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Noam Bleicher	081104_Bus_User_TO_Article.doc	Nov 09 14:27 UTC

From: Noam Bleicher Date: Nov 09 14:27 UTC Short link

As a bit of background, here is an article I have written for Bus User
magazine, regarding Transform Oxford. It is for an audience familiar with
public transport but unfamiliar with Oxford. Further details of our campaign
will follow when they have been finalised.

Transform Oxford – a Beeching Plan for Buses?

=======================================

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.

The following file was added to this topic:

081104_Bus_User_TO_Article.doc (application/octet-stream, 28KB)

From: Ian Alexander Date: Nov 09 15:09 UTC Short link

This is a splendid article: well-informed, sane, balanced, making a powerful
case. And from someone in west Oxford to boot!
  Ian Alexander

Noam Bleicher <noambleicher@hotmail.com> wrote:
  As a bit of background, here is an article I have written for Bus User
magazine, regarding Transform Oxford. It is for an audience familiar with
public transport but unfamiliar with Oxford. Further details of our campaign
will follow when they have been finalised.

Transform Oxford  a Beeching Plan for Buses?

=======================================

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 Oxfords unique geography and
politics.

Pedestrianisation  sounds good doesnt 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. Its hard to argue against it, isnt 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 Oxfords
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 Citys 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 Countys plan? Terminate all routes just east of Magdalen Bridge and force
passengers to change to large, high-capacity articulated buses, possibly like
Yorks 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.

Dont 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. Oxfords 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. Ill 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 worlds most frequent coach
service linking his business to the Worlds busiest international airport and
Europes 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 Westerns rail service is improving, but
suffers from capacity constraints at times, is limited after 21:00 and often
does not run at weekends. It doesnt 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.


Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum now contains the following file

http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/file/168-2008-11-09T142714Z
Name: 081104_Bus_User_TO_Article.doc
Tags:
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 28KB


All the files that have been added to Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum
can be viewed at
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Noam Bleicher
New Hinksey, Oxford
Info about Noam Bleicher:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/3r1u0OpAwUymfsnvetfRmk

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Dr J H (Ian) Alexander

From: nom Magnay Date: Nov 09 15:24 UTC Short link

I also noticed a comment on the Oxford mail website (
http://m6live.oxfordmail.net/news/3812381.City_squawks_at__cuckoo__road_plan/),
which makes me wonder if this is even a serious suggestion:

Aslam, Headington says...
12:40pm Tue 4 Nov 08
Bendy buses have been tried before in Oxford. I know because I drove them.
They are too big and can not negotiate from high street to St Aldates nor
many other corners in Oxford. The County Council should take note of this.
They should also ask and listen to the residents of Oxford, finding out what
they want. The County are trying to dictate, I thought we lived in a
democracy. Lastly why do these councillors, who do not even live in the
City, think they know best?


At least I know to no longer spend any money at Quod. A more barking scheme
I have not seen since pedestrianisation of Headington (mind you, then as now
I did wonder if it was a cynical plan to gain acceptance of a lesser
proposal by offering up something so bad).

A friend who also lives in Cowley quipped that he wondered when the
crocodiles were being delivered to fill the moat to keep people from
visiting the city any more...

From: David Clover Date: Nov 09 15:46 UTC Short link

I sent this to Ruth Wilkinson, but I offer it here too.

The simple truth is that this is and always has been a completely
intractable problem. That's why the controversial Christ Church Meadow road
was proposed. Post-war development planned for central Oxford included a
proposed relief road passing through the meadow and joining the district of
St Ebbe's. The proposal was defeated after vigorous opposition. Nothing has
substantially changed in terms of geography or constraints since then,
though the population has grown substantially along with the tourist
traffic, especially that from London.

See for a most interesting reference to Meadow relief road plan (BTW many
thanks to Google for digitising so many obscure and interesting works for
lookup and reference):
http://tinyurl.com/6ydtpp

There's actually in my simple-minded view a better case for more, and very
much smaller buses - perhaps electric or hybrid - running a frequent shuttle
service from East to West via Headington, Cowley and Iffley roads including
the High Street and station, but banning all other traffic completely on
those routes after Magdalen Bridge - sending all car traffic via Marston
Ferry Road/Banbury Road to the centre or via Abingdon Road.

The damage that even a smaller number of megabuses will do because of their
axle loads will greatly outweigh the perceived benefits. Of course more
(small) buses means more drivers and more wages. But if Oxford is indeed a
national treasure, this should be properly reflected in grants and subsidy
to the transport operators - as it would be in any major European city and
we are a full part of Europe and we are a major heritage city - EU grants
might be available.

