"the bus gates are a method of enforcement to ensure the buses are able to run freely through the centre of Oxford"

UTTER RUBBISH. The buses do a **** good job of clogging the city up as it is.

WE NEED LESS BUSES - HOW MANY MORE TIMES?

My city is so beautiful and yet it's being ruined by OCC and their idotic policies for traffic management.

Pedestrianise the High to Longwall St junction, St Aldates to Speedwell Street, Queen street and make the bloody buses terminate elsewhere (a bus station by the Ice Rink, maybe?)

'Flouting' the ban, or confused or unaware of the restrictions?

Oxford's road system must be a nightmare for anyone unfamiliar with it, and that's without having to deal with errant cyclists, crowds of teenage language school visitors standing in the road and buses pulling out in front of you.

Go to Reading- they have better shops and a decent road system with well signposted peripheral car parks and a properly pedestrainised centre. You'l have a far more relaxed day with the added advantage of not contributing to the Council's mis-management bale out fund.

Not convinced by this - people driving up to a coffee shop on the High Street? How many people were doing that before the cameras were turned on?

Closing the High Street sounds fun, but unless there's another way that bus traffic from the east can get into, and through Oxford City Centre, especially to the train station it's a non-starter.

Mike, they should use Abingdon Road which can handle the volume of traffic far better. They should also force cars onto the bypass/A34 rather than going through town.

Oxford's road system is a nightmare for everyone.

What is most galling is that the council claim they have no money to do the proposed work on High St (i.e. repairing all the potholes and dips in the road caused by the buses) when they are making so much from this camera system.

Clearly we have a problem here, and it's in County Hall.

Bus Gates, ANPR Cameras, it is all the thin end of the wedge! CONGESTION CHARGE soon then!

Bus Gates, ANPR Cameras, it is all the thin end of the wedge! CONGESTION CHARGE soon then!

Driving to a coffee shop on High St.??? You couldn’t stop and park on High St. before the bus gates anyway, so what’s the problem? Oxford is a far nicer place to be without all those cars cluttering it up! Ever thought of getting the bus to the coffee shop on High St.? Or perhaps cycling to the coffee shop on High St…. or walking even??? Too revolutionary for you maybe? Personally I’m fed up with the amount of cars everywhere, and not just in Oxford. The rest of us have become second-class citizens in the face of relentless waves of private car traffic everywhere; there’s scarcely a country lane or hill-top in the country where you can get away from the menace. ‘Peak-oil’; bring it on I say and the sooner the better! And please spare us the old chestnut about you needing your car (like you need you arms or your internal organs); if some of us can lead successful and fulfilled lives without ever using a car then it MUST be possible for a large proportion of people to do so. It just requires some lateral thinking!

Well, Colm, try living 9 miles out of Oxford like I do.

I need my car. We now have 4 buses A WEEK here. People do live outside the walls of Oxford, you know.

If they diverted some buses from Oxford to the rural villages then brilliant. Instead they just clog up the city centre.

As for "peak-oil" - if you're that keen on it happening, then I suggest you visit the Armed Forces recruitment center on St. Giles, and sign yourself up for a tin hat because there will be a lot of problems in the world when it happens.

What is not mentioned in the article is that it was illegal to drive through that part of High St well before the cameras were installed.

All these people complaining about the changes they have had to make are basically admitting their previous illegal road use.

As far as I am concerned it's an extra tax on the stupid, like the lottery.

Weekends the Redbridge P&R bus avoids Abingdon Road and travels, over Donnington Bridge, Iffley Road/High street, into the town loop.

Signs are not good enough, the amount of visitors who parked in Redbridge, PearTree, and didn't pay the £1, were shocked to get fines of £100 through the post. The main signs are faded, and so used to free parking in other towns, not looking for huge 'PAY HERE' signs over each machine. Oxford City don't charge in their P&R for parking. (Hopefully soon to be resolved). The JR has also paid to move the X13 bus stop into the P&R area, and have parking spaces for staff who live the other side of Oxford, use the X bus. Money coming in from all directions.

CB wrote:
Weekends the Redbridge P&R bus avoids Abingdon Road and travels, over Donnington Bridge, Iffley Road/High street, into the town loop.

