With the Covid crisis, mobility and connectivity assumptions have been changed radically by the importance of local facilities to households. Also, mobility by car and connectivity issues are less important to the millions who are now working from home. Strengthening rights to remote working and to flexitime will reduce car journeys. Online deliveries cut the need for car journeys too. Mobility by car is not an intrinsically good thing and is worse when it specifically assists with unsustainable economic growth, for example in consumption.
Claims for the benefits of car mobility exist but are rarely quantified or set against the disadvantages in terms of commuting time, lack of exercise, little time for family, stress, traffic congestion, climate, noise impacts and air pollution – including from non-exhaust emissions. Non-exhaust emissions include particulates from tyre abrasion on roads, as well as brake pad erosion. Traffic movement creates gusts of air which can move such often-toxic particulates into the faces of pedestrians and cyclists, and into the open windows of vehicles and homes. But it is important to recognise that rural transport needs can be different to those of car-plagued urban settlements.
Car based commuting, encouraged by decades of under-investment in walking, cycling, rail and buses, may be increased as new developments tend to suffer from inadequate infrastructure funding. Community development including strong emphasis on building local economies and employment within existing small communities is a great potential gift to quality of life because it keeps commuting down. A full-length treatment and discussion of the issues around the largely unquestioned idea of mobility has been written by John Whitelegg in ‘Mobility: A new urban design and transport planning philosophy for a sustainable future’.
Oxford as a mobility failure
About 40% of car journeys in Oxford are less than two miles. More than half of those employed in Oxford do not live in the city. Having about 46,000 people commuting on a working weekday into Oxford (pre-pandemic) can be seen as a product of failure: to provide very low-cost housing in the city at high density over decades; lack of dual use of car parks by building apartments above surface level; and a poor strategic view by the county in terms of where employment is most needed by relevant local authorities. These are all mobility problems.
Frankly, it is too easy to drive into Oxford’s rush hour-school run and add to congestion. It could be worse. We should be concerned that the potential long-term construction of a corridor of one million housing units across the country between Cambridge and Oxford would, in practice, mean people commuting out of such a form of ribbon development (development prevalent along the roads joining towns or cities) into other areas for work and leisure e.g. to Birmingham and London. Whilst this ‘arc’ idea has been set aside for now it would be a developer’s ‘gold rush’ so, without major political change in the planning system, is bound to be revived in future.
The parking problem
The UK’s institutions and society have never considered at what point total number of vehicles undermines society, the economy and the environment. Like the WWII slogan ‘Is your journey necessary?’, public and private sector bodies, charities and households, all have to consider how they could reduce traffic movements to make essential journeys a larger proportion of all vehicle journeys. Cutting vehicle parking, which is happening very slowly in Oxford, is one key element of this.
But a pavement parking ban, enforced by larger numbers of traffic police, is needed as so many vehicles are parked on pavements every day. In the case of Oxford, this is visually documented by the Twitter account Badly Parked Oxford, with additions most days. Not elaborated here, but implicit, is a much healthier society emerging from more walking, cycling and less time spent inside vehicles in Oxford’s weekday traffic jams. And there is the not small matter that the overall transport sector is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, so no credible climate policy can avoid making deep cuts in the emissions of this sector.
Much more to be done
It might be expected that a city with a good record of cycling or walking would be idyllic. Not so. The impact of Oxford’s rush hour-school run is that all junctions in the city have been operating at or over capacity since about 2017. Combined county and city responses have included park and ride sites, a zero emissions zone, more controlled parking zones with the aim of complete city coverage, and a very small number of low traffic neighbourhoods. A Workplace Parking Levy is in stages of development.
Other problems include modest reductions in parking spaces, too few no-vehicle-parking covenanted developments, minimal pedestrianisation, a small number of school streets, and only modest improvements to cycling tracks in scale. Oxford is a very long way from actual cycling and walking networks. Positively, cargo and e-cargo bikes for deliveries, and for the school run, have increased visibly in recent years.
Traffic filters, aka ‘bus gates’, are planned for six major roads in Oxford. These have been indefinitely delayed by failures to finish the rebuilding of Oxford rail station which has involved the closure of the very busy Botley Road in west Oxford. Six major roads with traffic reductions do not a network of traffic reduction make. Both the Botley Road, and the nearby Abingdon Road should have a filter. Traffic filters need to be used radically to reduce traffic movements through the Wolvercote/Cutteslowe areas. Exemptions to the filters would apply and different rules for times of day, and for weekends.
Among English cities, Oxford is second only to Cambridge for bike use. It is evident that the shadow of a past larger car industry base in the city lingers in the attitudes of current and past workers who drive, and in the letter pages of the local press.
Scenarios for a higher traffic future
In December 2023 there were 41.2 million licensed vehicles in the UK. Considering cars only, a steady increase in numbers could mean 44.5 million cars by 2050. Whilst tending to stress very wide variance in projections, the Department for Transport proposes that a 54% increase in traffic is possible between 2025 and 2060. However, this would not be evenly distributed. Big economic differences between areas suggests successful locations like Oxford will get proportionately more vehicle journeys of all types in future. Cuts in some Oxford bus services plus very high rail fares fail to create much-needed downward pressure upon car journeys. To me, living in Oxford for about 11 years as a cyclist, significant expansion of liveried and unmarked delivery vans/cars has been apparent.
Whilst the national figure for private rented accommodation is about 19% of households, it is well over 40% in Oxford. This leads to constant upgrades and extensions to homes to accommodate more tenants, adding to already high levels of construction-related traffic. This continuing expansion of private rentals creates a drainage problem: with the increase in the number of frontages which have been concreted over to accommodate cars, run off from them leads to large amounts of water on roads during heavy rainfall.
New homes on green-field sites create new roads and potentially new infrastructure including schools, play areas, GP surgeries, shopping units – although initial promises often do not become a reality. So, homes bought by local councils for council and keyworker housing in existing urban settlements would generate far less carbon emissions in retrofitting and operation than the total carbon burden of new construction. There is also reasonable hope that such an approach will keep traffic to a minimum, especially where car free covenants are present. However, without such action, new settlements and peripheral communities tacked on to existing ones are liable to be mainly two car households due to the high incomes needed to meet Oxfordshire home prices and rents. This expansion goes directly against the climate declarations and related policies of Oxfordshire’s councils. Trunk road building anywhere is incompatible with a rational climate policy. A pavement parking ban could help reduce traffic. So could support for re-opening disused rail lines.
Traffic reduction is essential
Reducing road transport emissions depends upon a number of factors: avoiding induced traffic increases by not increasing county trunk roads or road space for vehicles; ensuring extant settlements use the existing built environment for additional housing units and building apartments above surface car parks, and building homes on industrial estate/science park spaces to ensure people are able to live near where they work; a major effort to ensure that working from home becomes a legal right; and increasing the cost of journeys into urban areas by the use of electronic road pricing. Better walking arrangements require more pedestrianised areas, with improved cycle tracks, to help stop tailpipe and non-exhaust emissions from vehicles. These are strategic county-wide needs for urban settlements of more than 10,000 people as a minimum and in some communities of smaller size plagued by traffic.
Mobility has been a rather ‘treasured’ value in the UK in the decades since 1945 as the UK vehicle fleet expanded. But infinite vehicle growth in finite spaces, especially within settlements, is not practical or realistic. For this to be addressed, mobility itself has to be open to question and traffic reduction measures have become essential.
This article draws partly upon a submission to the Oxford City Plan process. See also Steve’s other transport articles at https://westenglandbylines.co.uk/author/stevedawe/
We want to hear your views. Please send any comments to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