It's just plain loopy to expect people travelling from the East side of
Oxford to dismount at London Place and ask them to assemble into a mega
queue again for an infrequent huge bus to take them onward. Granted the
able-bodied can walk, but for many it's going to be a trek. Returning from
town with shopping is also going to be a problem. And catching a train when
you start from the East side is going to be well nigh impossible. In fact it
would probably be much easier to set up a frequent shuttle service from the
East of Oxford to Thame and Haddenham Parkway - it might even be quicker!

An alternative might be to have more buses going down Headley Way into town,
but the economics of this are suspect as there are not many centres of
population to pick up passengers in on the way to St Giles, and in any case,
how do you serve Brookes->Oxford and its intersite traffic and the homes in
the St Clements area if you do that.  But at least St Giles/Martyrs Memorial
is a more reasonable destination for those going to town. London Place is
certainly not. Carving out the bottom end of South Park for a bus terminal
seems like the worst sort of vandalism and it's very boggy which could
increase runoff and cause localised flooding or extra damp problems to the
houses in St Clements.

As Noam Bleicher says, the geography of Oxford has always militated against
a fully pedestrianised High Street. Oxford is built on a cross pattern,
tightly constrained on all sides by rivers and flood plain areas and it
always will be. York (which is sometimes offered as a meretricious
comparison) is a 'circle' town and much more accessible in all ways from the
edges. There's even a French-style 'petit train' to take people from the
Minster area to the Railway Museum and station (now there's a thought).

What about some radical alternatives. Light trams through Christ Church
Meadow? A Venetian style 'Vaporetto' service from a newly-created parking
area using the flood plain land at Donnington Bridge?

We all think we'd like more pedestrianised areas - but to be honest even the
ones we have are now a rather unpleasant heaving mass of people wandering
all over the place and cheap street-hucksters. In my view, there's nothing
especially attractive about them these days. They will never be as
attractive to walk in as the areas in York. Oxford isn't an open air museum,
and even if the members of All Souls and the owner of Quod and the Old Bank
Hotel are going to vote Conservative at the next CC election to encourage
this extremely daft scheme, I'm certainly not going to.

David Clover
10 Kennett Road

-----Original Message-----
From: Noam Bleicher [mailto:noambleicher@hotmail.com]
Sent: 09 November 2008 14:30
To: Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum
Subject: [HMNF] Transform Oxford - a Beeching Plan for Buses?

As a bit of background, here is an article I have written for Bus User
magazine, regarding Transform Oxford. It is for an audience familiar with
public transport but unfamiliar with Oxford. Further details of our campaign
will follow when they have been finalised.

Transform Oxford - a Beeching Plan for Buses?
=======================================

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.

Headington &amp; Marston Neighbourhood Forum now contains the following file

    http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/file/168-2008-11-09T142714Z
    Name: 081104_Bus_User_TO_Article.doc
    Tags:
    Type: application/octet-stream
    Size: 28KB

All the files that have been added to Headington &amp; Marston Neighbourhood
Forum can be viewed at
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Noam Bleicher
New Hinksey, Oxford
Info about Noam Bleicher:
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From: Ruth Wilkinson Date: Nov 10 08:49 UTC Short link

Just a brief note to all, David Rundle and I are keen to take on board all the
comments raised about the County's Transform Oxford proposals on the forum.  We
are having regular meetings with bus companies and are raising your concerns
with them. They will play a significant role in shaping the vision for Oxford's
city centre too.  It's really important that you have your say, and that we
represent your views.  I have had a number of emails from Headington residents
in my councillor inbox, if anyone has views on this and they don't particularly
want to post them up for all to see, please do get in touch with me off-forum
as we really do want to hear from you.

From: Nicholas Newman Date: Nov 10 15:59 UTC Short link

The proposals to ban buses into parts of Oxford, is just another example of
conservative run local authorities in this country, that are anti public
transport. As evidenced by the poor local buses services outside Oxford and the
scrapping of ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s plans to further invest in the
expansion of public transport services, by new Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Such political bias against public transport is well described in ‘TRAFFIC JAM:
TEN YEARS OF SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT IN THE UK’
http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/trafficjam.htm

From: Joan Williams Date: Nov 10 16:27 UTC Short link

I hear that "Honest Chris's" latest odds for a Headington/Marston related
link from Nicholas are: 1/5 on!

From: Stephanie Jenkins Date: Jan 02 10:24 UTC Short link

I see that Ian Hudspeth is going to address the South East Area Committee in
Littlemore on Monday night (5 January) on the proposals to pedestrianize Oxford
city centre:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4012359.Traffic_ban_up_for_debate/

I find it odd that that he has "no other plans to talk to other area committees
or community groups": this scheme seriously affects the whole of Oxford, and it
seems unfair to give just one area committee an opportunity to find out more
and ask questions.

He does however say that he would be "happy to meet interested groups subject
to time commitments".  I do hope something will be arranged for Headington and
Marston.

