92% of residents indicated their desire to make our streets “Access Only”**. We therefore seek change to how our streets are used. It is imperative, and long overdue, for our children to be able to cycle and walk to school safely, our asthma sufferers to stop fighting for breath and for our houses to no longer shudder as thousands of cars and vans roar past our doors EVERY DAY.
40,000 vehicles a week*
6,000 vehicles EVERY work day*
72% more cars*
Implementation of the proposals is for an 18 month trial with a review after six months and again at the end.
Next year there will be dramatic changes to the routes we all use to get into and across the city. As a part of national Active Travel strategy, it is now County Council policy to implement proposals to reduce traffic cutting through our residential streets, and to improve our ability to walk, bus and cycle instead.
Doing nothing will enable more traffic to run through our area.
The dramatic cut in traffic resulting from the pandemic triggered a national effort during the lockdown to ensure we do not return to mass congestion, pollution and danger from high volumes of traffic suffered as “normal” before. Active Travel offers us a once in a lifetime chance to stop our area being a rat-run and to pilot new ways.
This coincided with the work an impassioned team of residents had been pursuing on behalf of the community, to reduce vehicles driving through our neighbourhood. Swiftly the work was refocused to pull together a proposal for a Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) that could be at first agreed by the County Council, and then agreed by central government.
This work involved researching how other cities in the UK and abroad were approaching similar issues, linking with a traffic engineer experienced in designing LTNs as well as working with our City and County Councillors who have been tremendously supportive throughout. There are 9 LTN proposals set for implementation within the ring road.
Our proposal involves the installation of two barriers that will block all traffic except emergency vehicles and rubbish trucks. They are to be located at the very top of Divinity Road and at the junction of Divinity Road and Stone Street. This proposal is a pilot, and we are learning as we go, with consultation an important factor in the Council’s process.
The community meetings are a briefing for you on the idea, a chance to hear your views, and to help us come up with a workable scheme that can command consensus support. We appreciate it’s close to Christmas and you might not want another Zoom meeting – but the timeline is tight
This is a once in a generation opportunity to trial a new approach to managing traffic.
Invitation to a community meeting
“Reducing Traffic in Our Community”
join the discussion by phone or Zoom
We need to act together across our streets: how we move around IS going to change across East Oxford next year …including HERE.
Please come to one of the meetings to:
Learn the latest on the idea and the wider programme
Share your views
Help us develop a workable scheme
Sunday 20th December 5-6.30pm
Monday 21st December 6-7.30pm
For information on how to register for the meeting and receive joining instructions, please click here. For more information go to www.drara.org.uk/traffic OR email traffic@drara.org.uk.
Details of how to join the meeting and much more
Give feedback and pose questions ahead of the meetings
Link to the dedicated Facebook group to discuss and upload video and photos
If you can’t make these dates, or are unable to zoom/phone in, you can get in touch by email.
*County Council survey of traffic using Divinity Road for the week of 9-15/9/19, rounded to nearest thousand, compared to prior survey 2014
** DRARA Resident survey, June 2020
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