Imagine a young mother in the central reservation of a four-lane highway pushing a pram, holding on to the hands of two other children and trying to dodge traffic to get to a ‘Tumble Tots’ activity class on the other side.

Imagine an elderly couple in the London-bound rush hours trying to cross the same road for a morning swim. Impossible? No, I see these people daily on the A40 just outside Oxford trying to get across the road between Barton and Risinghurst and Sandhills.

“If you get to the middle you have to take your life in your hands to cross,” warns Barbara Naylor, chair of the Risinghurst and Sandhills Parish Council. We have been campaigning for at least six years to get a traffic light crossing.

“When the Headington Road roundabout was upgraded several years ago we were promised money for a crossing of the A40 at the Collinwood Road Church. Nothing happened. About two years ago there was a packed out meeting at the church to get a safe crossing. Nothing happened.

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“It’s dangerous. We know of many near misses with people. And there have been vehicle accidents where cars turn into Risinghurst and buses speeding in the bus lane plough into them.”

Why do people risk crossing this road? Oxfordshire County Councillor Glynis Phillips is clear. “There are lots of legitimate reasons why residents have to cross this road. On the Barton side there is the leisure centre and swimming pool, primary school, church and well stocked supermarket. On the other side of the road Sandhills has a primary school and Risinghurst has the excellent and only post office in the area, Ampleforth Pub, popular hairdressers, church and shops and food outlets. Both Barton and Risinghurst have community centres with lots of activities to attract residents from either side of the main A40 London Road.”

Oxford Mail:

 Risinghurst Parish Council chairman Barbara Naylor at the closed reservation gap with her dog Jessie

According to Oxfordshire County Council cabinet documents of May 14, 2014, there are “200 crossing movements during a 12-hour period. The logical solution is either a reconfiguration of the signals arrangements between Collinwood Road and the roundabout (a new set of traffic lights) or a pedestrian bridge. Either solution requires significant finance and there are no obvious funding streams available at the time.”

Councillor Glynis Phillips sees a clear difference here. “The county council is concerned about the knock-on implications of delays for all vehicle users if there were a pedestrian crossing at this point on the busy A40, but local residents and councillors are more concerned about the safety issues. The cabinet thinks pedestrians should be using the existing underpasses at the roundabout, but these are too far away from where people need to cross the road, and besides they were recently closed for two weeks – but that turned into more like 11 weeks. So where were the residents supposed to go?”

“No one wants to be accused of shroud waving but it took an horrific accident on the Eastern Bypass around Oxford to build a central reservation which was ‘previously unaffordable’. We should be learning from the past and not waiting for fatal accidents.”

Oxford Mail:

 From left, Mahesh Gandhi of the post office, Carl Room of McDonald’s, and Terry Roper at the gap

This view was confirmed by Barton resident Major Terry Roper, who helped organise a petition for a pedestrian crossing that got over 1,000 signatures. “At a public meeting I pressed the Oxfordshire County Council spokesman, getting a reluctant admission that the flow of traffic was more important than pedestrian safety, and until someone was killed there was no chance.”

Terry enlisted the help of local MP Andrew Smith, who got this statement from the leader of the Council, Ian Hudspeth last May: “I acknowledge that the [A40 Collinwood Road junction] crossing would, in principle, be desirable given the level of pedestrian movements here; for information a preliminary design has been prepared and traffic modelling carried out to access the impact on the A40. While this work suggests a crossing here would likely be feasible, at present we have no specific funding for this project (for information the indicated cost estimate for this crossing is around £150,000).” So nothing is happening.

Nothing… except Terry has been told that the ducting work for traffic lights at the proposed crossing site is already in place and has been for some time, only the electrics have not been installed. Additionally, at the very spot where locals want the pedestrian crossing, on either side of the road and in a gap in the central reservation, are faun-coloured slabs with slightly raised spots, which are present at all road crossings to indicate to visually impared people that they are at the edge of the ‘safety area’ of a footpath and are about to enter a ‘protected’ area across a road.

Imagine being partially sighted or blind and locating these raised spots with your white cane and then trying to negotiate cars, vans and buses travelling to and from London across one of the busiest roads in Oxfordshire without the benefit of a pedestrian crossing and traffic light.

If there is an accident here voters might well connect all these dots, which could lead to the question: “There may be ‘no specific funding’ for this project, but how much is a life worth?” And they might conclude that at £150,000 it’s a pretty good deal.

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