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?

Ish...

Water Eaton park and ride closed. It is now served by the 7 bus from Kidlington which stops there every 30 minute or so if it isn't full.

Peartree roundabout is being reconfigured and is in the middle of huge building works. The tailbacks to access the park and ride from the next roundabout down can be over 30 minutes at peak times.

Seacourt works well at the moment but the Botley Road is being closed for a year from 9th January so the buses will stop before Oxford station and the rest of the journey will have to be on foot or on a change of bus plus wait.

Thornhill - main parking for people working at the hospitals or commuting to London so generally very busy.

Redbridge - works well.

@CuteOrangeElephant Travelling 5 miles on a mobility scooter would take at least an hour.
And as I sadly know in Britain a lot of the so-called drop kerbs are not fit for purpose. It would take a lot of infrastructure investment in Britain to make this possible.

I’ve had three bikes stolen from Oxford city centre. Theft of bikes & e-bikes is rife so this will be great for the bike thieves who seem to have the run of the city.

Does anyone know the zone for the 100 passes?

100 passes is Oxford City Council’s administrative area
North Hinksey Parish
South Hinksey Parish
Cumnor Parish east of the A420, including Botley, Dean Court, Cumnor Hill, Chawley and parts of Cumnor.

Exactly. Not workable. And again, if you drop the kids off at 8.00 am at school, drive 20 minutes to the Park and Ride, wait 15 minutes for a bus, which then takes 30 minutes into the city, then a 15 minute walk to work, you’re not at work until 9.20. Then you need to pick kids up at 5, which means leaving no later than about 3.30 to be sure of getting there on time. Not exactly a full working day, is it? And out of that part time wage needs to come wraparound childcare costs, park and ride payment, bus fare, AND the usual car expenses. It’s not workable.

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.

I don't think that's going to win many hearts and minds. Gotta come up with something more convincing than that.

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No not really. I'm happy to ride to work or find a job closer to home. Shop locally etc. The lives we're living aren't sustainable in the most part and needs to change. Sure we have outliers and need to solve those problems too but for the able bodied and fit, we should be capable of intelligently working round these disruptive schemes.

After all, if big oil found that they'd dug up the last drop tomorrow we'd be truly stuffed and wouldn't be moaning about having to take the long route to xyz. Yet that's a potential reality for our kids or their kids.

I'm sure, like everything else, the really rich will do as they please but what's new.

No not really. I'm happy to ride to work or find a job closer to home. Shop locally etc.

you might be. Doesn't mean others are.

The lives we're living aren't sustainable in the most part and needs to change

Not necessarily in the way you're suggesting. Working for you isn't the only criteria here.

Will no one think of the poor persecuted private school parents?

Of course it's not going to win many hearts but that's not the point. I don't really need to come up with anything convincing as it's just common sense.

We're too used to jumping into our cars and going wherever we like, when we like. What's not to love about that? But even I realise this has to end sometime soon and it's going to hurt.

@Lunar270 We have an ageing population with increasing levels of disability. I agree for the able-bodied and healthy walking should be a goal. But people like my family get left more and more behind. We can't get out as a family without the car and without me being able to drop my DH and DD outside where we are going. Our life is already limited.

It won't just be Oxford. I took part in a survey for the area I grew up in in London where they have changed the roads so much and it has become gentrified. The survey was all about these 15 minute neighbours. This was earlier in the year. I was horrified because of the lack of greenery and fresh air in this part of London. Hardly any trees, if at any at all on the main road. They've blocked using inner roads. It really feels like a desert there in the Summer, topped with pollution.
They need to add more green spaces before they even consider anything like this but if this Oxford thing is true then remember this will be in London too and perhaps everywhere eventually.

Of course it's not going to win many hearts but that's not the point. I don't really need to come up with anything convincing as it's just common sense.

You may not personally but someone does otherwise it's not going to get buy-in. We don't live in a dictatorship

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

You really can't compare people being confined to their homes, and having a country full of Checkpoint Charlies with a change of lightbulbs, can you?

Also a PP talking about 'forcing' and 'pushing' people to change. Utterly despotic and not an era anyone would like to go back to, I'm sure

Okay so disabled people need to stay indoors. Got the memo.

It's a shame they've stuck the only general hospital out on the NE edge. A bit tricky if you live in, say, Jericho or around Pembroke street and need to visit the hospital often.

In the Old Days when everyone did everything locally there were plenty of cottage hospitals and your doctor would visit if you couldn't get to him.

It’s horrendous.

Im 12 miles out of Oxford and if I were to drive I could be at work in under 40 mins. But I do catch the bus and have to allow 2 hours from leaving my house to get there, and then quite often it takes an hour and a half to get back. So 2 additional hours a day. Should be less but as I said in a previous post the entire bus route is beleaguered with a combination of closed roads/hs2/LTN problems.

it’s a clusterfuck.

It was pretty much my life as a child on a very poor working class estate. Life was very limited.

I'm not young, and I also remember life being rather limited in the not so distant past simply because what we have today was not available. It's shocking that there are some who would like us to live like that again

I would expect there to be dispensation for the vulnerable and this should definitely be the case.

But cutting down even 50% would make a difference.

I lived in Oxford on Botley Road for nearly 10 years, before moving to an Oxfordshire village when we could finally afford to buy a house (priced out of West Oxford). DH or I drive in every day to take our toddler to the childminder, which under normal (pre-LTN) conditions took 15 minutes each way with very little waiting. Now it can take me 50 mins - 1 hour and involves lots of waiting around emitting fumes in stationary or even worse, slow-moving-enough-to-require-engine-on-but-only-just traffic. We won’t be changing childminder as she’s a perfect match for us and so we happily pay the sacrifice in time/money spent commuting there. But my point is that the Council hasn’t (dis)incentivised anyone. People aren’t queuing down the main arterial routes for literal hours a day for fun; it’s for work/school/hospital trips which are in no way adequately serviced by buses. We will still be there even if they sanction us, because we don’t have a choice*.

**admittedly we in our personal circumstances do kind of have a choice where the choice is ‘the best education for our child’, hence we spend the unpleasant hours in the car with a 2 year old and a 6 month old in tow… We work in central London so also drive to Oxford stations to commute, so putting us in both camps to an extent.

Also, a lot of the traffic hotspots are not going to be affected by the bus gates.

I travel into Oxford from the north by bus. Summertown is always completely gridlocked, there is no bus lane. Most of the cars in Summertown are going to one of the nurseries or private schools in North Oxford so aren't travelling into the City Centre. That will carry on, because this journey is completely unaffected by any of the traffic measures proposed, except that all the traffic for Summertown / north Oxford will be on the Woodstock and Banbury roads, rather than having a route through from the east.

They need to add more green spaces before they even consider anything like this but if this Oxford thing is true then remember this will be in London too and perhaps everywhere eventually.

I think we all need to write to our MPs to get our opinions heard. I'm shocked that this is not being more widely communicated in MSM. It will have a huge impact in people's lives. I'm also in London and already being impacted with Congestion Charge and ULEZ. I do use a bike whenever possible, but I don't want my freedom to be curtailed in this way.