This is an excellent set of ideas. We support both the broader goals of the COMPF project and the list of specific ideas, though the latter will need to be fleshed out with details before we can see how they will actually work. There are also a few areas we would have liked to have seen included that weren't.
The opportunities for improvement are huge. The public realm in the city centre is of quite poor standard, making it relatively unattractive for residents or visitors: central Cambridge is significantly nicer, to make the obvious comparison, as are the centres of York, Bath, or even Birmingham. (Though to be fair, some of those cities are significantly less pleasant than Oxford just outside the centre.)
Walking around central Oxford can be quite unpleasant: narrow, cramped footways, awkward and hostile crossings where people are almost forced to cross on red, too much motor traffic (including high bus flows in some locations), and poor separation from cycling.
There is also poor provision for cycling: most notably in the absence of accessible east-west and north-south routes through the centre, and the lack of any kind of safe, coherent and consistent cycling infrastructure along Banbury and Woodstock Rds.
** The City-Centre **
Many of the proposed schemes involve the creation of pedestrian-priority areas which will need motor traffic reduced or largely eliminated, but this seems somewhat patchy. We would like to see a coordinated approach to restricting motor traffic in the city centre, with a city-centre-wide area to which there would be no access for general motor traffic at all, uniform times for loading, services and deliveries, and pre-booked access for blue badge holders and other exceptions. This would need to be enforced by ANPR cameras and/or rising bollards. We note the Citizens Assembly Recommendation 12 (with 88% support) was "Make the city centre car free".
We would like to see noise pollution treated as a major problem. The traffic filters and ZEZ should, by reducing motor traffic, reduce ambient noise levels, but transient noise spikes from mopeds are a major problem. De-motorisation of the city centre and enforcement against mopeds would alleviate this problem.
It would be good to have the Frideswide Square, Hythe Bridge St, George St, St Giles / Magdalen Sts, and Broad St schemes linked to provide a continuous east-west walking and cycling route across the city centre. Similarly, having a safe and accessible — and direct, continuous and coherent — north-south cycling route across the city centre would be a huge benefit.
We would like to see a playground (or playgrounds) somewhere in the city centre. This could be incorporated into several of the locations proposed for improvements.
It seems unlikely that future demand for cycle parking in the city-centre can be fully met by on-street provision, as cycling rates are going to increase significantly as we shift towards sustainable transport. So the county should be working with the city to try to find locations for off-street cycle parking facilities, perhaps underground. These should have security measures to offset the inconvenience in using them.
Vision Zero is a separate county program, but any COMPF schemes will obviously need to take road danger into account. The largest concentrations of serious road injuries in the city centre are on High St (especially around the Longwall junction) and St Aldates, at the northern end of St Giles, on Walton St, and between the railway station and Broad St.
The COMPF proposals leave the bus circulation largely unchanged (unlike the 2018 Phil Jones proposals), with the two proposed changes being moving buses and bus stops from George St to Beaumont St and from Magdalen Sts East and West to St Giles. The major downside to this is increasing the distance passengers have to walk to connect with services on High St. The major gain is that the new bus stop locations have more space than the horribly cramped stops on George St and Magdalen Sts East and West, allowing for much better bus stops and much less conflict with pedestrians.
Suggested Additional Schemes
- High St is a challenge because it has extremely high numbers of buses, busy bus stops, lots of pedestrians, high numbers of people cycling, and significant retail frontages. It is impossible to fit in separated cycling infrastructure here, but we think the layout could be improved (it hasn't fundamentally changed since the bus gate went in in 1999) to make it better for bus movements, bus passengers, cycling, walking, and shop access and visibility. To start with, the bus gate should operate 24 hours and all the general parking should be removed.
- The Longwall-High junction is a major injury cluster and also a major barrier to movement between East Oxford and the city centre, deterring many people from cycling at all. We can not see any way to fix this without putting a proper bus gate on Longwall St, allowing the right-turn lane at the junction to be removed, which will free up space to separate people cycling from motor traffic.
