All posts in the topic Transform Oxford – a Beeching Plan for Buses? (Short link)

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Oxford has often been hailed, in these pages and elsewhere, as a beacon of good
practice for bus-friendly policies which have driven impressive patronage
growth and encouraged excellent frequent services from two competing PLC bus
companies over the past decade. These services are now under threat from a
major pedestrianisation scheme, compounded by Oxford’s unique geography and
politics.

Pedestrianisation – sounds good doesn’t it? Immediately it brings to mind
images of shoppers and sightseers strolling serenely through quiet streets,
meandering in and out of shops and gazing up at historic buildings from a new
mid street vantage point. It’s hard to argue against it, isn’t it?

Sadly that is now my job, as a huge pedestrianisation scheme is planned for
Oxford City Centre by Oxfordshire County Council. A slick publicity campaign is
already under way for the scheme – branded Transform Oxford – with high-quality
computer-generated images, just like those described above, released to the
local press.

The problem with the scheme is the impact it has on bus users. In a compact
City Centre with a largely mediaeval street pattern, the best use has already
been made of the available space for the competing needs of buses [ie bus
users], pedestrians, cyclists and private traffic. Pedestrianising more streets
just means that something will have to give. That “something” is going to be
bus users. Private traffic is unlikely to be further restricted given the
laissez-faire ethos of the ruling Conservative group on the County Council.
Cyclists will probably be no better or worse off, banned from pedestrian
streets during shopping hours but with less traffic on other streets. It is bus
users who will be faced with longer walks, more changes to complete their
journeys, and slower journeys mixed in with private traffic.

Without going into detail, the scheme will be phased in, with bus users being
squeezed out a little more in each phase. One or two streets will be closed
each year until 2011. The most drastic phase then happens in 2013, when the aim
is to reduce the number of buses using the busy High Street. The High Street
has become a very intensive bus corridor in recent years, owing to Oxford’s
peculiar geography. Four radial roads converge in the St Clements area, just to
the east of the City Centre. All their bus routes then cross the River Cherwell
on Magdalen Bridge, then proceed up the High Street to the central shopping
area and railway station. Magdalen Bridge is the only crossing of the Cherwell
near the City Centre. About three-quarters of the City’s population lives east
of it, but all City Centre facilities are west of it, and the railway station
is even further west. This has resulted in over a hundred buses per hour using
the High Street to link population to facilities.

The County’s plan? Terminate all routes just east of Magdalen Bridge and force
passengers to change to large, high-capacity articulated buses, possibly like
York’s FTRs [see earlier editions of Bus User]. The detail is yet to be worked
out, but with little space at the roundabout where most routes converge for a
major interchange, the idea of ploughing up a corner of a city park to make
space for one has been put forward. Users from the east who currently have a
direct route into the City Centre will have to change buses. Users who
currently change once to complete their journey will have to change twice.

Don’t forget that, by then, many streets currently used for interchange will
have been closed, resulting in long walks in order to do so. Journey times in
Oxford are already quite long enough, with point-to-point speeds on main city
bus routes at around 8 mph. This scheme will make them even longer. Users from
the north, south and west will also be disadvantaged by long walks in order to
interchange.

How has this scheme come about? Again the situation is probably unique to
Oxford. Oxford’s social make-up is in some ways much like an inner London
borough, with full-time students and visiting academics rubbing shoulders with
an ethnically mixed resident population of young professionals in biotech and
IT sectors, families, pensioners and skilled industrial workers at the BMW
plant. Oxford has two local authorities – Oxford City Council and a Oxfordshire
County Council. It is the County which is the transport authority and which has
in the past delivered the bus-friendly policies which has allowed excellent
commercial services to thrive.

The ruling Conservative group at the County has formed links with an
affiliation of businesses and Oxford University colleges along the High Street
who have decided that there are “too many buses on the High Street”. They are
led by Jeremy Mogford, owner of the Old Bank Hotel and Quod restaurant. I’ll
leave it up to readers as to whether to use his businesses in future! The
affiliation in particular wishes to see the frequent coaches to Central London,
Heathrow and Gatwick Airports routed away from the High Street. Some might find
it staggering that a hotelier would not want the world’s most frequent coach
service linking his business to the World’s busiest international airport and
Europe’s largest city!

The London buses are a great asset to the city as a whole. Oxford Railway
Station is to the west of the City Centre, a long way from the bulk of the
population to the east. First Great Western’s rail service is improving, but
suffers from capacity constraints at times, is limited after 21:00 and often
does not run at weekends. It doesn’t run directly to Heathrow or Gatwick
either. The London and Airport buses fill this gap perfectly, by running 24
hours per day direct to London, Heathrow and Gatwick from several calling
points in Eastern Oxford. The County plans will reduce the attractiveness of
the service, resulting in scaling it back – at precisely the time when it will
also become more difficult to get to the Railway Station!

The ruling group at the County Council has no seats within the city itself,
largely representing market towns and often affluent rural shire constituencies
which will not be affected by the changes. This is not to stand on a platform
supporting unitary status; the City Council as owner of the City Centre car
parks has always profited from stuffing as many cars as possible into the City
Centre, rather than pricing off demand. Lengthy queues of cars on Saturday
afternoons on the main radials are a nightmare for bus users and are a direct
consequence of the City cashing in on their car parks. It has also long wanted
to close one of the streets the County will close in 2009, and so has remained
muted on the matter or Transform Oxford, other than a “Yah Boo” type attack on
the scheme by the City Labour group which failed to focus on key issues.

Such a radical “reshaping” of both local and long-distance services in any
transport system is almost without precedent. I say “almost” because I do
wonder whether the County Council Leader Keith Mitchell wants to become known
as the “Beeching of the Buses”!

There are some positives to the scheme. Some of the pedestrianised streets will
become more attractive for bus users once they have struggled into town.
High-capacity articulated “bendy” buses, if the County can be persuaded to run
them out to high-volume corridors, will be more fit for purpose for busy urban
runs than some of the bog-standard single-door single-deck vehicles currently
in use. The artic service will be free between Magdalen Bridge and the Station,
as currently proposed. Also as currently proposed, city-wide joint smart-card
ticketing will be introduced on all buses by the County. I am very dubious
about this last one – the ruling group recently voted down a proposal for a
much smaller joint-ticketing scheme in Wantage, currently served by four
operators.

So with a County ruling group whose main constituency contains few bus users,
and an ambivalent City, it is down to the local BUUK group to mount a campaign
to halt the scheme, or argue for the budget to go towards mitigating measures.
We have certainly got our work cut out! We will keep Bus User informed of
developments.