Following on from the presentation by county officers at area committee, David and I have submitted proposals for local schemes to be included within the county’s LTP3 “long list” (or should this be “wishlist”?) both directly to the County and also as part of the City Council response

These include:

1. Develop a transport strategy for Headington District Centre and beyond

2. Traffic calming/reduce congestion in Highfield area

3. Traffic calming/reduce congestion in Old Headington

4. Osler Rd cycle safety measures

5. Sandfield Rd/London Rd junction improvement

6. 20 mph soft enforcement measures in Headington residential streets

7. Improve safety at Windmill Rd/London Rd junction

8. Develop cycle routes parallel to London Rd, Headington

9. Improve cycle routes between Brookes Headington and Brookes Wheatley

10. Facilitate closer working of bus companies to rationalise services

through Headington 

11. Improve bus access to/from Risinghurst

12. Upgrade bus service 10 to premium route

13. Review re-instatement of box markings on London Road

The long list will be collated from responses from members of the public and consultees in January. It will be whittled down to a shorter list at a later stage. It has been made clear to us that there will be little money available for LTP3 schemes in the next couple of years because of restrictions by the Tory administration on infrastructure spending, but we hope that one or two of the above schemes can be included in the final plan for relatively little cost.

The Tory cabinet has set down priority objectives for city schemes – if any scheme on the long list satisfies one or more of the following high priority objectives, it stands a better chance of being included within the final action plan:

• reduce congestion
• develop and increase the use of high quality, welcoming public transport
• develop and increase cycling and walking for local journeys, recreation and health

Personally speaking, I would like to have seen “measures to reduce casualties and dangers associated with travel” given high priority along with “reducing carbon emissions, improving  air quality and reducing environmental impact” from traffic. These latter objectives are considered to be ‘medium’ priority and no more by the County Cabinet, which makes decisions on transport in the city despite possessing not one single  democratically elected councillor in the whole of Oxford City.

The draft plan is due to be completed in October 2010 and will come into effect from 2011-2030