UK Low Traffic or Car Free Neighbourhoods - best practice ?

[ClichéGuevara]

If you claim something to be true then it is up to you to demonstrate that it is. If it were true, in just one case; you’d have proved your point. The deafening silence from your end is telling.

P.S. If you wave good bye then the expectation is that you are leaving 🤣

As waving is also a greeting, your post is simply yet another example of you reinventing someone's reply and arguing against yourself. Your replies may as well be silent as you're not exactly saying anything, but seem intent on soliciting a reply to get someone blocked. It's more tedious than merciless.

 

[wafter]

Oxford and traffic has always ben an issue though , as the city centre roads, particularly the inner ring (not the ring road) bit is woefully narrow and twisty, but there are some substantial old buildings not allowing any expansion of it, even if that were desirable. if you want to get anywhere quickly, a bike was always the answer, not a car.

Everything possible should be done to discourage people driving anywhere near the city centre, and this latest scheme is aiming to do that.

I went back in December having not been there for years and having the High and Broad street etc essentially closed to private cars has made it a lot better. We used the park and ride from Headington, which was fine except the bus got snarled up with other traffic around St Clements.

I agree there should be carrots as well as sticks, but I have little sympathy with the citizens of Oxford getting up in arms about the overall aims of scheme,namely diverting car traffic away from the congested centre and encouraging people to use buses and bikes / shanks pony instead, particularly as those opposed to it are spreading massive misinformation about it.

Indeed; I largely agree with where you're coming from and tbh it still surprises me / feels a bit naughty on the occasions I do drive through the city. Unfortunately a lot of the fallout slots nicely into the currently fashionable politics of polarisation and division where everyone is happy to take an extreme view and point the finger at their self-proclaimed absolute enemy, rather than wind their neck in, view the situation objectively and try to reach a mutually-workable compromise.

I absolutely agree that a bike's the best way around the city; and I've had a couple of separate occasions when I've been living there where the mileage put on the bike has outstripped that of the car by a factor of two or three... and this of course is a wonderful thing. IMO a bike is an ideal tool for travel within the city; a car for longer trips out of the city / when significant load space or mass-lugging is necessary.

As idealistic as I am about models set by European cities such as Utrecht, I stand by the assertion that this whole situation in Oxford has been torpedoed by poor implementation and of course not every car journey within the city is an un-necessary example of lazyness / selfishness. We had a job on Broad Street this week which required a fair amount of equipment. Since there's zero parking it effectively took three of us - two to actually do the job, a third to drive us down there, drive back and repeat the process once the job was done.. thus doubling the distance travelled / traffic created..

 

[ClichéGuevara]

https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/traffic-filters

The half assed news reporting isn't helping matters, no.

There are problems with the Oxford plan IMO, including the piecemeal way it's being implemented, the 100 free passes per year for residents, and the LTN zones being narrow arterial corridors instead of rounder zones like Leuven or Ghent, but they're much smaller problems than the madness they're accused of.

In what way does that meet a 15 minute City claim?

 

[mjr]

In what way does that meet a 15 minute City claim?

It should help speed up bus and bike journeys so that the centre is within 15 minutes of almost all the city. A bit more work will be needed in the furthest out areas, as you can see on https://app.traveltime.com/search/0...shire, England, United Kingdom&0-lat=51.75201

How do you think it doesn't make more of the city 15-minutes?

 

[ClichéGuevara]

It should help speed up bus and bike journeys so that the centre is within 15 minutes of almost all the city. A bit more work will be needed in the furthest out areas, as you can see on https://app.traveltime.com/search/0-lng=-1.25785&0-tt=15&0-mode=cycling-ferry&0-title=Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom&0-lat=51.75201

How do you think it doesn't make more of the city 15-minutes?

'Should'. It may make it a 15 minute City centre, but surely the aim should be 15 minute facilities across the board for the term to be meaningful, and not just for cycling. However, your link appears to show that they already have a 15 minute cycling City, providing you don't need to cross town for the facilities.

Many resources are no longer in the City centre in any event, but the main reason I asked it, is that the criteria as set out in your previous link does not have that as a measure of success as far as I can see, which just seems odd given that's what it is sold as.

I'm totally in favour of encouraging alternatives to the private car, but I've seen far too many schemes that don't end up achieving that to get blindly optimistic towards the latest fad.

I've seen park and ride schemes that actually created a health issue from emissions, and bus only schemes that resulted in worse air quality, as well as numerous cycle schemes that increased congestion and had no notable increase in cyclists. People like Khan fudging various figures beyond their initial use don't help.

 

[T4tomo]

In what way does that meet a 15 minute City claim?

Oxford is proposing to limit car journey through the city centre and a coupe of other "rat runs" close to the ring road (i.e drive that traffic out to teh dual carriage way ring raod and away from residential area.

Its nothing to do with so called 15 minute cities, which incidentally also aim to reduce car journeys, but is a different concept altogther.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

waving is also a greeting

You’re claiming that your waving icon at the end of more than one of your replies to my posts was a greeting 😂🤣

 

[ClichéGuevara]

You’re claiming that your waving icon at the end of more than one of your replies was a greeting 😂🤣

Am I, how interesting.

It's perhaps a bit off the wall, but as you're here maybe you'd like to join in one of the conversations with others rather than this continual one you seem to be having with yourself?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Am I, how interesting.

It's perhaps a bit off the wall, but as you're here maybe you'd like to join in one of the conversations with others rather than this continual one you seem to be having with yourself?

The one in which you keep replying but claim you are not part of 🤣😂

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Mod note:

Thread locked until one of the Mods has time to take a look at, and deal with, the ongoing spat.