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?

SereneSemolina - I live near Nottingham. The trams are great and we use them because they’re much, much cheaper than parking but they only cover a limited area and are very, very slow. Driving, door to door, would take me 20-30 minutes. For the tram it’s 15 mins drive to the nearest tram stop and then about 40 minutes on the tram itself. They’re also quite short and infrequent, particularly at weekends, so you can also be waiting in the cold for ages too.

What a bloody stupid idea. Unless all services possible (including obscure services for disabled people) are in each area, which of course they won’t be, it’s not workable and is just going to make a lot of peoples lives that much more difficult in an already miserable world. (Well it has been a miserable world since covid).

Weird, the 15 min neighbourhood thing is an idea in planning, that instead of a doughnut of services in the centre of the city, with a ring of residential housing around it, that neighbourhoods are more mixed and include housing, shops and amenities. I've never seen the concept be used in this way. Cities usually go for a congestion charge around the very central area

It's fine if services are improved locally instead of being so 'city centric'. But movement has never been banned in this way before

People in the past did live, work and go to school in a small neighbourhood. They basically lived like people in Eastenders do where you can only get a job in the square. That is better for the environment, but it basically means your kids go to the local school and you work very locally. That would all take a massive reset of our society.
I suspect those supporting it all work at home.

I work in Oxford but live in a small village. The journey now should take 20 minutes to get to work but can take up to an hour because of the ring road, With these filters going in and forcing traffic onto the ring road, it's going to be gridlocked. Totally ridiculous.
Next year, the Botley road will be shut all year because of some work for the trains and I heard on local news about councillors wanting to shut the Abingdon Road to cars.

They cannot compute that not everyone who works in Oxford lives there. So their allegedly wonderful public transport across Oxford won't help here. I would need to take 5 busses to get to my office.

Local bus companies are already cutting busses to the east of the city because of the congestion caused by their LTNs.

They are not willing to make the necessary investments in public transport to make this work, and eve if they did there are simply not enough bus drivers at the moment to run existing services so already things aren't running properly and people are left stranded

Also consider strikes

Agreed. Nottingham trams are great for getting into the City Centre and a few shopping and workplace hubs. Not great for more complex travel.

Reading all of this is doing nothing to disprove my theory that local politics is job creation for the otherwise unemployable.

And also makes it tricky if both of a couple work which is much more the norm these days than in the 1950s

Nah, I live in the Netherlands. Lots of cycle paths. It actually increases options for disabled people as mobility scooters can be used much more effectively.

I know an elderly couple that makes the 5 mile journey to their daughter on their mobility scooters a couple of times a week. When my father broke his ankle the hospital lend him a trike so he could still get around without my mother having to drive him everywhere.

I have long covid. Can’t get a blue badge but can’t cycle or walk either. I mostly rely on lifts from others. And I stay in. I’m just one of many people who fall between the cracks.

I think it’s a good idea at heart - just needs masses of tweaking. And making realistic… I can imagine the 100 permits would cause a huge issue for most everyone who can’t cycle for example…

I think these 15 min city/towns are a much better idea than the one way systems that were brought in during the 90's etc. No one is stopped from driving into any part of the city, you just have to go round the ring road rather than use residential neighborhoods as cut through's. There is something similar being proposed around here and its also not been explained properly to people. If they can get it to work its going to make residential neighborhoods so much better for the people who live there.

Slightly veering off point, but calling this a 'climate lockdown' is really fucking unhelpful.

it can work well. and yes, sometime people need to be pushed a little to start a change. remember energy inefficient light bulbs?

Sadly people don't like change and don't want to adapt so need to be forced into it.

It will cause chaos but we need disruption to push us into different ways of living.

That’s the other thing, bus services even within Oxford are utterly dreadful. No way of getting from Summertown to Cowley without quite significant walks between bus changes. The short-lived app-based minibus service was quite a good solution but it hardly went anywhere and was really expensive. And as you say, many of the small villages round the city have little or no public transport.

If they can get it to work

Big IF there. Local authority scheme, what are the chances?

I have no issue with change. But every change simply seems to make life for disabled people harder. We always get examples trotted out of an individual it helps, with zero understanding of more complex disability than a broken angle or an elderly person who uses a scooter.
Disabled peoples need are always ignored or oversimplified.

And we already know Oxford is not a suitable place for us to go as tourists.

What RoseAndGeranium · Today 13:29 said is correct.
Trouble is, traditionally a lot of people with senior careers/powerful decision makers in Oxford literally lived in large houses in Summertown and cycled to work. They make decision about transport systems they themselves do not rely on. These particular decisions are only just emerging into the 21st century now in 2022.

Fine if there are actually routes that mean the city centre can be accessed from each compass point from the ring road. But it doesn’t look like that’s what will happen here. Instead many people who rely on jobs in the city are going to be effectively banned from driving into the city at all unless willing to spend upwards of an hour on a grid locked ring road. Which might be ok for some if there was decent public transport. But there isn’t.

I work in Oxford. Should be a 35 min bus ride in, 4 busses per hour.

The busses come from Aylesbury and do a loop.

However in Aylesbury there is HS2 traffic, which means up to an hour wait at the bus stop of a morning as nothing currently runs on time.

Coming home is the same due to the roadworks/LTNs that have been introduced in Oxford.

It doesn’t work, my colleague who lives 5 miles from the office (not walkable) can take 90 mins on the bus to get to work, again due to the introduction of the LTNs.

It’s utterly stupid that a 12 mile trip for me means I need to leave my house at half seven to guarantee being there for half nine.

Three points:

1. Similar schemes in London have been shown to push traffic from higher income neighbourhoods to lower income ones.

2. I believe you can only apply for a permit if you live in the city, not in the surrounding area which is full of villages and small towns where you may not be able to get everything you need even if you don’t find the idea of staying within 15 mins’ walk of your house wildly claustrophobic.

3. Also it will be awful for business in Oxford, there was an article in the Times re Florence Pugh’s (actress) dad who owns a restaurant there who may go bankrupt as a result of this policy

Those were just two examples.

Having more walkable and cyclable infrastructure available helps everyone. You can still make all these changes and keep disabled people needs in mind.

@RoseAndGeranium Good point about the busses. Our village only has a bus about 4 times a day and all in the wrong direction. I wouldn't be able to get home by bus unless I am prepared to walk 4 miles down lanes with no pavements or lighting.

Well I wouldn't be cutting bus services for a start.