfordshire.

A Green Council will:

• Commit to traffic reduction targets

• Oppose planning applications which will generate extra car traffic

• Ensure that all sizeable new developments are well-served by public transport, and wherever possible, car free

• Not permit the building of major roads, such as by-passes, which invite further traffic growth

• Abandon all proposals to straighten or widen roads and junctions

• Introduce 20mph zones on all residential streets

• Campaign for extended powers of Local Authority Enforcement that allow money from fines to be kept locally and invested in improving safety

• Support the extension of Residents’ Parking Zones, especially in areas where residents are prepared to meet the cost of the zones.

• Build no further Park and Ride sites and not expand the current sites further (because more parking spaces means more room for more cars, and they encourage a rise in car-dependency)

• Reinstate Park and Ride parking charges and on street parking charges – and use the income to boost public transport – subsidies especially for buses coming in from county towns

• Support other measures, such as tree planting, to minimise traffic noise and pollution

• Reduce the width of the roadway on St Giles to create a public pedestrian area [such as is seen down the central avenues in Barcelona]

Transform Oxford

The Green Party has been working for a more friendly and accessible city centre for nearly 30 years. The Oxford Transport Strategy in its current form was generally supported by the Greens, but with several notable exceptions. The Greens correctly predicted that the railway station junction (Frideswide’s Square) would be unwieldy and frustrating for all road users alike. The Greens support the vision of a much more widely pedestrianised city centre, with cyclists also taken into account. However, the Greens would achieve this by reducing traffic overall, not pushing it onto the unofficial inner ring route that is Hythe Bridge Street, Worcester place, Beaumont Street, St Giles, the University area, Longwall Street, Magdalen Bridge and the Plain.

A Green Council will:

• Stop through private traffic using Longwall Street and Hythe Bridge Street, meaning those vehicles could enter and leave the City centre, but not drive through it. Non-disabled drivers wanting to go from North to West or South would have to use the ring road, or some other means of transport.

• Fully pedestrianise Queen Street as an urgent priority on public health grounds.

• Introduce road closures or traffic calming in side streets to reduce ‘rat running’.

• Seek to introduce more Home Zones

• Extend traffic management measures which reduce general traffic and give priority to wheelchair users, cyclists, and public transport users

• Encourage the use of cycle rickshaws

• Keep people informed of Oxford’s air pollution figures so they can take them into account in their transport choices

• Oppose the siting of cycle lanes on pavements

• Ensure cyclists can cycle conveniently and directly both north-south and east-west across Oxford city centre