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Transport boss tells drivers: “If you’re in a car you’re part of the problem”

Oxfordshire county councillor says motorists need to take ownership of congestion – and encourages them to use the bus instead

People driving into Oxford have been told that if they’re in a car, they are “part of the problem” of the city’s congestion and that they need to take ownership of the issue – by a councillor in charge of the county’s highways.

Like so many other towns and cities throughout the country, Oxford experiences horrendous congestion at peak times, with traffic regularly queueing from the city centre to beyond the ring road.

But despite park and rides located at key approaches to the city, many commuters drive all the way into the centre, resulting in long tailbacks and holding up buses.

As a result, in rush hour, a bus journey from say Woodstock – eight miles north of the city centre - can easily take three times rush hour as it would at off-peak times.

This week has seen especially long delays for some travelling into the city due to gridlock caused by emergency works to repair burst mains by Thames Water on the southern by-pass.

However, Councillor Tim Bearder, the cabinet member for highway management at Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by a Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green Party administration, was clear in where he believes the problem lies.

Speaking to the BBC, the Liberal Democrat councillor said: “We have to own this problem. It's not playing politics to say that we have a fragile network and that the moment anything happens, the moment Thames Water has to replace a pipe, everything grinds to a halt.

“What we have to do is make radical changes to the way we use our network,” he explained. “We have to get back into buses – buses make sense – and if you're in a car in front of the bus you're part of the problem because you're delaying that bus and making it harder for people to get to town in a considerate way.”

It’s refreshing to hear a politician speak so candidly about an issue that to many of us is glaringly obvious.

Namely, that the principal cause of congestion is too many people using cars, often under single occupancy, rather than seeking more sustainable alternatives for their journeys – and then complaining about being stuck in a traffic jam they have helped create.

If we may make one observation on the councillor’s comments, however, it’s this; after Cambridge, Oxford has the highest proportion of regular cyclists in the country, and from the edge of the city, even riding gently, it takes no more than 20 minutes to pedal into the centre – so the lack of mention of cycling as a solution to congestion seems a curious omission.

So yes, by all means encourage people to use the bus, instead of a car – but also, invest in safe cycle routes to get more people on bikes.

The Oxford Mail has published a round-up of readers’ comments on the issue, and as you might expect, views are polarised, as highlighted by the two opposing opinions below.

“If they let traffic use the roads that are there instead of closing them off they wouldn’t be choking up the remaining roads by forcing all vehicles down the same roads,” wrote Pam Walker.

“The eastern bypass never had the traffic jams until they started stopping cars going through town. Now it gets jams even earlier because of the LTNs! It’s madness. We have more cars than we did a decade ago and more roads closed off some of them are direct routes. Surely standing traffic is worse than moving traffic for pollution! As for using public transport. If you are in some parts of the city bus routes are poor.”

In response to her comment, Barry James said: “The idea is to encourage more people out of their cars and to use other forms of transport.

“Removing all LTNs, just like building more roads, will not solve congestion. If you build more roads, more people will use cars and fill them up. Better investment in alternatives (good bus connections, proper cycling infrastructure) is what is needed to encourage people out of their cars.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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16 comments

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matthewn5 | 2 years ago
2 likes

I saw a lecture on transport in Oxford a few years ago, and one of the things that happened when they built the park-and-rides was that people stopped getting the bus from surrounding villages into the town centre, and started driving instead to the park-and-rides... which produced even more congestion. The law of unintended consequences!

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mdavidford replied to matthewn5 | 2 years ago
1 like

Was that because of the park and rides, though, or because of the ongoing degradation of the rural services they were previously using?

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mdavidford | 2 years ago
2 likes

Quote:

“The eastern bypass never had the traffic jams until they started stopping cars going through town. Now it gets jams even earlier because of the LTNs!"

Except that the Oxford ring road (and the A34) has been a nightmarish car park at rush hour for as long as I can remember - I don't know when this rose-tinted era when there were no traffic jams is supposed to have been - the 1970s maybe?

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brooksby replied to mdavidford | 2 years ago
2 likes

mdavidford wrote:

Quote:

“The eastern bypass never had the traffic jams until they started stopping cars going through town. Now it gets jams even earlier because of the LTNs!"

Except that the Oxford ring road (and the A34) has been a nightmarish car park at rush hour for as long as I can remember - I don't know when this rose-tinted era when there were no traffic jams is supposed to have been - the 1970s maybe?

April 2020?

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bikeman01 | 2 years ago
4 likes

Oxford University is a big part of the traffic problem in Oxford. The uni is by far the biggest employee and has dozens of buildings housing thousands of employees and most have car parking either in the grounds or below ground level for 'senior' staff.

Another issue is traffic flowing north/south and east/west rather than using the ring roads. They need to stop through traffic.

An aging population of weathly, car driving everywhere, self-entitled pensioners doesn't help either.

