Oxford's 1973 "Balanced Transport Policy" initiated fifty years of public transport (and especially bus) prioritisation and gradually increasing restrictions on car routing and access. Many of the problems and concerns raised then are still with us.
(The Balanced Transport Policy came before the 1973 oil shock - and before Amsterdam's city council voted against a key road-building scheme in 1975 or Groningen's 1977 circulation plan. But while it took a similar path to such Dutch cities in abandoning road construction and restricting motor traffic, Oxford experienced nothing like the shift in approach to cycling that they did. It has retained relatively high levels of cycling largely because driving has been restricted, not because cycling has been provided for - the 1971 Marston Ferry Rd cycle track remains one of the few decent bits of cycling infrastructure in the city.)
There is recognition in the Policy that reducing motor traffic is the only way to achieve a balanced provision and a better environment, and that this needs to be understood by the public.
"All the measures described are based on the premise that a balanced provision must achieve a better environment for the whole of the City, by the reduction of the number of vehicles which require to use the City's road network. Achievement of this aim will benefit all who have occasion to use the City, whether they be residents, workers, shoppers, visitors or students."
"a general acceptance by the public of the fact that in an historic City the size of Oxford it would never be practicable to provide road space and car parking for all who would like to use the private car for all their journeys and that restriction of travel by private car is, therefore, inevitable"
There's a realistic understanding of the likely resistance to measures:
"the Working Party feels that Council should not underestimate the strength of resistance to any measures which impinge upon the freedom of the individual to drive and park where he pleases, even though such measures may have general public support."
Something that has changed is that the councils no longer seem prepared to limit economic growth.
"Pressures for economic growth will increase demands upon the space available - space for work and for living and recreation which for the most part is already in use for one of these purposes. The need to improve the facilities available for the present inhabitants, both daytime and night time, longstay and short stay, also places demands upon scarce resources. The pressures for space not only impinge upon the areas of open land which form the frame to the City but also show as demands for the redevelopment of existing buildings or the intensification of their use. In an historic and charming city such as Oxford (and one which finds its charm economically useful) there are large areas where economic growth and its attendant developments are, on any large scale, incompatible with a wiser but more conservative development of present resources."
Recognition that Headington and East Oxford posed serious problems:
Eastern Oxford is a most complex area and considerable clarification of objectives is needed before a coherent programme can be drawn up which must involve the greater issues of the East Oxford Local Plan, the future of the Cowley Road Shopping Centre, the problems of the Hospital complexes and the Polytechnic at Headington and the traffic movements to and from the Industrial Areas at Cowley.
And there were some ideas that have only come to fruition (with the congestion charge / traffic filters) fifty years later.
"The Working Party emphasises that physical controls for restricting access to the central area by the existing radial roads at peak hours will be fairest to all sections of the community. It therefore recommends that methods of imposing such controls and restraints be investigated as a matter of urgency. ... investigating in consultation with the Traffic Advisory Unit of the Department of the Environment the possibility of introducing controls to limit traffic flows on radial routes"