Signs are not good enough, the amount of visitors who parked in Redbridge, PearTree, and didn't pay the £1, were shocked to get fines of £100 through the post. The main signs are faded, and so used to free parking in other towns, not looking for huge 'PAY HERE' signs over each machine. Oxford City don't charge in their P&R for parking. (Hopefully soon to be resolved). The JR has also paid to move the X13 bus stop into the P&R area, and have parking spaces for staff who live the other side of Oxford, use the X bus. Money coming in from all directions.

Oxford City don't charge for parking in Park and Ride parks, Oxfordshire County Council DO.

Hopefully they will transfer all of the Park and Rides to City Council control, so we don't have to pay to park in Redbridge/PearTree. Hospital Staff will be encouraged also.

Toby, I don’t work in Oxford! I presently do a round trip of 20 miles a day by bicycle and have in the past done round trip commutes (by bicycle) of 40 miles and for a period of approx. a year, a 45 mile round trip. I’ve been cycling since I began secondary school in 1972 and frankly my daily cycle is an automatic part of my day, winter or summer wet or dry – I scarcely notice! What I’m fundamentally saying is that it IS possible, having a car doesn’t have to be the automatic response to every journey, far from it… you should try it (cycling), it’s fast, cheap, healthy, sustainable and you’ll feel strong, fit and healthy all the time!

Colm O\'Brien wrote:
Toby, I don’t work in Oxford! I presently do a round trip of 20 miles a day by bicycle and have in the past done round trip commutes (by bicycle) of 40 miles and for a period of approx. a year, a 45 mile round trip. I’ve been cycling since I began secondary school in 1972 and frankly my daily cycle is an automatic part of my day, winter or summer wet or dry – I scarcely notice! What I’m fundamentally saying is that it IS possible, having a car doesn’t have to be the automatic response to every journey, far from it… you should try it (cycling), it’s fast, cheap, healthy, sustainable and you’ll feel strong, fit and healthy all the time!

Is anyone else bored to death of the sanctimonious cycling brigade?

When the communist/ green lobby have their way, we will not need cars as we will all be working as agricultural labourers, growing our own shoes and singing under candle light about the annual 10 mile walk to the livestock market- in other words,setting us back about 200 years.

Clearly, we cannot all live in Walton Street, not all of us are physicaly fit, some of us have children and the Country is simply not set up with local shops, pubs, employment and affordable housing, and few would be prepared to go back to a pre- industrial way of life.

It's about time the cycling bores accepted that motorists are not inconsiderate, selfish wilful destroyers of all that is green and good, but simply normal people trying to live normal lives in the 21st Century.

DanOxford wrote:

Colm O\'Brien wrote: Toby, I don’t work in Oxford! I presently do a round trip of 20 miles a day by bicycle and have in the past done round trip commutes (by bicycle) of 40 miles and for a period of approx. a year, a 45 mile round trip. I’ve been cycling since I began secondary school in 1972 and frankly my daily cycle is an automatic part of my day, winter or summer wet or dry – I scarcely notice! What I’m fundamentally saying is that it IS possible, having a car doesn’t have to be the automatic response to every journey, far from it… you should try it (cycling), it’s fast, cheap, healthy, sustainable and you’ll feel strong, fit and healthy all the time!

Is anyone else bored to death of the sanctimonious cycling brigade? When the communist/ green lobby have their way, we will not need cars as we will all be working as agricultural labourers, growing our own shoes and singing under candle light about the annual 10 mile walk to the livestock market- in other words,setting us back about 200 years. Clearly, we cannot all live in Walton Street, not all of us are physicaly fit, some of us have children and the Country is simply not set up with local shops, pubs, employment and affordable housing, and few would be prepared to go back to a pre- industrial way of life. It's about time the cycling bores accepted that motorists are not inconsiderate, selfish wilful destroyers of all that is green and good, but simply normal people trying to live normal lives in the 21st Century.

Here-f'ing-here. Well said Dan.

I need my car. We now have 4 buses A WEEK here. People do live outside the walls of Oxford, you know.

Toby - use the Park and Ride then!

