Transport Working Group
Towards Alleviating Summertown’s Traffic Congestion
Gradually over the last two decades Summertown has become associated with morning and evening motorized traffic congestion on the Woodstock Road and Banbury Road, two of Oxford’s eight main traffic arteries leading into Oxford City Centre (besides Botley, Abingdon, Iffley, Cowley, Marston and Headington roads) from the ring road.
Much of the traffic is comprised of commuters passing through Summertown and St. Margaret’s area, but given the rising popularity of the Summertown shops, services and schools, a hefty amount of traffic is headed directly to Summertown, which amplifies the congestion and parking problem. In the morning commuter traffic, school run traffic, incoming long distance business traffic and early morning shoppers from the North converge on the Banbury Road.
SUSTM’s Transport Working Group (TWG) Aims
The TWG is comprised of 8 volunteer members (from backgrounds in engineering [2], health and safety [2], media [1] and sociology [3]) who are committed to locally encouraging, promoting and facilitating:
• widened choice of travel modes including pedestrian and cycle travel to work, school and recreational destinations;
• reduction of traffic congestion and carbon emissions of motorized vehicles;
• use of public buses;
• improvement of local traffic safety &
• rationalization of parking for the benefit of driving and non-driving car residents.
Membership and Terms of Reference of the Working Group will shortly be made available here.
TWG Activities:
Participation in Woodstock and Banbury Road Co-production
During the summer of 2021, Oxford County Council hosted 7 discussion sessions about their proposed changes to the layout of the Woodstock and Banbury road corridors with stakeholder representatives including two members of SUSTM’s Neighbourhood Forum. These meetings considered the issues of: bus lanes being used by cyclists causing delays to buses necessitating buses to overtake in traffic lanes, narrow cycle lanes with car traffic passing by in close proximity to cyclists, poor pavement conditions and a poor accident rate for vulnerable road users on the Banbury Road. You can read our response here.
The consultations have resulted in provisional designs for the full stretches of each of these roads starting beyond St. Giles to the northern section of Oxford’s ring road, illustrated in the map below. Public viewing and consultation scheduled for the Woodstock Road (October-November) and Banbury Road (January/February 2022) follows, as well as a Preliminary and Detailed design stages both involving co-production processing and public consultation before the final design emerges. Residents of Summertown and St. Margaret’s are urged to take part in the public consultations.
TWG Survey of Diamond Place Parking
The TWG undertook a small survey of 162 respondents during 12 hour period (8am-8pm) on Wednesday, 29th September and Saturday, 9th October. The canvassing exercise was conducted by TWG members, which involved short interviews with the people paying for their parking tickets at the Pay & Display ticket dispenser within Diamond Place parking lot. The parking area is situated behind the Coop supermarket on the east side of the Banbury Road parade of shops. It serves the parking needs of car drivers attracted to Summertown’s localized concentration of shops and services along both the Banbury Road and South Parade. The interview objectives were to ascertain the locational origin of the cars and the driver’s purposes for parking at Diamond Place, as well as hearing their views on Diamond Place parking area.
Our information-gathering effort provides empirical base line data for future comparison with respect to:
a) What impact the forthcoming opening of the 180-bed Easy Hotel will have on the parking pattern in Diamond Place, given the hotel does not provide hotel guest parking. We intend to repeat our survey at a later date after the hotel is in full operation.
b) More generally our September/October data affords a base line for comparison in the decade to come, as new housing accommodation is built north of the Ring Road in close proximity to Summertown. This is anticipated to generate considerable additional traffic passing through Summertown as well as customers for Summertown’s shops and services, with the possibility of increased parking demand.
The survey findings indicate that virtually all the parkers used their cars (rather than another travel mode (walking, cycling or bus) for one of the following reasons:
1) coming from distant places: too far for walking or cycling or in the absence of a direct bus route, and
2) family travel – due to multiple family member numbers bus is too expensive or unwieldy for group cycling or walking
3) heavy load carrying,
4) senior citizens with lowered predilection to other transport modes,
5) reluctance to travel by bus due to the threat of Covid, and
6) impaired physical mobility of the driver.
The catchment area for Diamond Place parking encompassed driving distances as far as 254 miles on the weekday and 183 miles at the weekend. For those stating their purpose of driving to Diamond Place was shopping, most were local people living within a 5 mile radius of the Summertown shops, a few others came from >5-23 miles away (see Attachment: Diamond Place parking report, November 2021).
