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?

And shop prices didn't vary hugely from shop to shop (pre supermarket days)

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 can't tell if this was a better way of life or not. I imagine what you could get out of life was much more limited. But society has moved on, people have different requirements and expectations nowadays

I lived in Oxford for 5 years, about 20 years ago.
At that time it was quicker to cycle, or sometimes even walk from one side of the city to the other that it was to go by car.

Unless there has already been a dramatic reduction in traffic since then, I imagine that is still the case, so why all the complaints about a scheme that will make the city a nicer place to live and work?

@jgw1
Not everyone can walk or cycle. Plenty of people are coming in from villages etc to work. Are you suggesting they park up and walk the rest of the way?

It will make the city itself better, but the outer areas, headington, cowley etc utterly inaccessible due to the traffic from the city being pushed out.

A 5 mile bus journey from headington to cowley now takes upward of 40 mins as opposed to 10-15 mins 4 years ago due to the LTNs pushing the traffic from the back roads to the main roads.

@unsureatthispoint It was pretty much my life as a child on a very poor working class estate. Life was very limited. Most people worked in a few local factories or jobs like cleaners or shop assistants. The few middle-class people around at all were teachers, GPs and factory managers. Everyone went to the local school. Entertainment was the pub, bingo hall and a local cinema. That was pretty much it. And it is not a life well off people would be happy to accept, but many would be happy to condemn poor people to that kind of life.

Its likely to be awful. It is based on everyone driving round the bypass and then driving into Oxford like spokes on a wheel. That's fine, except for the 2/5 of the week when the bypass has an accident, or a burst water main, or emergency gas repairs and is impassable.

It's an interesting experiment, but expensive and risky!

We can't go on as we are.
Many problems are made worse by private car ownership (health of the environment, drivers and non drivers alike, destruction of communities and so on).
Any measures taken inevitably disproportionately impact the less well off.

Individuals aren't making the necessary changes to their life styles, so government has to.

The government only offers a stick approach.

Individuals aren't making the necessary changes to their life styles, so government has to.

But unless it's backed up with proper infrastructure, it's a disaster. They need to get that right first.

“How do you propose to reduce NHS budget for type 2 diabetes and other health and fitness related illnesses ?”

Diet is primarily to blame for these types of diseases. The food industry would love you to believe that exercise will fix everything. It will not.

What will government do when more people are unemployed as they can not get to jobs or childcare?

Employment opportunities need to be more diffuse- we should be able to live, work and shop within a sustainable distance.

Planning has been letting us down for generations. It's time to straighten it out.

So is Oxford Council going to establish satellite offices? Or will they still make everyone travel into the centre?

Has the park and ride stopped functioning?

No but due to the roadworks/LTNs the 10 min journeys are now 40 mins plus, busses are reduced and no longer reliable.

@jgw1 Got you. People need to spend more than an hour travelling to work, probably closer to an hour and a half.

😂😂no, not free. Different bus companies have monopolies on the routes and Stagecoach doesn't even do return fares.

If congestion is that bad, it sounds to me as though some steps need to be taken to reduce it.

I am surprised there is parking for all the cars that are apparently going into Oxford city centre, there never used to be very much.

i live in a village 3 miles outside of oxford up a steep hill. There is no bus - hasn’t been for at least 8 years. I could walk about 25 minutes in one direction or 20 mins in the other wrong) direction to get to a bus stop but both would involve steep uphill walks from those bus stops to get back home and that simply is not practicable if I have eg shopping or heavy boxes from work to to carry. They’re a lot of older people here and this will just close Oxford off to them. Why should they be prevented from going into oxford? Many worked in the hospital or university or elsewhere in Oxford for decades. Many still have some sort of university function or role.

what teachers will take jobs in Central oxford if they live outside (as most do) in rural areas without public transport? That is much of Oxfordshire.

They haven’t even thought about people who do need safe access into oxford. For example, earn it was raised with them that the crown court judges needed to be able to drive in and have secure parking, they said they should use the park and ride and come in on the bus. What, stand at the bus stop and get on the bus with the jury and the defendant on bail who they are trying for rape? Really? To get followed to their car in the park and ride and then followed home? It isn’t central london where judges do use public transport because there are so many options.

Expectations will need to be scaled back somewhat. It's difficult, having tasted relative freedom of travel but our ways of life need to change.

Whereas in the UK, most people despise cyclists, many cycle paths are not fit for purpose, if you leave a bike in a town centre etc it's very likely to get stolen or vandalised and many places are so hilly that most people have no chance of cycling to work on anything except an electric bike and arriving in a presentable state and electric bikes are ££££s which makes them more likely to be stolen as well as being less affordable.

I'm not adverse at all to a cycling culture but you'd need a hell of a mindset and infrastructure change to make the UK a cycling friendly place, with or without barriers related to laziness or inability to cycle in the first place.

How will this affect people that work at the hospitals and patients? It’s all very well saying do stuff locally but most healthcare is now centralised and anyone living in Oxford and surrounds will need to travel in for specialities such as cancer.
Radiotherapy can be daily trips for 6 weeks.
I doubt very much that most nurses and healthcare workers live near the hospitals. This could massively affect recruitment and retention.

The Netherlands didn't start out like this. Only in the seventies did they make the change towards better infrastructure and that was because of an excessive amount of children dying in car accidents. But yes it requires a lot of cash and planning.

@Lunar270 What you mean is for the poor. The rich will still be jetting off on holiday abroad. But what you are suggesting is for the poor going into the City Centre should become a special occasion.