Just the reflex response I expected…! Well, if we carry on as we are it won’t need the actions of the “communist/green lobby” to “set us back about 200 years”, you’ll do that all by yourself, or haven’t you been paying attention this last 10 years? Do the terms ‘global warming’, ‘peak-oil’, ‘over-population’, ‘climate change’, or ‘increasing demand for diminishing resources’, to name just a few, ring any bells?
You may well be bored with the “sanctimonious cycling brigade” but you can’t be any more bored than we with the noise, dirt, danger and destruction that is the modern road scene, and maybe, just maybe, we have a point! You may not like us but hey, last time I checked, I too was a tax-payer, citizen and voter just like you! Motorists’ can’t have it ALL their own way; they’ve got to give a little too. So, what’s a few streets in the centre of Oxford compared to the huge tracts of land despoiled by motorways the length and breadth of the land? Don’t you have enough already?

I'm with Colm. Motorised transport may have it's place, but it's certainly not for private transport. Oxford would be such a pleasant place to live/work/shop without the traffic, and short of banning private cars within the ring road, the council should be doing everything they can to encourage walking and cycling. All the money raised from people flouting the restrictions on high street should go towards developing park and ride facilities and a newly designed bus network and station for the city centre. More village buses would also be appreciated - riding on narrow "country" lanes in rush hour is a nightmare!

I go one better, Becky. I stick my fold up bike in my car. Getting around Oxford isn't the problem. Getting TO Oxford is.

I'd love to be able to catch a bus from my village to Oxford - and I can - only if I travel on a Mon/Weds/Fri/Sat and leave at 10.15am. Hardly any use if you start work at 9am. Oh and if you miss the bus you have to wait two days for the next one.

The fact is if the profitable routes (inner city) were made to subsidise rural routes we'd all have a great bus service.

It's not rocket science, but it takes political will and we have none of it in this country anymore!

Ed wrote:
\"the bus gates are a method of enforcement to ensure the buses are able to run freely through the centre of Oxford\" UTTER RUBBISH. The buses do a **** good job of clogging the city up as it is. WE NEED LESS BUSES - HOW MANY MORE TIMES? My city is so beautiful and yet it\'s being ruined by OCC and their idotic policies for traffic management. Pedestrianise the High to Longwall St junction, St Aldates to Speedwell Street, Queen street and make the bloody buses terminate elsewhere (a bus station by the Ice Rink, maybe?)

It's "We need Fewer buses"

We also need fewer pedants.

You also missed a full-stop, and you don't capitalise "fewer".

Kindly correct your own errors before you do so to others.

£665k a year... This unexpected (and unwanted) income is enough to give every household in the city a rebate of £13 on their council tax.

Since Keith Mitchell has been in charge of Oxfordshire County Council there has been complete chaos over transport and traffic. They have failed with their ABits scheme in Abingdon grinding the town to a halt. The bewildering traffic policies are also destroying Oxford - they are neither saving the city from congestion/pollution nor are they encouraging motorists to spend money in the city.

Perhaps Ian Hudspeth et al can tell us what they are trying to achieve, instead of their meaningless stunts with David Cameron outside County Hall. Its seems that all they care about is politics and the people of Oxfordshire have been long forgotten.

Ed wrote:
"the bus gates are a method of enforcement to ensure the buses are able to run freely through the centre of Oxford" UTTER RUBBISH. The buses do a **** good job of clogging the city up as it is. WE NEED LESS BUSES - HOW MANY MORE TIMES? My city is so beautiful and yet it's being ruined by OCC and their idotic policies for traffic management. Pedestrianise the High to Longwall St junction, St Aldates to Speedwell Street, Queen street and make the bloody buses terminate elsewhere (a bus station by the Ice Rink, maybe?)

It's "We need fewer buses".

Dan states that we can’t all be physically fit; we’ll I put it to you, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Perhaps there’s a link between cycling on a daily basis and being physically fit…. hmmm??? If you cycle every day (or most days) you WILL be fit enough to cycle every day!!! Eureka! Revelation!
Why is it that as soon as this debate is raised, the ‘camps’ polarise and the ‘non-cycling camp’ immediately thinks that we (the “communist/green lobby” – apparently!) want to turn back the clock 200 years? We don’t, and no, I don’t “grow my own shoes”, I buy them in Ducker & Sons of Turl St., just like everyone else! And, yes, I’m quite fond of being able to avail of modern medicine and dentistry and buying my music on CD and not having to work 7 days a week in a workhouse etc. etc. but the point is that moving everyone about in their own private metal box is no longer sustainable. We, the “sanctimonious cycling brigade” are not the problem here, we don’t have our heads buried in the sand… it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee!

