This was the Week of Severe Shock for transport / climate / active-travel / liveability campaigners in Oxford.
Our two councils landed this proposal, which they had been building up to for a long time.

I mean wow. I would guess we can measure its boldness by the amount of concern it generates. If the public are placid, then either people aren’t paying attention or there’s been a shift in the public’s consciousness. I engage ‘below the line’ very little so I probably don’t have 1/10 of the idea of how much opposition is being expressed.

If the experience of Waltham Forest is anything to go by, there could be a lot more opposition on display to come. Up to 500 people demonstrated in front of their borough hall back in 2015 when the borough started rolling out some bold liveability changes.
I’ve spoken with a lot of people about these — including some of the very people who were on the streets! What you need to know is that the campaign against these liveability improvements was pretty strong. They took the liveability scheme to court. And the court found no merit in their claims.
When you speak to people on the street in Walthamstow today, you hear a variety of opinions. One woman I met selling cakes with her daughters (in a newly reclaimed piece of street converted into a pocket park which she referred to as her “piazza”) said, “Um, well, I think most people would tell you they don’t like it.” I can guess why she might have that impression. The opposition was vocal and there remains an undercurrent of grumpiness. Only this week the borough council was accused in a local forum of racism and classism for converting a piece of road space to a bus lane. (I’m minded of Enrique Peñalosa’s quip that “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”)
But I am sure she’s wrong. The borough council was up for election in 2018 and were resoundingly re-elected. What’s more, the portfolio holder for transport — who was in the white heat of anger back in 2015 — saw the biggest electoral margin in his 20-year career. If the public hate these changes, they have a funny way of showing it.
Which brings us back to Oxford. The councils propose:
  • to eliminate most through-traffic from the city centre. They are proposing ‘bus gates’ which are ANPR cameras that enforce no-private-vehicle-entry signs. There’s one on the High Street
  • to filter the traffic artery between Cowley and Headington — again with a bus gate, on Hollow Way
  • to filter the traffic artery between Marston and Summertown — also with a bus gate, on Marston Ferry Road.
  • to charge employers (with more than 10 parking spaces) appx £600 per year per space, payable by the employer.
  • to create a brand new bus service connecting north Oxford to Cowley and Pear Tree Park-and-Ride via Headington.
You can see why our collective heads were reeling. None of this is radical by continental European standards. But in the UK, we’ve only got London and Nottinghamshire to look to, in terms of large-scale ‘demand management’ policies.
Our job in Oxford is now to engage people tirelessly, in as calm a way as possible, to make the case for these changes. The cabinet of the county council, which holds the authority over roads, will listen to views between now and November, and decide in December whether to pause, re-evaluate, go forward, or cancel. Oxfordshire Liveable Streets will be working with its partners in CoHSAT to start the conversation. It plans a series of ‘connection cafes’ around the city, mainly but not exclusively in workplaces. The idea is to give people a chance to discuss this stuff offline and hopefully hear some of the rationale for these bolds steps while also in some cases letting off steam. Obviously all views positive or negative need to be fed back to the council. These organisations will also be hosting one or more larger-scale public meetings.
If you can be of help with any of this, get in touch with your CoHSAT member-organisation or with OLS directly, here.