Life in and around Headington & OX3 (mostly), and Oxford (occasionally)
"To every complex problem there is a simple solution, startling in its simplicity, piercing in its clarity, and hopelessly and completely wrong" - Gore Vidal.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 16 – 22 May.
I went to the heatpipe drop-in exhibition on Wednesday. There were no surprises and if all now goes to plan the digging should begin in September. My report here.
All my posts about the project are under the ‘Energy Project’ tab in the main menu, and there’s a page of links and contact details here.
Oxford City’s three ceremonial appointments were made on Monday, and Headington is represented by two of them. @maltafkhan (Headington Ward) is the new Lord Mayor, and Susan Brown (Churchill Ward) is Sheriff. The third appointment is Rae Humberstone (Blackbird Leys) who becomes Deputy Lord Mayor. The appointments all last for a year.
A new community garden is to be delivered at Barton Park together with improvements to the existing community allotments.
After lying dormant while all the parties got their act together and the lawyers gave Vital Energi their opinion, the Trust and Vital are starting to move. They held two drop-in sessions for interested locals yesterday (Weds 18 May) which they say were well-attended. When I visited the exhibition at the JR in the afternoon people were dropping steadily in a few at a time.
With the help of their planning consultants they are now almost ready to submit what they hope will be the final and definitive planning application for the street works to lay the pipeline. They expect to do this in June, with a decision following in August so that work can start in September. Construction should last 32 weeks.
As expected, the proposed route for the pipeline will now run from All Saints Road via Lime Walk to Old Road instead of using Stapleton Road. Lime Walk (the southern half – the northern half isn’t directly affected) will be able to stay open with traffic lights controlling alternate flows. Disruption to Old Road will be reduced because a shorter stretch will need to be excavated. Apart from this the rest of the project is as it was before.
As reported elsewhere, Lime Walk residents are beginning to ask about compensation for the disruption, with payment for permanent traffic calming measures being a favorite. No doubt there will be more about this at the next Stakeholder Liaison meeting early in June.
This consultation is on specific modifications to earlier TROs for Headley Way and Windmill Road implementing the Access to Headington scheme. The modifications allow for the retention of some car parking on both those roads from which earlier plans had removed all on-street parking.
Detailed drawings of the proposals can be seen here:
These comments relate exclusively to the combination of cycle lanes and car parking which would feature in both roads if these proposals were implemented and have been submitted to the County.
The County’s Transport Strategy LTP4 and its application to Oxford City recognises it is essential to find ways of encouraging people to shift away from journeys by private car and onto public transport and active modes, i.e. cycling and walking. To this end the County has decided to implement a network of Super and Premium cycle routes in the City. As we know from the much more cycle-friendly cities of Europe, and now increasingly in London, “build it and they will come” applies to high-quality cycle routes.
In LTP4 Headley Way and Windmill Road are designated as Super Cycle Routes. This means they should be continuous, segregated as much as absolutely possible, with priority at side junctions and “a minimum width of 1.5m, with 2m the default for the busiest sections”. The original proposals were broadly welcomed by cycling groups and many others.
The latest proposals fail to live up to these good intentions. In Headley Way where the cycle lanes pass parking spaces the width drops to 1.25m “with 0.75m buffer”. The plans do not say but I assume the “buffer” is hoped to keep cyclists apart from car doors and occupants. In Windmill Road there seems to be no buffer, but cycle lanes generally 1.5m wide expand to 1.8m around the parking spaces. No explanation is given for the different treatment, but it emphasises the recurring problem in Oxford that there is no accepted design manual for cycle provision. Each new portion is treated as individual, designed and redesigned, ultimately delivering a mish-mash of incoherent and inconsistent cycle routes that are unnecessarily difficult to navigate.
Parked cars are inherently dangerous for cyclists. Doors on both the driver’s side and passenger’s side can be opened unexpectedly. Cars may pull out without the driver having fully checked for approaching traffic – including bikes. SMIDSY – “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you” is no consolation (or excuse) for a broken collarbone or worse. If the cycle lane is on the road (shared, not segregated) cyclists tend to give parked cars a wide berth, moving out into the main traffic flow – a safety manoeuvre which aggravates some motorists.
This danger is recognised in, for example, the Government of Wales’ Design Guidance for Active Travel, incorporated into the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013. This says:
6.21 Car parking / loading and Cycle Lanes DE015
Kerbside vehicle parking or loading can often be dangerous for cyclists especially in a street with high vehicle turnover rates as there is a high risk of vehicle doors being opened into the path of cyclists within the cycle lane. It is therefore necessary that any cycle lane must pass parking areas with a sufficient dividing strip (buffer zone) or else be of sufficient width to enable cyclists to travel in the cycle lane away from the parking.
These latest compromise proposals are therefore a retrograde step and a further watering-down of the aspirations of LTP4. As such they will be less attractive to the potential new cyclists whom the County recognises need to be persuaded to give up their cars, and so less successful in achieving less congested and less polluted routes into and around Headington. I urge the County’s engineers and councillors to be bold and put the interests of the wider public ahead of the small minority affected by the removal of parking (for whom provision nearby has been arranged) and revert to their earlier proposals to remove all on-street parking on the two roads.
It will also need the cycle lanes to be clearly delineated with physical features such as angled kerbs, raised blocks a few centimeters proud of the surface, or ‘armadillos’ (others will be better able to advise), not just white paint. Such physical features help all road and footpath users identify and respect the areas which they should naturally use.