- Another obvious location for improvements is Walton St which currently feels more like a through road than a nice place to spend time, and can be quite hostile for cycling. Sorting out the network circulation here is tricky, but the aging design (including the horrible chicanes on Kingston Rd) could surely be improved on. One option might be making the main retail area one-way, allowing the allocation of space for cafe seating, cycle parking, a contra-flow cycle track, etc. without needing to remove the car parking.
- The Parks Rd section of NCR 51 has major problems, most notably in the transition from the cycle track that runs past the Natural History Museum to the on-carriageway provision on the southern half of Parks Rd. There are also public realm and pedestrian improvements that could be made here: this is an area with high footfall.
1. Carfax
This should include a cycle crossing from Turl St to Alfred St, and resurfacing of Alfred St to make it safe and reasonably comfortable to cycle on (the cobblestones there are, unlike those on Radcliffe Square or Merton St, smooth enough for this to work).
2. Cornmarket, Queen Street, Bonn Square
3. St Giles', Magdalen Street
This would seem a sensible location for a playground. If the buses are moved out, Magdalen St East will be a "dead" space with no active frontages and, especially if cycling is supported on Magdalen St West, could be a playground area.
We would like to see a two-way cycle track on Magdalen St West, continuing up the west side of St Giles (the east side of St Giles is constrained by the St Johns walled garden). There needs to be a comfortable and accessible foot and cycle crossing from Lamb and Flag Passage to connect to the west side.
4. Broad Street
Any redesign of Broad St should also cover Turl St, Ship St, Market St, and probably Catte St, Queen's Lane, and Holywell St as well.
5. George Street
6. Hythe Bridge Street, Park End Street
Holywell St - Broad St - George St - Hythe Bridge St should form an integrated east-west walking + cycling route.
7. Fisher Row, Canal Terminus
This should perhaps be looked at alongside planning for the Worcester St car park.
8. Canal (Jericho)
9. Oxford Station Area
The current cycling provision through Frideswide Square is unacceptable, a classic example of "dual provision", where people cycling can either pretend to be motor vehicles (and cycle through the roundabouts mixed with buses and HGVs) or pretend to be pedestrians (and cycle across the open spaces of the square without restriction). This isn't good for cycling, but can also annoy people walking and driving. We would like to see proper cycle tracks put in, connecting to the provision under the railway bridge in the west and to Hythe Bridge St, Park End St etc. in the east. The pedestrian crossings here work poorly for the less confident and the visually impaired - formal parallel crossings would improve pedestrian accessibility, as well supporting cycle movements across the carriageway.
Frideswide Square, despite its expensive design, always feels quite dead. There must be significant public realm improvements that could be made here - a playground? - even after reallocating space for cycling.
The railway station desperately needs more and better-quality cycle parking. This is essential for enabling modal shift, so consideration should be given to a rapid, temporary scheme (that might last five or even ten years), given the uncertainty about the long-term design of the station. The station needs at least 1,000 parking spaces as a matter of urgency, and they need to be much better spaced and more accessible than the existing ones, so some kind of two-level facility is probably necessary.
Becket St should be one-way and bus only, enabling (with the proposed route through the Oxpens development) a direct and continuous walking and cycling route from the south (the coming Oxpens bridge) to the railway station.
10.Botley Road
We should put in the best possible cycling provision, but spatial constraints mean this is probably always going to be sub-standard.
11.Oxpens Road
There is room here to put in proper separated cycle tracks.
12.Speedwell Street
The eastern end of Speedwell St is a useful cycle route, allowing bypassing of the worst stretch of St Aldates (and in particular several bus stops) to get between Folly Bridge and Bonn Square.
13.Little Clarendon Street
This is the most obvious candidate for pedestrianisation in the city, and should allow delivery and service vehicles only, at restricted times of day.
** North Oxford **
Suggested Additional Schemes
- There are two extremely narrow paths providing connectivity to the north of Cherwell School - to the Ferry Leisure Centre car park and to Kings Cross Rd - and we would like to see consideration of land transfers or purchases to widen these. There are major safety issues where the northern of these paths meets Kings Cross Rd and Lonsdale Rd, and this junction needs to be redesigned to make access to and from the path safe.
