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?

Oh don't encourage her. She's just on a wind up.

That is nice for you. I was isolated and tried to take my own life.
I know people who lost family members who successfully did the same. They even mentioned lockdown in their suicide note.

Ok.
But the money for this scheme could also have been spent on setting up a congestion charge zone in Oxford. This could have generated income that could then have been spent on improving public transport. That way, everyone who needed to travel into Oxford by car could do so (albeit at a cost) but fewer would drive in unless necessary and, as bus services improved, more and more drivers would switch to buses. No one would right now be fearing for their livelihoods, but the city could look forward to improved air quality and reduced congestion whilst villagers could expect to be able to visit Oxford by bus rather than driving. Do you think that would be better or worse?

There is a congestion charge zone in Oxford.

There is a tiny zero emissions zone in 4 streets where it is virtually impossible to drive anyway. Is that what you meant? There isn't a London style congestion charge.

Its a test area which is going to expand.

Yes, but only in the city centre - it isn't (for example) going to touch Summertown which is a major gridlock point or the Botley road.

Personally I'd have no objection to applying that to all traffic within the ring road if the money was used to hugely improve public transport and the bike lanes.

Cambridge is trying to adopt a congestion charge to fund better public transport. Except better public transport in the villages (6-7 miles out)means one bus an hour under their "new improved" public transport. That renders a school drop off and commute into Cambridge impossible.

Once you get 3-4 miles out, the roads are generally country lanes with no provision for footpaths or cycle paths, so active travel is at best unpleasant and at worst dangerous.

It’s completely hopeless. Maybe doable if you work full time and have no caring responsibilities but a disaster if you have to deal with school hours. How do the city councils not see what they’re doing to the lives of (mostly) women? I’m so worried about what will happen when this is implemented in Oxford. I have already started talking to DH about looking for jobs elsewhere but it’s not easy to do that in academia.

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants
How lucky! One bus an hour! We have one bus a day!

What a bizarre and racist post that only has anything to do with Oxford in its first paragraph.
As has been covered already: yes people in the city can vote on the council, though the next election isn't for a while, but people in the county can't vote for the city council as there are separate district councils for the non-Oxford parts of Oxfordshire.

I'm an American so I will not presume to understand your country

You should have stopped there.

Great advice jimsteen, America really gets things right doesn't it?

Oh @JimSteen911 for God's sake. This is a scheme instigated by elected politicians. When low traffic neighbourhoods were started in London there was a group opposed to them and they put forward candidates for local elections campaigning against the LTNs, none of which got elected. This scheme to reduce car use is probably over complicated but it's an interesting idea that might change lives for the better.

America's a dinosaur when it comes to car use

It’s always a valence between cost, low emissions, and convenience (time).

Banning traffic from some streets in London, has made others a lot more busy so people living on main roads, by and large, are worse off. They are often the poorest in a city. So someone’s better air quality is another’s worsening quality.

Of course people on councils can vote for such policies but they are rarely impacted much. There isn’t really an answer yet as electric cars are so expensive. So many cannot afford them. So many don’t have decent alternative public transport. Oxford does have park and ride but going from residential area to residential area is more challenging.

Ooh, MNers are treated to a little sample of (poorly spelt, poorly punctuated) right-wing American discourse. Highly enlightening from an anthropological point of view.

I feel bad for the once great Britain
I feel bad for JimSteen911’s immigrant neighbours, and for the many Americans who do care about climate change.

London has great public transport and lower car usage and ownership to start with. If you want people to use public transport in Oxford, make the public transport better. Then once more and more people are using it, you can start restricting car usage. But you don't restrict car usage and then hope that public transport gets better on it's own.

It's the same in Bristol - constantly making it more difficult to drive but maintaining really poor public transport.

Since the LTNs were introduced, getting out of Oxford in the evening has been a nightmare as the ring road can’t cope. God knows how much worse it will be when the bus gates come in. We sit in traffic for 45 mins to get to a 30 min swimming lesson. Then drive home. Ridiculous.

A big issue with Oxford is while the university continues to expand its facilities in the centre, there’s very little for kids that you can actually get to by bike/public transport. The indoor leisure facilities are largely outside the ring road and are mostly dire. (Think freezing, filthy pool with no swimming lessons). To get to almost any fun sports facilities for kids in cold, wet weather (trampoline park, proper gym, soft play, decent pool etc) you have to leave the city. Which now places you in interminable traffic.

Oxford has problems that aren’t going to be solved by bus gates alone.

Sausageenbacon, isn't Bristol a progressive cycling city?

Bristol named as one of the UK’s most dangerous cities for cycling

Bristol named as one of the UK's most dangerous cities for cycling. Bristol has been named as the ninth most dangerous city in the UK for cycling in a recent study. Over 12,000 cycling routes around the country were examined, taking into account the number of accidents, steepness, lighting and surface quality

www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/features/is-bristol-a-cycle-friendly-city/

“Thousands of people in Bristol cycle every week, but that doesn’t mean Bristol is a good city for cycling. We hear many complaints about dangerous driving and cycle lanes that suddenly disappear,” said a spokesperson for Bristol Cycling Campaign.

DH used to cycle there- there were some nice cycle paths bit other bits he got off and pushed as it just wasn't safe.

I think it's a work in progress - the aim is there.

I think I put wrong first link:

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-named-one-most-dangerous-7039843

I think it's worse for pedestrians, tbh, as there are several areas where cycling and walking areas are joined, without much evident demarcation. Plus we have a lot of arrogant cyclists on the pavements.