From: Chris Brewer Date: Jan 02 15:16 UTC Short link

Yes, I find Mr. Hudspeth's reticence rather surprising. The next North East
Area meeting is on January 20th in the British Legion Club in Marston -
couldn't Mr. Hudspeth be invited to come along?

From: Dee Sinclair Date: Jan 02 18:22 UTC Short link

When Ian Hudspeth attended a recent meeting of the North East Area Committee
at my request he said he was happy to attend future meetings.  At the last City
Council Communities and Partnership Scrutiny meeting which Cllr Hudspeth and
Cllr Keith Mitchell attended, I asked that he please consider attendance at
area committees so that local residents had the opportunity to hear the
arguments for 'Transform Oxford' in a public arena.

Headington and Marston will be significantly affected by the County's plans,
and it is important that everyone has the chance to challenge them.  As chair
of the NEAC I will ensure the invitation is made formally and hopefully Cllr
Hudspeth will be attending a meeting in the very near future.  With County
elections coming up in June I would have thought it  essential for the
Administration to be listening to local residents on such an important matter.

From: nicholas fell Date: Jan 03 18:38 UTC Short link

All I can say is that Mr Hudspeth had better turn up to the next NEAC meeting,
if he fails to show up I will be speaking to Mr Huw Jones at Speedwell House to
register a formal protest, and to raise a formal complaint against Ian Hudspeth
and I may even write to the Standards Board for England about him and his
conduct.  This is no idle threat I can assure you, I will make it happen if
necessary.

This Transform Oxford plan is nothing more than a punishment scorched earth
policy against the people of Oxford for not voting Tory, and another excellent
reason to do battle against them to keep them out of the city at the County
Council Elections in June 2009 and to seriously give them a good electoral
thrashing.  Pedestrianising the Centre of Oxford under the current planned
proposals are a non starter, it shows that the Tories know nothing, and care
nothing, about Oxford and do not understand the City of Oxford.  They know the
price of everything and the value of nothing.  These Transform Oxford plans
deserve to be stuffed in the rubbish bin of history and should be laughed out
of court as the saying goes.  They deserve to be treated with derision and
contempt.  It is a completely loony backward regressive idea to Pedestrianise
the Centre.

Personally I would remove the High Street Bus Gate, and I would remove the
blockade of George Street as well, and I would reopen Cornmarket to through
traffic in both directions while I was at it.  I would also ban Councillors
from being able to drive directly to County Hall for free, I would charge them
a prohibitive toll tax for the pleasure.
I would also chuck out the Westgate expansion plan.

From: David Clover Date: Jan 04 10:07 UTC Short link

I'd recommend not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and take this in
stages. The pedestrian plan can be opposed in terms of balancing decent and
convenient access by bus against the loss of amenity caused by buses being
present at all, but then to talk wildly about removing the bus gates, and
reopening Cornmarket both ways would substantially diminish the perceived
seriousness of the stronger case for retaining the current bus access
arrangements.

I have elderly relatives who can just about get to where they want in town
at the moment on a bus, and we will all be elderly one day. Expecting people
with limited mobility to trek all around the town from far flung bus stops
when they can currently be dropped off pretty much where they need to be now
is a major issue, and one worth pushing very hard at. Will the Disability
Discrimination Act help here I wonder?

See:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRi
ghts/DG_4001068 and the section about "access to goods, facilities and
services, including larger private clubs and transport services "

Stopping through-bus access to the railway station and town centre for
people from Headington and Cowley is a betrayal of the long-standing
agreement made with the people of Oxford when the Christ Church Meadow road
was finally shelved in the 1960's. It was agreed as a 'quid pro quo' for
withdrawing the plans that cross-town public transport services should be
greatly improved to reduce or remove the need for through car traffic in
Oxford. The geography and issues raised by that sensible landmark decision,
even if it was a long time ago, are no different now from what they were
then.

David Clover

-----Original Message-----
From: nicholas fell [mailto:nick.fell@btopenworld.com]
Sent: 03 January 2009 18:39
To: Oxford - Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum
Subject: Re: [HMNF] Transform Oxford - a Beeching Plan for Buses?

All I can say is that Mr Hudspeth had better turn up to the next NEAC
meeting, if he fails to show up I will be speaking to Mr Huw Jones at
Speedwell House to register a formal protest, and to raise a formal
complaint against Ian Hudspeth and I may even write to the Standards Board
for England about him and his conduct.  This is no idle threat I can assure
you, I will make it happen if necessary.

