Dear Robert Jenrick,
Please intervene to stop the implementation of economically and environmentally damaging, discriminatory ‘bus gates’ in Oxford.
I write to you on behalf of the Oxford High Street Association, a group of businesses and colleges based on the High Street and side streets of Oxford’s historic city centre. Oxford City Council is seeking to introduce a number of ‘bus gates’ (that is, barriers prohibiting the free passage of the vast majority of vehicles) at key points around the city centre. The proposals are apparently intended to encourage cycling, yet would have no positive impact on cycling safety, perception of safety or uptake. Money is being misspent on actions that would increase total emissions, increase congestion on the ring road and remaining arterial roads into the city centre, and be incredibly damaging to local businesses, tradesmen, rural local residents, residents with complex needs and caregivers, amongst others. We are seeking your help in blocking their implementation.
The council asserts that the move would “ensure that road users can look forward to faster bus services, reduced congestion in the centre of Oxford, and more road space for cyclists travelling across the city.” This despite the fact that bus services are currently running in fine time, there is negligible congestion (and crucially no telling when any meaningful congestion levels may return, given the effect of the pandemic on working habits) and the fact that road space per se is in no way the highest priority measure when considering cycling safety and perception of safety. The city’s cycling infrastructure in the city is certainly very poor but this is what your government’s well-intended funding should be spent on improving, not on bus gates.
Discriminatory proposals
As well as buses, taxis are exempt from the proposals and so would be able to drive with impunity through affected streets. As such, any financially able resident or visitor would be far less affected by the proposals’ implementation. The council has suggested some permits may be introduced to local residents (though no details have been provided), yet this still discriminates against rural Oxfordshire residents, especially those on lower incomes, who might just as reasonably need to get into the city centre but cannot afford to live there (or indeed choose not to for any other number of reasons). That is not fair. Perhaps even more crucially, essential journeys made by people with complex needs, caregivers, the elderly and those who have difficulty walking, those who have MS, chronic fatigue, autism, immuno-suppressing conditions requiring more care to be taken in the current climate to avoid public transport etc. without such freedom will also be made more difficult, if not impossible by the introduction of bus gates. It is wholly inappropriate for the city council to propose such damaging measures without meaningful supporting data (they have negligible amounts) or consultation (to which they finally acquiesced for less than two weeks, after outcry from the public. Minimal effort was made to ensure key stakeholders were informed and engaged.
Irreparably damaging for local businesses
Crucially for city centre businesses, these proposals would be damaging to already decimated footfall levels. On learning of the bus gates’ implementation, many would-be visitors to Oxford might quite reasonably decide to travel to a more car-friendly city or town centre instead, rather than use public transport (whether out of covid-related concern or otherwise) or take a circuitous route via the ring road to travel into Oxford’s city centre. All modes of travel into and around any city centre at a time like this should be encouraged, to help support local businesses. And it is being done elsewhere: your university town Cambridge for example is slashing city council car park charges to £1 an hour for three months to encourage shoppers to visit the city safely by car. Oxford should be doing similarly.
Should these nominally ‘temporary’ bus gate proposals be implemented, they are allowed 18 months to run before analysis is required. Such a period of time with such punitive measures in place would be more than enough to cause irreparable damage to city businesses, including permanent closure.
Safe cycling should be positively encouraged by other means
There are a huge number of measures that could be implemented instead to improve and encourage cycling, thereby improving air quality and public health, without negatively impacting those who need to make journeys within and across the city centre by car: the National Infrastructure’s report ‘Running Out of Road: Investing in Cycling in Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford’ provides many brilliant recommendations. As an addendum to this letter I have included in more detail examples of such suggestions.
Your authority could help overturn the proposals
We would be incredibly grateful if you could intercede with Oxford City and County Councils on the behalf of ourselves and all others likely to be affected. We have no doubt your authority would add great weight to the argument against the bus gates’ implementation and would be invaluable in effecting positive change.
Yours sincerely,
Emily Scaysbrook
Oxford High Street Association
Alternative actions that would encourage cycling without negative impact
Encourage cycling uptake in the city centre
Provide subsidised cycling proficiency lessons for any Oxfordshire resident wanting them, not just NHS workers and students, who are currently the only ones able to benefit from free lessons through the Broken Spoke bike co-op. Many London boroughs do this as you’re no doubt aware - indeed I took up the offer when I first moved to the capital, and I found it immensely useful and feel much safer on the roads as a result.
Help lower-income families and individuals to buy bikes and necessary accessories. The bike to work (loan) scheme is great, but insufficient. Grants could be provided instead, as an additional feature of Universal Credit perhaps or similar.
I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that some families don’t use bikes in town because they fear they’ll be stolen. Punish bike theft more severely to lessen this fear. Help the public believe that bike theft will be taken seriously.