- Some of the low traffic side-street routes in North Oxford are major cycle routes, and these could be laid out as "cycle streets", optimised for cycling priority, comfort, speed, wayfinding, etc: Bainton-Hayfield-Kingston, Norham Gardens-Dragon Lane-Charlbury Rd, and Middle Way-Stratfield Rd.
- Linking up elements of the suggestions above, NCR 51 through Oxford should be looked at as a whole, which would also cover improvements to the Cutteslowe foot-cycle bridge and its approaches and (in the city centre) to the Parks Rd route.
1. Banbury Road
2. Woodstock Road
Almost all the serious injuries in North Oxford over the last decade have been on Banbury or Woodstock Rds. Both of these should be made 20mph as a matter of urgency. They would have been among the first roads in the entire county changed in any policy-driven process for lower speed limits.
The next most pressing problem on both Banbury and Woodstock Rds is the lack of proper cycling infrastructure (both along and across the main roads), which should be provided along the lines envisaged in the 2021 plans for Woodstock Rd. We urge that this be prioritised, and that no more side road entry treatments be put in that will only have to be ripped out when proper cycle tracks are put in.
3. Summertown Shops
This has the worst concentration of injuries in North Oxford, despite having a lower speed limit than the rest of Banbury and Woodstock Rds.
There needs to be cycling infrastructure on Banbury Rd through the Summertown shops. Labelling a location as "public realm" does not miraculously make it safe and accessible for cycling (cf Frideswide Square). The pedestrian crossing provision is not suitable for the volume of movements across the road: consideration should be given to replacing signal crossings with zebra crossings.
Any design for the Summertown shops has to cover the junctions at either end, with South Parade and Oakthorpe Rd.
4. Summertown Terraces
The plans commissioned by the South Summertown Terraces group seem sensible.
5. Moreton Road/Banbury Road/Marston Ferry Road Junction
The status of Moreton Rd (as a classified B road) and the network planning for North Oxford need to be decided on before this junction is redesigned.
We think it is possible to continue a north-side shared path to this junction from the underpass on Marston Ferry Rd. Alternatively, a one-way south-side cycle track (uphill) could be combined with on-carriageway provision eastbound, mixing cycling with motor traffic downhill. Given the poor alternatives (extremely narrow paths or extremely long diversions) and the large numbers of people already cycling here, we feel something has to be done to support safe and accessible cycling along this segment of road.
6. Charlbury Road
Charlbury Rd needs a School Streets scheme and parking restrictions and enforcement against coaches. That would probably obviate the need for significant infrastructure changes, though compacting the junctions wouldn't hurt. (And, conversely, junction changes without measures to reduce school-run traffic flows are likely to be ineffective.)
7. Upper Wolvercote
We agree that traffic management and the network design have to be primary here. Any design features (such as traffic calming) need to follow that. The junction of First Turn with Woodstock Rd is awkward and could be redesigned.
8. Canal (North Oxford)
9. Wolvercote Roundabout
This needs a complete rethink from first principles. Otherwise small sums of money (e.g. from Oxford North) will be wasted making tiny improvements.
10.Cuttleslowe Roundabout
Because of the severe space constraints, we feel the only way to adequately provide for walking and cycling here is to change this to a signalised cross-roads instead of a roundabout, allowing some kind of CYCLOPS design.
11.Five Mile Drive
** The Future **
For "Future phases of COMPF - other areas", we suggest Marston and Headington. This area contains a disproportionate part of Oxford's employment and will be most affected by the Workplace Parking Levy, but currently has major traffic problems and the worst cycling infrastructure of any part of Oxford. (East Oxford is being covered, albeit in a rather different kind of way, and less systematically, by the mini-Holland project. It would be good if the latter used the same "information architecture" as the COMPF project, to create a coherent framework for the entire city.)
Thanks Danny. Very helpful.