This Transform Oxford plan is nothing more than a punishment scorched earth
policy against the people of Oxford for not voting Tory, and another
excellent reason to do battle against them to keep them out of the city at
the County Council Elections in June 2009 and to seriously give them a good
electoral thrashing.  Pedestrianising the Centre of Oxford under the current
planned proposals are a non starter, it shows that the Tories know nothing,
and care nothing, about Oxford and do not understand the City of Oxford.
They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.  These Transform
Oxford plans deserve to be stuffed in the rubbish bin of history and should
be laughed out of court as the saying goes.  They deserve to be treated with
derision and contempt.  It is a completely loony backward regressive idea to
Pedestrianise the Centre.

Personally I would remove the High Street Bus Gate, and I would remove the
blockade of George Street as well, and I would reopen Cornmarket to through
traffic in both directions while I was at it.  I would also ban Councillors
from being able to drive directly to County Hall for free, I would charge
them a prohibitive toll tax for the pleasure.
I would also chuck out the Westgate expansion plan.

nicholas fell
Royal Borough of Headington, City of Oxford Info about nicholas fell:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/nicholasfell

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From: Dee Sinclair Date: Jan 05 15:37 UTC Short link

Ian Hudspeth has confirmed he is happy to attend a meeting of the NEAC,  We are
looking at future dates when county officers are also able to attend.

From: Chris Brewer Date: Jan 06 19:58 UTC Short link

The Oxford Mail report that at the South East meeting last night Ian Hudspeth
said - “Transform Oxford is a vision. This isn’t about how you get into Oxford.
We want to retain those bus passenger journeys into Oxford. This is about when
you get into Oxford what the quality of your experience is. We’re not going to
turn the Plain into a mass bus terminal, cutting off the east from the rest of
Oxford - 75 per cent of people in the city live to the east of the Plain, so
I’m as conscious as anybody we’re not going to cut them off.”

So, if I read that correctly, the bus routes from east of Magdalen Bridge will
be unchanged. No Plain bus interchange, no giant bendi-buses. It does make me
wonder why the idea was aired in the first place.

From: David Clover Date: Jan 06 22:00 UTC Short link

I suggest that the 'power of the forum' (and ours isn't the only one), has
been noted and that good sense may be about to prevail. There was no
ambiguity about the nature, presentation and purpose of the original
hare-brained proposals.

If so, all to the good. When a government such as the County's Tories are
can't be removed by the electorate that is most affected by its decisions,
all that is left to represent what we are pleased to call democracy is the
obtaining of consensus and listening to and balancing the competing claims
of well-informed and interested groups who know what they are talking about.

A governing body in such an unassailable electoral position as the County
Council Tories, having absolutely no formal mandate from a city such as ours
is, ignores those mechanisms at its peril. Not its electoral peril of
course, but in terms of being ultimately unable to govern an unwilling and
unreceptive community.

Obtaining the consent of the governed, even if they are never going to be
those who elect the government, is the only avenue now left to the County
Tories. Bearing in mind that only a small proportion of electors vote
anyway, obtaining and maintaining consensus amongst the governed is the only
realistic option. In this case the postings here may have contributed
substantially to that activity.

Alexis de Tocqueville and his liberal-minded disciples would have been very
pleased. Democracy isn't just to do with voting - in fact, in most cases it
has very little at all to do with it beyond providing a mechanism to recruit
public-minded people to act as governors. But it's activity like this in the
forum and on the ground that really counts.

The situation we have in Oxford with respect to the County Council can
potentially let us take all the 'Politics' out of politics and enable
decision making to be based around well expressed and fairly and openly
discussed good sense.

But perhaps I am being naïve....!

David Clover

From: Lindsey Doyle Date: Jan 06 22:52 UTC Short link

Thank you David; a very thoughtful and thought-provoking post.

From: Julia Gasper Date: Jan 07 06:53 UTC Short link

Well, maybe I wouldn't say "naive", David, but over-optimistic.
I have yet to see any sign that the Council will take notice of what ordinary
folks like us say in this forum, or in the bus-users group, or in letters to
our local councillor for that matter.

I agree with you strongly about the new proposals - they are totally negative
in their impact - and I put a message on the Central Forum (which I thought was
the logical place for it) to that effect a couple of months ago. But whatever
people say in newspapers etc I would be prepared to bet you a packet of crisps
that the Council does g ahead and impose the plan.

Bus transport in Oxford has got worse and worse for the past ten years, and the
result of saying so is just that person label you a "moaner". Yes, the centre
of the city is just a scruffy mess since pedestrianization, and it takes far
too long to get where people want to go to. Far too long! People have
pedestrian shopping malls if they want to get away from traffic (at least they
had some until this planning disaster left the Westgate an empty shell).
    The difference between the feudal system and the modern system is that
under the feudal system, the peasants had to pay a hefty amount of tax to their
rulers, and had no say at all in the decisions implemented, whereas nowadays,
of course, the City Council charges us hardly anything at all and ...oh, well,
so much for that argument.

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