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?

Have you seen the cars queuing into Oxford, particularly at the weekend? There are trade vans and some sheds for sure, but also plenty of cars worth tens of thousands and the people driving them could afford an electric car. I have an electric motorcycle that wasn't silly money and costs me peanuts to run. But I get wet when it rains. I think that is better than maybe causing a kid to have an asthma attack they could die of. Lots of the objections to car restrictions here are because it needs to be cost-free and alternatives all sorted. Sadly that never happens. It is a climate emergency and we have got to do something right now.

@TizerorFizz I agree it’s unfair to ask poorer people to buy an electric car, that’s why I suggested the current scheme with exemptions for electric cars AND car sharing

@Maxmiuaiga I agree there’s a climate emergency but people still need to eat so getting to work is essential. Almost no one is saying it has to be cost free and all alternatives have to be sorted but we have to balance action with practicalities or we will lose public consent for climate action and end up in a worse place

Car sharing is difficult to police. I guess you would have a registration system. Of course finding others who do your hours, live near you etc is not easy!

I’m not convinced this is going to make a positive difference to emissions (in climate change terms). People will still be driving, it’s just they’ll be driving to (and queuing with engines running) park and rides. Or they’ll still be driving to Oxford but going via a longer, even more congested route. In extreme cases people will get jobs elsewhere, possibly a longer drive away. If the overall emissions are lower I doubt it will be by much.
The price of electric cars is a real issue, I agree. Hybrids could also qualify for relief, and so could smaller cars. I’d be supportive of a super charge on sports cars and ‘Chelsea tractor’ style vehicles. Car sharing is hard to police but those sharing the car could split the cost of the charge which would make a difference to those in a position to do it.

Lots of car sharing schemes across the world work perfectly well. You just pick up a car when you need it through an app. Not sure what needs policing exactly.

Oh I see, that sort of thing. I meant the older fashioned practice of sharing your ride into work with someone from the same village. Yes, car share schemes of the kind you mean do operate in Oxford and could easily be exempted. But that doesn’t help those commuting in from places with inadequate public transport.

Oh really? That’s interesting, thanks. I’ll have a Google.
I miss Boswells. The chemist there was great, and the toy section second to none in Oxford. I liked the cookware bit too. Old fashioned but in a really good way. John Lewis doesn’t have anything like the same range and is so expensive and Robert Dyas only really excels at the basics. You could always find just the right shaped cake tin at Boswells.

Car sharing usually means an organised pairing of people and a car. It’s very difficult to do it with random people on a daily basis via an app.

Yes I agree about Boswells, I really liked shopping there.

I think @Devoutspoken means something like this: www.co-wheels.org.uk/oxford ? It’s not so much car share as a car hire club. Like Boris bikes or those god awful electric scooters that get left willy nilly on the pavements in Oxford but for cars.

Roseandgeranium, give me a few electric scooters left 'willy nilly' on some pavements than thousands of miles of parked cars on the sides of our streets. Private car use will eventually lessen and these car share/car hire schemes will increase. The average car is parked 23 hours a day. What a 'God awful waste of space.

Electric scooters are a menace but also only usable in a city environment. As soon as you get outside the ring road, apart from the major artery roads (not scooter friendly), the roads are minor roads, country lanes, not lighting, no footpaths and often only just suitable for cars to pass each other. Whether you commute in or out of Oxford, you will either need public transport or a car/bike. When there are no or limited buses or trains, and generally not where you want to go, you have no options. Unlike London, Oxford isn't surrounded (yet) by suburbs and one town after another

@RoseAndGeranium
No requirement to share any of those vehicles I think. Car Share Karaoke is what it’s about! Or Peter Kay’s Car Share.

Well I've just seen a letter saying a shared school coach system will cease to operate in its current form because of the stupid plans.

These means thousands of kids in the area that use schools in Oxford from the local rural areas may not be able to safely get to and from school.

I'm raging.

Wow, that's shit 😵

@jeaux90 are you able to share more details, which schools are affected? Thanks

It’s not about scooters vs cars, though. As @OhFFS! says, scooters are in no way a replacement for cars. I can’t imagine that any hire scooter journey has ever actually replaced a car journey in Oxford, still less to the outer villages. You’d have to be nuts to try to scoot out to Wheatley, for instance. The roads just aren’t safe. (I also don’t think the hire scooters are allowed beyond a certain radius.)

And you may not mind the scooters strewn all over the pavement but it’s a real pain for people in wheelchairs or using some walking aides. It’s annoying with a buggy too, especially of pushing a buggy and also walking with a young child.

I get the impression that a lot of people on this thread who support these changes think that those who oppose them just really love cars. I, for one, do not. I lived in Oxford for many years and never used a car. Within the city I cycled, walked, or (rarely) used buses. We visited local villages using buses and public footpaths. I commuted to my job in another city by train (at considerable expense). If there were a regular, reliable bus service from my village that could reasonably take the place of commuting by car that would be my first choice, regardless of traffic filters, LTNs or congestion charges. But there isn’t, and if these measures come in unchanged I don’t know how I could do a job based in Oxford.

@DuncanEnright this is really something the council should be commenting on and trying to remedy. Please can you confirm that you will look into this?

Happy to do so. I hear this wasn’t a council thing as it relates to the private schools only in Oxford. I heard they were looking into other options as the shared bus wasn’t working to their satisfaction, but that wasn’t a formal briefing just a random comment from someone. I also heard today that one of the schools is setting up a bus for the first time, which is good. Bus priority will certainly help initiatives like this.

Roseandgeranium, nowhere did I say I didn't mind scooters on pavements, I just mind all the parked cars taking up road space a hell of alot more, they are everywhere, scooters aren't

I reckon a car parked on a pavement takes up much more room than a scooter and there are plenty of drivers who think that the pavement is where they should park.

@DuncanEnright they already had to change the routes this year because of additional congestion caused by the plans.

So don't try and spin it. The schools will now look at individual solutions which will create even more vehicles on the roads and not less including more parents using their cars.

The situation is ridiculous and authoritarian.

Was introducing seatbelts 'authoritarian'?

Was introducing seatbelts 'authoritarian'?

What a ridiculous comparison. Introducing seatbelts made almost zero impact on people's lives.

Nothing has been introduced as far as filters are concerned. The only change since before the pandemic is some residential barriers to through traffic, and we are reviewing that with a view to changes right now (but it isn’t more than a tweak to already bad traffic). This is what Oxford traffic is like, and what we have to tackle. If more people travel on buses it means fewer in one-person cars, which will help. Other suggestions welcome for handling the traffic which has been awful for years, and gets even worse when there’s an accident or roadworks.

I completely agree about the value of school buses, because people driving children in to private schools from rural Oxfordshire is a major cause of congestion, as anyone using the roads when our regular schools are in but private schools have broken up can testify.