The speed limit on Oxford's ring-road (excepting the A34 outside Botley) should be reduced to 40mph and that should be enforced by average speed cameras. This would help with road danger, congestion, community severance and barriers to walking and cycling, noise pollution, air pollution, and carbon emissions. more
Motor traffic noise pollution is really two separate problems. The first is local spikes in noise from individual vehicles, sometimes deliberately driven - and even modified - to make noise. The second is high levels of ambient noise from motor traffic generally.
Noise pollution is one of the
"invisible problems", often neglected in comparison to the other harms created by motor traffic. Oxford City Council's
noise pollution information, for example, only covers noise from venues, private parties, building works, etc. and doesn't even mention traffic noise. The County Council gets noise complaints logged to FixMyStreet, but appears to have no general information about traffic noise nor any plan or guidelines for addressing it. And noise pollution doesn't feature in
the Low Traffic Future campaign.
more
Zero Emission Zones (ZEZs) such as Oxford's should be reworked with general access restrictions that address all the harms done by motor vehicles, not just tailpipe emissions. In particular, Oxford's fails to address either particulate air pollution or road danger. more