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?

Is it me or are modern housing developments more likely to be cul-de-sacs than the Victorian streets that are being shut in the LTNS?

@jgw1 'cul de sac' was just a turn of phrase to explain how the roads have now been closed off. Most of the areas in east Oxford that have been affected by LTNs are not new housing.

Yes, and Paris too!

momentummag.com/paris-to-become-100-percent-cycling-city/#:~:text=The%20plan%20aims%20to%20build,new%20secure%20cycle%20parking%20spaces.

You really can't compare Oxford to London and Paris. I don't think people who don't live here understand how poor the public transport is.
I highly doubt this will encourage people to give up their cars, it's just going to make people lives incredibly difficult

A lot of people commute far further than two
miles.

I like cycling and I’m not a nervous person on a bike but I wouldn’t cycle to or from work in Oxford from where I live in Oxfordshire on a winter morning or night.
.

If these schemes are so unpopular with the local people, why do they keep voting the Labour/Greens onto the local councils in Oxford? They have had the majority on the council for decades AFAIK and they have been fairly open about their plans.

I would, therefore deduce that the majority are happy with LTN’s and the 15 minute neighbourhood, given that students and academics make up a high number of the population and are well known for idealism.

What percentage of the population of Oxford do the students and academics make up? The students will only be living there for a few years anyway. You can't run a city for the benefit of (generally wealthy) academic types at the expense of everyone else who just want to be able to drive to work, not be messing about on buses and bicycles.

The universities and the hospitals are the biggest employers though.
And those who live elsewhere and commute in (because they can't afford to live closer) may not get a vote in the local elections.

People won't want to live there much longer if this madness continues.

The idea that Headington of all places is full of 'low-paid workers' commuting the long unforgiving miles into Oxford is ludicrous. I agree that right now the rush hour bus ride into the centre from Headington is painful. This is an adjustment period.

Kidlington isn't a 'distant town' either. It's a 20 minute bus ride from the centre of Oxford. There's a new train station into London halfway along that 20 minute route.

I do think when people who don't live here read about Oxford as a city they imagine something the size of Manchester. It's more like a market town with delusions of grandeur. I'm the slowest cyclist ever and I can cycle from the train station to Headington in half an hour. This is the opposite of 'mucking about'.

I'm well aware that Oxford is much smaller than Manchester. That's why Manchester has better public transport.

I saw it alleged that the scheme will cost £800k/year to run. How many rural bus services could that have subsidised?

Florenz- so the people who it benefits, will they be leaving the 'madness'

And why should a city be run just for the benefit of car drivers?

Oxfordmother, given its not as big as London or Paris, makes it even easier to get around by bike

Unfortunately the way central government funds local government very often local government does not have the choice to spend money on this or that, but rather spend money on this now, or not get money at all.

For example, there is a pot of money for building new sports facilities, great one can have a £4million pound new pool and sports facility. But actually it would be far more cost effective to spend 4 lots of £1million renovating existing facilities, but the money simply can't be used for htat.

Probably as there'll be no-one else to provide the goods and services that they take for granted.

Because the majority of adults are car drivers. It's by far the most popular form of transportation. If you want people to use buses and trains, make them better, and cheaper, so people choose to use them of their own volition, then once the non-car users outnumber the car users, you can do something like this. But until then, absolutely not.

I've lived in central Oxford all my life. If the council had any genuine interest in addressing pollution and congestion they'd scrap or drastically reduce the Westgate parking and nearby overflow carparks, as this is a major contributing factor and means that my estate, just off Oxpens Road, has dangerously high levels of pollution. Traffic here is at a near-total standstill every weekend between 10am and 6pm, as well as during weekday rush hours.

They'd also work with the significant number of private schools in the city, like Magdalen College School on the High Street, whose pupils are driven in from outside town each day (usually in their 4x4s), to encourage them to address this. Neither of these things will be tackled under proposed plans so for most of us things will only get worse. I have no doubt that there will also be deaths caused by the excess pressure placed on the already dangerous and overcrowded ring road.

But they don't give care as long as the North Oxford elite remain relatively unaffected in their leafy "15-minute neighbourhood".

Oh, and they've had years to improve the absolutely shit bus service here but still haven't managed to do so yet...

Agreed on the Westgate. The deal on the development allowed the centre to manage the parking including the price, so they promptly made it the cheapest parking in Oxford. The council now have no control over it. Whether they could change that I don't know.

I moved here from Southampton and to me the bus service is brilliant in comparison, though expensive.

Florenz, cars have been dominating our roads for years, its time to shift the balance. Most people now live in urban centres which are the ideal places to start making these kinds of changes, because change is what is needed. The future is to move away from gridlock

No, they'll just moan that they "can't get the staff" and wonder why no one wants a longer commute on top of a 12 hour shift and why is there no stuffed lobster claws in the shops etc

Personally I would implement the barriers and then look to improve public transport over a period of time. You'd quite quickly find that a lot of 'essential' journeys between areas would become less so.

I also wouldn't provide public transport capacity to replace all the existing journeys. We need to be looking to substantially reduce the occasions people leave their areas and homes.

I also wouldn't provide public transport capacity to replace all the existing journeys. We need to be looking to substantially reduce the occasions people leave their areas and homes

Why do we need to reduce the occasions people leave their homes?

I think Holistic would be much happier somewhere like China, they probably think welding people into their homes would be a good idea.

What's the betting they were posting on here during lockdown, complaining it wasn't strict enough, the army should be on the streets etc.?