Low Carbon Oxford North project led by SUSTM member Brenda Boardman
Several areas of North Oxford are so far from a bus stop that the residents are effectively in travel poverty, if they cannot walk far, cycle and don’t drive a car. Nearly 300 people responded to a survey by Low Carbon Oxford North (LCON) that focused on Cutteslowe, Wolvercote, Waterways, Aristotle Estate, Waterside, Jericho and parts of Walton Manor. Half the respondents were pensioners and many of the people replying experience mobility problems as a result of disability or long-term illness.
As a result, LCON are asking the councils and the bus companies to substantially upgrade the level and standard of bus services in North Oxford. This would include:
• increasing the frequency and extending the existing route of the No 35 bus in Wolvercote;
• the reinstatement of bus routes through both North and South Cutteslowe (probably extending existing services that go up Banbury Road);
• the introduction of a completely new bus route that links Jericho, Walton Manor, Waterside and Aristotle Lane Estate to Summertown. This could start at Oxford Station and end at the hospitals.
• We could not envisage a way to introduce a bus service into Waterways.
We want all bus services to be attractive to all groups in society, because there are frequent, modern buses and the bus stops are comfortable, sheltered and well-lit. This is part of the transformation of public transport, in preparation for measures to reduce traffic in the centre of Oxford: helping those that are disadvantaged at present, incentivising people to reduce their car usage, and so helping the environment.
The full report is here:
SUSTM CIL Awards for Transport Improvement
Cargo Delivery Bike, 2020
SHARE OXFORD, The Library of Things, located at 1 Aristotle Lane, is an innovative centre for recycling a large inventory of tools and other useful things, that are loaned out rather than sold. Their aim is to provide affordable access to items that are only used occasionally, as well as providing tools for SHARE’s regular Repair Cafes where volunteer repairers attempt to repair, mend or sharpen items brought in by people. The Library of Things was awarded £2500 for the purchase of an electric cargo bike to deliver their loaned goods to various borrowers, thereby reducing car journeys. The grant proposal argued that the cargo bike would increase The Library of Things’ outreach and availability to potential borrowers by providing a helpful, green delivery service. Assessing the outcome of the award, Marcel Herson of The Library of Things writes:
‘the cargo bike [was] painted up to advertise the Library of Things by a local artist - it felt good to be able to pay the artist [using SUSTM CIL grant money] for this work during the hardships of lock-down. However lock-down also meant that the Library of Things (and our Repair Cafés) were unable to operate for months at a time, and so the bike sat unused. It has since been [reactivated] to deliver and collect items that are being borrowed, sailing down the streets to show off the Library, and generally being met by borrowers with a "Wow!, even delivered by carbon-free transport". Lots of feel-good factor there. It was recently borrowed to take food and equipment to a Good Food Oxford event in Cutteslowe. And has twice been borrowed to move house, most recently by someone moving onto a canal boat. He made several trips into town and back along the tow-path. We ourselves took the items we were displaying at the recent ‘From The Ground Up’ exhibition at the Old Fire Station, and the bike sat proudly in the window there . . It has to be said that it's not an easy ride but once you've got used to it, there's a thrill and a sense of satisfaction.’
Expansion of public cycle parking facilities in Summertown, 2021
The project’s stated aim is to install a minimum of 30 new public cycle parking stands (e.g. Sheffield Stands) in the area covered by the St Margaret’s and Summertown. The project will address unmet demand for safe cycle parking from residents, employers, employees and visitors. It is anticipated that greater provision of cycle parking, will develop the area by encouraging more people to cycle for short journeys within the area, and to cycle to destinations within the area from beyond St Margaret’s and Summertown. This will encourage a modal shift to a more sustainable form of transport. It will positively impact the environment in terms of reduced emissions from vehicles and reduced air pollution and congestion and confer health benefits for those who cycle.
The project award has been granted and awaits transfer of the CIL funding from Oxford City Council.
Appendices
Oxfordshire County Council Local Transport and Connectivity Plan
The Forum has responded to the Central Oxfordshire Travel Plan and proposed traffic filters. You can find the response here.
Low Carbon Oxford North’s bus survey, August 2021 and Interim report
Further information on local transport issues
CoHSAT Oxfordshire
Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel
Website: cohsat.org.uk
Voice of Cycling in Oxford
Website: www.cyclox.org
Low Carbon Oxford North (LCON)
Website: www.lowcarbonhub.org/p/community-groups/low-carbon-oxford-north/