What's going on in Oxford,why have locals voted for this

[Grumpycat6]

From October,or whenever it starts
My DH is going to have to pay £5 a day ,that's £100 a month
Just to get to work
He can't go by train or bus because he starts and finishes times when they don't run .
Apparently from what I understand this was voted in at the local council elections.or the person who wanted to put this scheme in place was voted in ,.
This is going to effect the price of houses ,it's going to put people off moving to Oxford.
With this in mind I can't understand how this was agreed

@DriveMeCrazy1974 then like I’ve been saying, fight it. GM successfully got our council to scrap it.

You have Andy Burnham fighting your corner though.

https://cllrdrnathanley.substack.com/p/from-city-streets-to-village-lanes

Interesting read about the Oxford zone.

Thanks for that article @DeafLeppard . Very informative and convincing.

Reasonable article if a bit patronising - he is presuming that objections are either knee jerk or ill-informed. He doesn’t actually live in Oxford, though. He can drive wherever he wants in Abingdon.

what pisses me off is that all the ltn and these charges are in the east of the city none of this happens in north Oxford. I wonder why. That’s cos where all those with money live

@Arcadia I didn't see anything in the article implying that objections are knee-jerk or ill-informed? I thought his tone was quite respectful really.

@cowleycyclistthis part:

“Our local media will exemplify all the worst qualities. Amplifying the shoutiest voices of all, generating scare story after scare story for the clicks, exciting and extracting the worst prejudices of humankind in an attempt to sustain a collapsing business model. Functional transport network: be damned.
Some people will share knee-jerk petitions against the congestion charge. What they’re really railing against is doing anything about congestion, against a functional transport system (and that includes for cars!), against thousands of people getting to work and to school on time, and against Oxfordshire being taken seriously as place to invest in throughout the next several decades.
They’re petitioning for the status quo, which as we know is intolerable.
For some MPs and local councillors it’ll be easy. The first loud voices on Facebook and Twitter they read say they want to drive everywhere without restriction: so they’ll follow that.
Forget the decades of evidence, or the urgency to act and come up with a functioning transport system for their children and grandchildren: “Someone on facebook said NO, so that’s the position I’ll take”. Let’s ignore the voices of the people who don’t speak up, or those not able to.
A much, much larger number of people will not be sure. Or not know the facts. Or are willing to be persuaded (despite the efforts of our local clickbait media).”

OK, point taken.

That said, he's right about the Oxford Mail. They're ridiculously inflammatory.

I have very little patience for people like restaurant owner Clinton Pugh (dad of the amazing actor Florence Pugh) who has repeatedly told the Oxford Mail that he had to close his restaurants because of the LTNs. In fact he declared his decision to retire and was trying to sell his restaurants well before the LTNs were ever mooted. And my family tried to go to his restaurants multiple times during the period when he said the LTNs were harming his business, but in fact his restaurants were shut (no birthday dinner at Coco for me!). The truth is that he wanted to retire and was only opening his restaurants at erratic times. But if you read the Oxford Mail, it's all because of the LTNs.

There are at least two other local businesses I know of that declared bankruptcy before the LTNs were implemented, but then blamed their closure in retrospect on the LTNs.

So I think Ley is entirely correct when he talks about generating scare stories for the clicks.

Botley Road is a completely different story. The closure of the road for railway works has absolutely decimated the businesses there and I feel terrible for them.

I feel very strongly that the status quo can't continue. Global warming is real. People are going to have to change the way they live. This doesn't mean that we need to make black and white decisions (some people will always need cars for some of their journeys; not everyone is able to cycle) but the number of car journeys could definitely be reduced, in the name of preserving a livable world for our children.

That said, Oxfordshire has implemented certain changes without putting a decent public transport network in place (this is partly down to funding constraints, whereby the council had to spend money on a particular initiative or lose it) and that is not good. The fault lies largely with the government because they're not funding green transport properly. My impression is that the county council is doing the best it can within the constraints that shape the way it has to operate.

The congestion charge is temporary and experimental so there is plenty of time to modify things based on residents' feedback.

We had the same in Cambridge with Mill Road. County councillors from Peterborough were busy campaigning against it when it had no effect on them whatsoever, and a few local business owners blamed all of their ills on the Mill Road bus gate.

What I find interesting is that many of the older residents in my village thought nothing of cycling 6 or 7 miles to college when they were teenagers, on exactly the same roads we have now (and fewer segregated cycle paths) but now, on modern bikes and better lights and waterproofs, apparently it’s no longer possible.

@cowleycyclisti don’t think our views differ fundamentally, and I totally agree re. the Kazbar guy. Complete hypocrite as he got one of the first LTNs installed for the benefit of his own businesses!
Also completely agree re. The fiasco at the train station, simply shouldn’t be allowed to happen!
I think where we differ is that you still have some trust and respect for the councillors and think they are ultimately acting in good faith. Sadly, I don’t think those forcing these things through actually care or that they will pay attention to differing opinions and outcomes. I think they are idealistically driven and not rooted in reality, where they believe that people can choose to work from home in their comfortable professional jobs ,and pootle around on their bikes to the allotment.
they are also not delivering on any of the promised improvements to public transport.
I also don’t believe them when they say that things are temporary now! Or that they will listen to consultation.
I say this as a traditionally left-wing former environmental campaigner who has become quite cynical!
although if I can get into town on the bus from Headington in under an hour after these changes are implemented- I might be happy!

I hope there will be exemptions for NHS staff as my partner who works at the hospital says there are already terrible problems recruiting staff at all levels due to problems getting around Oxford. Same goes for schools.

Anyone from out of town working unsociable hours who relies on a car—for the freedom and flexibility it provides—may be forced to seek work elsewhere if they can’t afford the added costs.

Well maybe but with the caveat that he will most likely be sat in a traffic jam in Abingdon - a town not built for the huge amount of traffic and with issues not dissimilar to Oxfords albeit on a much smaller scale.

That’s true. I used to work in Abingdon and the traffic was awful at times. Narrow streets with one way system in the town centre. When something goes wrong it completely seizes up!

I think my concern is the proposed scheme won’t reduce traffic that much - as there are so many exemptions, free passes per household etc, and then they will keep restricting it further and further. Once they go down that route I don’t think it will stop at the initial plans. They will over time cut back on the 100 annual passes etc.

Has anyone commented about the restrictions to the 700 bus which serves the hospitals. It will leave patients with mobility problems walking further.
Oxford has a huge cash balance that it could use to make the buses better.