And finally, tourist buses, boy are there are lot of tourist buses, which for the most part cruise around all day completely empty (and yes this was the same pre-pandemic).

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RobD | 2 years ago
10 likes

I think not mentioning cycling was actually a good move by the councillor, a lot of motorists become disproportionately wound up and switch off whenever cycling is mentioned, whereas it's harder to argue about not being in the way of a bus when there's one literally behind you.

The park and ride buses in Oxford have always seemed great when I've used them, much better than some of the ones in Chelmsford which is the nearest to me. 

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TheBillder replied to RobD | 2 years ago
5 likes

Totally agree, cycling seems to be a trigger word for many. I'd quite like to see adverts on the back of buses that offer people the chance to be slimmer, fitter, wealthier and never have to wait in a traffic jam or at a bus stop. Then have "get a bike" in the small print.

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eburtthebike | 2 years ago
21 likes

Isn't it strange that drivers aren't driven insane by other drivers in their huge, inappropriate means of transport, but are driven insane by a bicycle which takes up almost no space?

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Captain Badger replied to eburtthebike | 2 years ago
14 likes
eburtthebike wrote:

Isn't it strange that drivers aren't driven insane by other drivers in their huge, inappropriate means of transport, but are driven insane by a bicycle which takes up almost none?

Yeah but road tax

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Mungecrundle replied to eburtthebike | 2 years ago
11 likes

I had a little argument with Mrs Mungecrundle when we drove to Cambridge last week. She goes there far more often than I do and is always banging on about cyclists holding up the traffic. I suggested we recorded hold ups of various sorts. It wasn't scientific but in order, the most time lost was to traffic lights, by some considerable margin followed by other motor vehicles waiting at junctions, badly positioned cars waiting to turn right and blocking the road, inconsiderately parked cars / vans and pedestrian crossings. Buses did not feature and cyclists, though there were plenty of them totalled under 10 seconds, and even after overtaking that one, he passed us at the next junction as we were held up by too many cars. For some reason she still feels that all those other things are normal but that cyclists are somehow an icing on the cake type of inconvenience.

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Simon E replied to Mungecrundle | 2 years ago
10 likes

Mungecrundle wrote:

For some reason she still feels that all those other things are normal but that cyclists are somehow an icing on the cake type of inconvenience.

Cyclists are 'not normal' - there's your problem.

The out-grouping of one highly efficient, cheap, non-polluting, non-threatening transport option vs all the others.

And if 10 seconds is an issue for someone then they should leave the house 20 seconds earlier (just in case they encounter 2 cyclists).

If all the cyclists in Cambridge were replaced by SUVs there would be massive queues, no parking spaces (because most of them can't park the things) and an excess of self-entitled arrogance mixed with frustration. But it will be cyclists and LTNs that are to blame.

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chrisonabike | 2 years ago
9 likes

This all sounds ... strangely sensible?  Are people just saying this stuff to troll us or will something happen?

The issue is indeed "networks" - and the one missing is the "short distance network".  People want to get to their individual destinations and they prefer to do this using their own private transport - that's why cars. Most trips are short distance.  A large number of people live within a few miles of a "longer distance hub" (train station / bus stop).  Bikes (and related small vehicles) are an optimum solution for joining these dots but we need a high-quality network for most people.  That means it is safe, feels safe, goes everywhere people want to go as roads do and is convenient.

I'm a bit ambivalent about buses though. Yes, they already exist so don't require building new stuff and they can quickly pick up capacity / add routes.  But they use a lot of energy, trash the roads into waves where they stop / start and aren't totally safe to be around.

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andystow | 2 years ago
14 likes

When I visited Oxford (from the US) we used a park and ride. It just seemed a ridiculous place to try to drive within.

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brooksby | 2 years ago
16 likes

"But that can't be right?  I mean - driving a car is normal, and riding a bike or walking is just weird.  And getting the bus?  You total loser."

I suspect that is the view of a lot of those people you see driving around in their single occupancy leased cars.

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chrisonabike replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
14 likes

I suspect that the vast majority of people don't think about it at all, rather than thinking negatively. People are living their busy lives and unless it's something very appealing (clue - cycling and buses normally aren't) or something that causes a problem / we dislike (dirty smelly buses, that don't turn up on time / take ages) it's not in our consciousness.

I keep forgetting this - when you're on the inside ("I really enjoy cycling and it turns out that bikes are a really inexpensive solution to so many of our problems") you forget that your advocacy can seem as irrelevant as offering a rock to to someone looking for a hammer.

Good news is that once you take the red pill you won't want to go back!

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Jem PT replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
14 likes

brooksby wrote:

I suspect that is the view of a lot of those people you see driving around in their single occupancy leased cars.

"I have been conned by car adverts to spend as lot of my income renting this car, so what's the point of leaving it parked at home and not commuting in it?" Said a lot of commuters stuck in Oxford traffic today. Probably. 

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