Parting shot…. I wonder if ‘Optimus Prime’ is one of those motorists’ from the planet Cybertron who drive about in a transfixed, or should that be a transformed (?)state, oblivious to everyone else around him who has less than four wheels? I guess we should be grateful he doesn’t have a laser rifle like his namesake in the ‘Transformers’ or we really would be in trouble!!! Adios amigos… see you up the (High) street!

I think you'll find most people don't buy their shoes from Ducker & Son, because as nice as they are, not everyone has £200+ to spend on shoes.

Cars in urban areas are a problem. People outside need them unless you're going to spend a few trillion pounds making a proper transport system that costs the user next to nothing - like most of Europe has thanks to decades of investment by the (state owned) companies.

Face it: Britain is utter **** for transport, mostly thanks to Maggie and her "Competing for Quality" white paper circa 1979.

Well some of us rarely come to oxford and the system is exploting us. I got a ticket for driving up George Street, on the day i went to HMV to buy Reading tickets, as i left the car park at the end of George street and the signs are on George street not before you drive up! What do they expect me to do? Turn around? Cause it would still be too late. I understand why they are reducing cars in the city, but they purposely dont make it clear to gain money, there not concered on reducing emissions, there concered with what they can gain from this. Its an outrage!!!!

Colm O'Brien wrote:
Toby, I don’t work in Oxford! I presently do a round trip of 20 miles a day by bicycle and have in the past done round trip commutes (by bicycle) of 40 miles and for a period of approx. a year, a 45 mile round trip. I’ve been cycling since I began secondary school in 1972 and frankly my daily cycle is an automatic part of my day, winter or summer wet or dry – I scarcely notice! What I’m fundamentally saying is that it IS possible, having a car doesn’t have to be the automatic response to every journey, far from it… you should try it (cycling), it’s fast, cheap, healthy, sustainable and you’ll feel strong, fit and healthy all the time!

So it's YOU holding up all those cars and causing all that extra pollution due to your bicycle!

For every car that has to overtake you on a narrow road without a cycle path, that's 30 extra seconds of carbon emissions being pumped out thanks to YOU! So if 100 cars have to overtake you your the way to work, then that's the equivalent of a car being on the road for 50 minutes. See, your bicycle is doing more HARM to the environment than good!

Posted by: Anna, Oxford on 3:48pm today
I'm with Colm. Motorised transport may have it's place, but it's certainly not for private transport. Oxford would be such a pleasant place to live/work/shop without the traffic, and short of banning private cars within the ring road, the council should be doing everything they can to encourage walking and cycling. All the money raised from people flouting the restrictions on high street should go towards developing park and ride facilities and a newly designed bus network and station for the city centre. More village buses would also be appreciated - riding on narrow "country" lanes in rush hour is a nightmare!
I'm with Colm. Motorised transport may have it's place, but it's certainly not for private transport. Oxford would be such a pleasant place to live/work/shop without the traffic,

This is EXACTLY the attitude that irritates me-

'Oh- wouldn't it all be SO much nicer if all those people who didn't live within walking/ cycling distance just stayed away?'

Personally, I'd love to see a ban on all other vehicle users- I could then make the most of my car's 150mph+ performance on deserted roads. Unlike the holier- than- thou cycling lobby, I can see beyond my own front tyre and realise that one form of transport cannot cover all situations for all people.

Perhaps if we got rid of the fifth of Oxford's population who are students (does a University need to be in a city centre?) and who mainly live within the ring road in subsidised accomodation or family houses split into shared dwellings. more of the WORKING people of Oxford COULD do without a car.

Oxford's downfall is it's filled with naive, privileged do- gooders with little experience of the 'real' world who protest about absolutely anything (Westgate improvement/ medical research/ cars/ cutting trees down to plant more trees...) before s*dding off to work for a merchant bank or pharmaceutical company and getting a company car and a people carrier for little Tarquin and Hermione.

If you want to grow your own shoes on a wind powered communal vegan free trade flapjack co-operative, be my guest- just let the rest of us get to work (by car if necessary) to pay for it all.

