Oxford 'climate lockdowns' and '15-minute city' - can anyone local explain their views on this?

[unsureatthispoint]

This news has been published in several media outlets and being talked about ATM.

Road blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six "15 minute" neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.

And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.

Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for travel and development strategy, explained the authority's traffic filter proposals in an interview in The Sunday Times.

He said the filters would turn Oxford into "a 15-minute city" with local services within a small walking radius.

Mr Enright said: "It is about making sure you have the community centre which has all of those essential needs, the bottle of milk, pharmacy, GP, schools which you need to have a 15-minute neighbourhood."

The aim is to reduce traffic in the city centre and make city living more pleasant, but critics say the plans will negatively affect businesses and the city centre's economy.

Here's the link

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-six-15-minute-neighbourhoods-agrees-highways-councillor/

Are local people aware of this and what's their take on it?

Given the fact that this scheme is specific to one small city in the UK, I don't think it is going to make much difference to climate change.
I can only speak for the people I've spoken to about it and what I've read on line, which have all been against the proposals. It would be interesting to have a more reliable indication of public feeling on the matter.

I think @Abra1t gets to the heart of it.

Oxford is an extremely expensive city to live in. Like central London, it relies on low paid workers in suburbs and estates (Headington, Cowley, Greater Leys, Risinghurst etc), villages and more distant towns (Wantage, Kidlington, maybe Aylesbury) to commute in and run its services.

Unlike London, it does not have decent public transport to bring people in to the centre for work, hospital appointments etc without using their car. Commuting isn't a choice when the jobs are in the city but the houses are not. And commuting by car isn't a choice given the limited or non-existent public transport options that are the current reality for most of Oxfordshire.

Isn't oxford a cycling friendly city?

Reasonably yes.
Although some roads are too narrow for cars and bikes to safely have space.

Can those cars and bikes share the space

Trouble is that even to get to the city from the more rural villages you’d be on some dangerous cycling roads. I wouldn’t want to do it, especially in winter. Or you’d have to use the park and rides, via the ring road, and sit in even heavier traffic to reach them and swap to bikes. Which is what several friends used to do pre-pandemic, and the traffic was awful enough then.

But the issue of getting round the city itself is not an issue?

Yes as long as car drivers stick to the Highway code and give cyclists at least 1.5m of space when overtaking.

Thats fine, for you if you so choose.
Me? i like to explore where i live, the whole state, its why we moved here. We travel every few weeks to the theme parks just cos they in the state, we plan on many trips north and wanna try the restaurants on offer

I have no plans to alter my life

covid taught me that my mental health is tied to my freedom a lot and going out is part of that upkeep
Being told to stay home and only out for work was soul crushing

That means leaving my local area is an absolute must

Galivanting out for dinner multiple times a week was always the preserve of the well off.
I have no intention of staying in our local poor area and leaving all the free or cheap places to visit for the well off kids.

Brava!

So let's never do anything and let everything go to the dogs.

Do you have a solution for emissions, rising traffic, noise etc? I get the potential inconvenience but no-one here that's complaining has actually said what they might be prepared to do to alleviate any of today's problems.

That's the issue unfortunately. It's hard enough to get people into EV's, let alone change their habits. Everyone just wants to carry on doing the same thing, whilst raising kids that go on to drive.

I can imagine the people living and breathing fumes would be into the changes. It'd be great for their kids too, along with anyone that walks, cycles or uses a scooter.

I can see why the council are pushing ahead as nothing would ever happen if you let the public decide.

@Lunar270
Do you live in Oxford? As many have said this scheme will not help to reduce emissions. They are pushing the traffic away from the posh areas of Oxford to the less affluent who will experience worse fumes in some places. They are also still allowing free movement for diesel emitting vans and lorries.
It's not about a mere inconvenience in some cases this will add hours on to people's commute.
What am I doing personally? Well I drive an electric car. If this was purely about reducing emissions then surely electric vehicles would be excluded from the ban.

Less cars on the road is a good thing, electric or not. Plenty of people live without cars and manage to travel all over.

If Oxford is what Labour want to do to the country as a whole this could be a canary in the coalmine moment. The Tories will put this all over the media before a general election, and rightfully so.

Far better to have the Tories enriching their mates and making sure the poor know their place, than Labour who might make the UK a nicer place to live.

No but have friends who live there. I'm familiar with travelling in/out.

I think this is the problem. As I said. Noone is really thinking about how to adapt their lives and so will invariably push the emissions elsewhere, simply because they cannot or will not change their lives.

I'm not saying it's going to be easy but things have to change.

Great with the EV. I've got one too and they're great but we're a statistically irrelevant statistic at the moment. A more urgent solution is needed unfortunately.

Absolutely agree- the fact is people will need to change their lifestyles to save the planet.

The consumerist, decadent gallivanting of the last few decades is not sustainable and it's high time we took the lessons learned from covid about living simpler lives at home and in our local areas.

Or travel to further away areas using other modes of transport, uk has a pretty extensive train network

@Devoutspoken
There won't be less cars on the roads! They will just be driving somewhere else.
This scheme is going to making zero impact on the environment. That requires a global or at least national effort. I'm not sure why so many peoples lives in Oxfordshire need to be made hellish when the rest of the country can drive around as they please.

There will be fewer cars on the road, if some people decide to stop driving, as some people will - and also other areas are doing it, London for one

given that many if not most car journeys are 2 miles or less, yes, some people might reconsider if the drive is less convenient for them.

One thing that hasn't been raised on this thread is that the council's policy has increased the value of properties on the through roads that they've closed and which are now effectively cul de sacs. And in turn they have reduced the value of those houses on through or main roads as these roads are now constantly busy, hideously noisy and full of emissions.

Friends who live on a main road are desperately struggling to sell as who wants to live on a street where there are cars lined up down their road.

Perhaps collateral damage but I have issue when the council starts meddling with peoples house values through their divisive policies.

There is some evidence from the LTNs in London that they reduce pollution on neighbouring streets as well asin the LTNs.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/241731/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-reduce-pollution-surrounding-streets/#:~:text=Low%2Dtraffic%20neighbourhoods%20(LTNs),streets%2C%20new%20research%20has%20shown.