Oxford’s bus companies want to work together to eliminate the need for buses in Oxford’s Queen Street

Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council Lib Dems want plans to remove bus stops from Queen Street in central Oxford later in 2009, to be delayed, and bus company proposals to reduce the total number of buses in the centre of the city, to be brought in first.

Cllr Roz Smith, Shadow Cabinet member for Transport, said: “The Liberal Democrats have long been calling for improvements in Oxford city centre to help both pedestrians and bus users. But the Conservatives’ half-way house for Queen Street is just not the way to do it. The idea that the bus stops can be removed but not the buses doesn’t make sense. People will have all the disadvantages – and potential dangers – of having buses mingling with pedestrians, but none of the advantages of being able to actually get on a bus.

“Instead we will just get more congestion and air pollution in St Aldates immediately, and we know that the bus stops removed from Queen Street will eventually be moved again in later phases of the Transform Oxford scheme. In addition, re-surfacing Queen Street now, only to resurface it again in a year or two when the buses are finally relocated fully, is an outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Cllr Zoé Patrick, Leader of the county council Liberal Democrats added, “‘The Conservatives say they want to work with the bus companies but show little sign of rolling up their sleeves and getting on with it. Instead of complaining about the bus companies, they should be sitting down with them to create a proper partnership. This will enable joint timetabling and joint ticketing, and hopefully then reduce the number of half-empty buses coming into the centre. And this will then make room on the other roads to remove buses completely from Queen Street and allow it to be properly pedestrianised.

“This Partnership needs to be set up urgently now. The aims of ‘Transform Oxford’ cannot be delivered until the bus companies can work together. I am surprised at the slowness of the County Council in doing this.”

Note:

The 2008 Local Transport Act allows bus companies to discuss routes and introduce joint ticketing, without being accused of running a cartel, but only if the Transport Authority – in this case the County Council – is involved in the process, acting as “honest broker”, in what is called a Bus Quality Partnership.