Posted by: Colm O'Brien, Walton St. Oxford. on 4:29pm today

Dan states that we can’t all be physically fit; we’ll I put it to you, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Perhaps there’s a link between cycling on a daily basis and being physically fit…. hmmm???

Genius Colm- sheer genius- which do you think came first- cycling or being born with/ developing a disability?

Clearly all those drivers with disabled badges are malingering whingers who should do like Norman Tebbit and get on their bike.

DanOxford wrote:
Posted by: Anna, Oxford on 3:48pm today
I'm with Colm. Motorised transport may have it's place, but it's certainly not for private transport. Oxford would be such a pleasant place to live/work/shop without the traffic, and short of banning private cars within the ring road, the council should be doing everything they can to encourage walking and cycling. All the money raised from people flouting the restrictions on high street should go towards developing park and ride facilities and a newly designed bus network and station for the city centre. More village buses would also be appreciated - riding on narrow "country" lanes in rush hour is a nightmare!
I'm with Colm. Motorised transport may have it's place, but it's certainly not for private transport. Oxford would be such a pleasant place to live/work/shop without the traffic,

This is EXACTLY the attitude that irritates me-

'Oh- wouldn't it all be SO much nicer if all those people who didn't live within walking/ cycling distance just stayed away?'

Personally, I'd love to see a ban on all other vehicle users- I could then make the most of my car's 150mph+ performance on deserted roads. Unlike the holier- than- thou cycling lobby, I can see beyond my own front tyre and realise that one form of transport cannot cover all situations for all people.

Perhaps if we got rid of the fifth of Oxford's population who are students (does a University need to be in a city centre?) and who mainly live within the ring road in subsidised accomodation or family houses split into shared dwellings. more of the WORKING people of Oxford COULD do without a car.

Oxford's downfall is it's filled with naive, privileged do- gooders with little experience of the 'real' world who protest about absolutely anything (Westgate improvement/ medical research/ cars/ cutting trees down to plant more trees...) before s*dding off to work for a merchant bank or pharmaceutical company and getting a company car and a people carrier for little Tarquin and Hermione.

If you want to grow your own shoes on a wind powered communal vegan free trade flapjack co-operative, be my guest- just let the rest of us get to work (by car if necessary) to pay for it all.

dan you are bizarre, this is not at all what anna said. you have a made a rather huge leap from her comments to suggesting she thinks people should stay out of oxford?

meanwhile, not allowing cars on the high st is absolutely crap all to do with vegans, flapjacks, students, cooperatives, subsidised accommodation or anything else. you are quite obsessed with using every popular thread on this forum to air your special views on aforementioned subjects. im quite surprised you continue to make yourself out to be the voice of the normal working people of oxford since all you seem to do all day is sit on thisisoxfordshire.co
m and spew nonsense about anyone with a lifestyle remotely different from your own.
tch.

yes dan, you are a bit of a bore.

Feel free to ride your bikes, on roads paid for and maintained by others.
I have no desire to ride a pushbike ( loaded with the families shopping ?) at my age, and i have to try and get home in time to see my children before they go to bed for the night.

As usual, none of the money acquired will be used to alleviate any problems that the money was raised on the pretext of.

Plus lets not dismiss the blatant hypocrisy of the Executive Member for Transport, who drives to work, and then parks his black V8 Jaguar in his own free space in front of County Hall.

Well ‘J’, what can I say…? If it takes your car all of thirty seconds to overtake me then I fail to see how I could possibly be holding you up! Bear with me here, I’m treating your response as if it was an earnest one, although I sincerely hope your tongue was firmly in your cheek as you typed otherwise we really are in serious trouble…. If your mathematics are correct (sic) then either there is something badly wrong with your car, in which case you really would be better off on a bicycle (at that speed), or else I must have a cruising speed in excess of 60mph. So which is it? I can’t simultaneously hold you up AND still take a full 30 seconds to overtake! But I guess what else could I possibly expect from someone who manages to blame OTHERS for everything including THEIR OWN pollution? But thank you for that; I would like to award you the ‘2008 Wooden Spoon Prize’ for ‘Most Warped Logic Displayed in a Public Forum’! Congratulations ‘J’!
P.S. After many years of cycle competition, both racing and long distance endurance events, I can assure you I don’t hold ANYONE up on the road!