Perhaps you could provide subsidised electric bikes for elderly people? Headington hill isn’t something I’d want to face 50 years from now without a little help. This isn’t the Netherlands and the roads aren’t all flat, easy rides.
Exchanging Places training: you could work with logistics providers to make this mandatory for all HGV drivers coming into Oxford to reduce road traffic accidents. Perhaps you could even work with the university and local community initiatives to create virtual reality lessons to create something similar on smart phones for cyclists.
Many cyclists in Oxford don’t help themselves. Change this by introducing harsher penalties for cyclists without lights.
Many cars don’t appreciate cyclists’ needs either. Change this by introducing harsher penalties for cars parking in bike lanes.
Slow speeds on roads: even down to 15/20mph in areas that you are looking to improve safety, encourage cycling etc.
It may be simple, but introduce more bike parking! With some 24,000 students at the University alone, many of whom regularly cycle, there is a huge need for more parking. There is no purpose built parking along the High Street for example. It would not be hard to implement and would be a great easy win.
Fix poor planning
There are a number of cases in Oxford of urban planning poorly designed or implemented, detailed in the Running Out of Road Report. It notes that Oxford City Council’s core strategy, its main statement of planning policy, says it “will seek to ensure the transport impact of any new development is fully mitigated... planning permission will only be granted for development that prioritises access by walking, cycling and public transport.” Yet it does not happen in practice. This surely needs addressing:
The Centrica office opened only in 2013, part of Oxford Business Park, has been described by council officers as “chronic” and a “case study in bad planning” with almost no provisions made for bikes or public transport. Surely this should be addressed.
Nearby, the redevelopment of Templars Square shopping centre in Cowley received planning permission in July this year even though it includes almost no provision for cyclists or public transport users. Could permission be retracted until provision is made?
Outside the city, in the South Oxfordshire district, a new 3,300-home neighbourhood called Great Western Park is now under construction at Didcot. There are no facilities for cycling, beyond a few racks. Even though the development is little more than a mile from the town’s mainline railway station, it is not possible to walk or cycle directly to it. Could cycling infrastructure be introduced before construction is complete, to encourage good cycling behaviours for new residents from day one?
In central Oxford, the new Westgate shopping centre is a textbook example of the failure of planning policy. It was opened with virtually none of the new cycle parking spaces promised by the developers (and which were a condition of planning permission.) Eight months on, cycle parking is still not what was promised, much is inconveniently located and some is actually charged for. Perhaps you could take up the issue with the developers, since cycle parking was a condition of permission granted.
Weak links in infrastructure
Cycling infrastructure is only as good as its weakest link and there are very many places in Oxford where the infrastructure is terrible. Improve the existing infrastructure, repaint the current lanes, resurface where necessary and where possible segregate them. Extend them beyond the ring road limits ideally but at least to the various Park and Rides. What has been done in recent weeks at Magdalen Bridge is an appalling example of how not to refresh infrastructure. The cycle lanes have been widened on both sides such that it is now the case that two buses cannot pass one another without both encroaching into their side’s cycle lane. A cyclist should be able to reasonably assume that cycle lanes are just that: lanes for bicycles alone. Especially with an average of some 860 bikes an hour, 14 a minute, crossing Magdalen Bridge (the county council’s figures as provided in Running out of road), I cannot see how such a situation isn’t likely to result in a terrible accident. These extended lanes need to be reconsidered.
Improving journeys where cycling provides the ‘last mile’ solution
Provide far more space on trains for bikes. As it stands there is normally space for four bikes on the train from Paddington to Oxford for example. On the train from Marylebone to Oxford there is normally one space to lean one or two bikes, but no reservations may be made and there is no way of keeping bikes separate from one another (which one would ideally want to do for the sake of minimising contact of personal goods).
Provide not just more bike parking, but safer bike parking at Park and Rides and around town. Provide secure lockers at Park and Ride sites for bikes that users intend to leave longer than 24 hours before returning. (I have yet to find an insurance company that will insure a bike for longer than 24 hours if left outside the home.)
And if congestion does return to the city centre?
A congestion charge between certain hours would surely be fairer than a total ban. You could charge all vehicles travelling 7:30-9am say, and again 5-6:30pm, with a reduced (or no) charge for electric vehicles. This would encourage delivery vehicles, local residents and visitors who aren’t constrained by the time of day to travel at cheaper, less congested times of day, but still give them the option of travelling in peak times if necessary.
Making cycling infrastructure from all Park and Rides into town far wider and more impactful - more similar to the brilliant cycle route down the Marston Ferry Road. I have no doubt that doing so could see other city centre schools enjoy increased levels of children cycling to school, their parents having dropped them off at the Park and Ride.