A leading city councillor as warned Oxford’s roads are at “capacity”, as a new consultation has been launched to implement six traffic filters in the city.
Last Monday (September 5) a consultation on six trial traffic filters on key routes across Oxford went live on the Oxfordshire County Council website.
If approved, the aim of the filters will be to improve bus services and journey times, reduce walking and cycling accidents and improve air quality.
READ MORE: Oxford's Broad Street to be pedestrianised for trial scheme
Three of the filters would be located in the city centre in St Cross Road, Thames Street and Hythe Bridge Street. The remaining three filters will be located in St Clements, Marston Ferry Road, Hollow Way.
The concept of traffic filters was first introduced in 2015 in the Oxford Transport Strategy which was part of the county’s local transport plan
The county council’s cabinet members will consider feedback from the consultation alongside the results of technical assessments before making a decision on introducing the trial traffic filters.
If the cabinet decides to implement the trial traffic filters, they will be introduced under an experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) next summer for a minimum of six months.
Plans for the filters have not come without concerns from residents, who feel the filters will physically separate the more affluent parts of the city from working class areas, push more traffic onto the A34 and negatively impact people who need to access Oxford Railway Station and John Radcliffe Hospital.
During a sit down interview on September 8 at Oxford Town Hall, the Oxford Mail put the public’s main queries about the traffic filters - as well as wider traffic measures - to Louise Upton, Oxford City Council’s cabinet member for health and transport.
The Labour councillor, who represents the ward of Walton Manor, said the filters are part of the city and county council’s plans to create a “carbon neutral” Oxford.
The long term goal being to get a quarter of car journeys off the road by 2030 and a third by 2040.
She explained: “We are not saying you can never use your car but it is a nudge towards ‘please use it less’.
“Journey times in the city have been getting slower and slower the last 15 years and with more jobs and houses coming in the city, that is just going to get worse and things are going to grind to a halt.
“The roads are at capacity already, so if we just do nothing then it will clog up completely.”
One “big worry” for the council is the impact ever-growing traffic is having on Oxford’s bus network.
It has been stated in the consultation that if congestion is reduced by around 20 per cent then the bus companies will be able to run new routes; one connecting the east of the city and another the north and west.
Alongside these new routes, 159 electric buses would be provided to Oxford using £32.8 million of funding from the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme.
In March, Phil Southall, managing director of Oxford Bus Company, Thames Travel and City Sightseeing Oxford, celebrated the successful bid for the money but stressed “to make a fleet transition financially viable we need to speed up bus journey times by 10 per cent”.
The filters are thus part of a wider set of measures, including the Zero Emission Zone and workplace parking levy, to reduce congestion in order to gain an improved bus network.
Mrs Upton added: “For people who have to use their car, for example to pick someone up from the station or take their mum to the hospital, there will be less congestion so they will know that ten minute journey will actually take ten minutes.
“They won’t be sitting in queues of traffic.”
Even with the prospect of improved bus connectivity and congestion, there are concerns from residents that the traffic filters, combined with other measures, will cut parts of Oxford off from each other – both physically and socioeconomically.
Readers have pointed out a majority of traffic measures are located in predominantly working class areas, the worry being that these communities are effectively being cut off from the more affluent parts of the city.
Mrs Upton insisted this is “not the aim of it at all” and it is about “trying to get the congestion better for everyone”.
She admits her own ward Walton Manor, which comes under the bracket of Oxford’s more expensive post codes, has people who feel they are being cut off from the hospital and railway station.
“Everybody, no matter where they are, is feeling something,” she stated.
Further worries have arisen from the idea that traffic will simply move from the city centre out onto the A34, displacing congestion elsewhere and clogging the ring road.
However, Mrs Upton stated the county council have extensive modelling to predict outcomes and driver behaviours, with the belief traffic on the A34 will only marginally increase.
Humans, she admits though, are “unpredictable” and so results could differ from the models once the filters are implemented.
Anyone can provide feedback on the proposed trial by filling in the consultation survey, which will be open from 5 September (12 noon) to 3 October 2022 (midnight) and only needs to be completed once.
You can fill the consultation here letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022 or fill in a printed copy in libraries around the city.
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Read more from this author
This story was written by Sophie Perry. She joined the team in 2021 as a digital reporter.
You can get in touch with her by emailing: sophie.perry@newsquest.co.uk
Follow her on Twitter @itssophieperry
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