Dan, it’s a pretty poor defence to have to ‘wheel out’ (if you’ll excuse the pun – no slight intended) disabled drivers’ to front your case; you didn’t honestly ever think I intended that a person in a wheelchair should ‘do a Norman Tebbit’, now did you? I’m talking about otherwise able-bodied people. Let’s get one thing straight here – I don’t want to force every driver in the country to cycle a bike (although it’s a thought!), I don’t actually care if ANY of them EVER cycle a bike, what I’m saying is that there is ‘give and take’ and currently motorists’ are taking the lion’s share of the road to the detriment of everyone else. The payment of road tax is not a defence; you pay road tax to finance the huge tracts of motorway and other civil engineering works that are required to facilitate the car in the first place. Cyclists’ don’t need any more than about a foot-and-a-half at the side of the road, a small track would do; proportionately it doesn’t stack up. Personally I’d gladly pay road tax for my bicycle if only so I didn’t have to hear that old ‘argument’ trotted out anymore. By the way, there were roads and bicycles long before the car was even invented; it’s the motorist who’s the relative latecomer (in large numbers) and who has muscled-in on the rest of us.
I’ll leave you with a thought; believe it or not but motorists’ have a lot to thank cyclists’ for, they just don’t realise it! Could you imagine what it would be like if say tomorrow morning, every cyclist in the country (not to mention worldwide) drove to work instead of cycling! Think how much longer would the tail-backs be, how much fewer parking spaces there would be, how much longer it would take to move anywhere, how much more polluted the air would be and so on. Not a pleasant scenario!

Colm - maybe you should try being a widower transporting a baby to a childminder's on a daily basis from Bicester to Oxford and then see how you get on with idiot cyclists thinking they rule the roads by blatantly flouting the highway code. I have no problem with cyclists in general but there are too many who think that by not paying road tax or insurance they have greater precedence over us other road users.

Optimus, it’s a fair point and one I covered in an earlier comment, but did you READ my post especially the bit where I say “I don’t want to force every driver in the country to cycle a bike”? On this point, I would welcome some sort of cycling test for cyclists’ as well as police enforcement of the traffic laws for cyclists’; I am personally weary after 36 years of regular, and I genuinely believe correct and lawful, cycling, of being treated like a dog on the road as the result of the poor conduct of other cyclists’; I’m a stickler for the law myself and always have been.

CB wrote:

CB wrote: Weekends the Redbridge P&R bus avoids Abingdon Road and travels, over Donnington Bridge, Iffley Road/High street, into the town loop. Signs are not good enough, the amount of visitors who parked in Redbridge, PearTree, and didn\'t pay the £1, were shocked to get fines of £100 through the post. The main signs are faded, and so used to free parking in other towns, not looking for huge \'PAY HERE\' signs over each machine. Oxford City don\'t charge in their P&R for parking. (Hopefully soon to be resolved). The JR has also paid to move the X13 bus stop into the P&R area, and have parking spaces for staff who live the other side of Oxford, use the X bus. Money coming in from all directions.

Oxford City don\'t charge for parking in Park and Ride parks, Oxfordshire County Council DO. Hopefully they will transfer all of the Park and Rides to City Council control, so we don\'t have to pay to park in Redbridge/PearTree. Hospital Staff will be encouraged also.

Redbridge £1, Seacourt £1, Pear Tree £1 AND THEY ARE ALL CITY COUNCIL RUN. Thornhill upto 72 hours free, Water Eaton upton 72 hours free - BOTH COUNTY MANAGED. Get your facts right. All will be free now that County are in control.

As someone who spent nearly fifty years in the retail and is now retired (but still working in the Bus Industry part time) I can appreciate both points of view. At a recent Flower Sunday in Tingewick one of the "open gardeners" said to me :- "I work in Oxford but always go to Milton Keynes to do my shopping - It is impossible to get into Oxford" !!
There are alternatives to the car but until there is no petrol (Car owners would rather starve than give up their vehicles)Other forms of transport will be hard pushed to compete !
Best wishes to the Retailers and perhaps your Council Tax will go down now that the Local Authority are earning so much money from Parking fines ?!

If they're going to have this bus gate routine on High St more than 4 buses A week should be supplied to this place 9 miles from Oxford. What's this place anyway?