Few complaints about Oxfordshire road chippings – yet

It seems that few people have complained about the piles of loose chippings with which Oxfordshire County Council’s Highways Department have resurfaced many of the roads in Oxford and the county. That is what a council spokesman says, anyway, according to this article in thisisoxfordshire.

That may be because some of the victims, like one known to us, are still undergoing hospital treatment to have the stones removed from their legs, where they lie deeply buried after a skid on the loose surface. The John Radcliffe Hospital has apparently seen several such injuries. I do not approve of ambulance-chasing lawyers, but there should be work for them as the pain subsides and thoughts turn to compensation.

Stiff penalties will enforce eco-town viability

A comment comes in about the transport aspects of eco-towns covered in my post of last night Weston-Otmoor Flintgrad will be Commuterville. It suggests that the fine for driving out of Flintgrad at peak times could be as high as £200.

That seems consistent with the general approach likely to be taken by a government which thinks that heavy-handed authoritarianism is the way to go. My theme yesterday was that we are in fact unlikely to see the transport benefits – the incentives – which the developer is offering. They are out of the developer’s hands anyway, and any scheme which depends on a Labour government honouring its commitments, on the competence of Network Rail, and on the abilities of the transport officers of Oxfordshire County Council, is doomed to failure.

Weston-Otmoor Flintgrad will be Commuterville

The eco-towns, or Flintgrads as they are known after the not-very-bright single-issue fanatic Caroline Flint who is promoting them, are flawed in concept and far from eco. Weston Otmoor, near Oxford, has more flaws than most. We have seen New Labour’s bad faith in this region before and take no comfort either from Flint’s promise to adhere to the planning process or from our estimate of her ability to hold the developers to their promises.

A report commissioned by the Government to challenge the developers of the so-called “eco-towns” has applauded the “developed transport strategy” on which the plans are based, but foresees that Weston Otmoor, the development close to Oxford, will simply become a dormitory town. Their report says

The transport strategy is potentially transformational and uses tram-train, free travel and demand management for car-use. As residents may simply take the tram to the park-and-ride and drive to either London or Birmingham, how will the town be stopped from becoming Commuterville?

All sorts of questions arise here, not least how a group including a fashion designer and a couple of television presenters can purport to have anything useful to say on the subject, particularly as they do not appear to have spoken to anyone opposed to the Weston-Otmoor scheme.

Desecrated Oxford in the Times

A letter under the title Oxford desecrated appeared in the Times of 19 May. The writer refers to the honeyed rhythm, curve, quality and dramatic punctuation of the High and says:

The road itself is not a smooth surface sending the eye to the gorgeous gold of the stone, but a pock-marked way, cluttered with signs, part-barriers and the other detritus of modern traffic management. It is as if some monstrous urban planner has, with calm deliberation, set upon a path of destruction. And it is impossible to believe that any other great city would visit such horrors on such beauty.

He wonders if we could engage some Oxford minds on the subject.

Oxford park-and-rides to be free at last

The rumours are that Oxford City Council is planning to hand over control of the three park-and-ride car parks which it controls to Oxfordshire County Council, that all park-and-rides will be free, and that more spaces will be provided. The aim, of course, is encouragement to drivers to stay out of the city by offering them an incentive to park on the edge of town.

Oxfordshire transport head on High horse

There is a letter in this week’s Oxford Times from Steve Howell, Head of Transport at Oxfordshire County Council. He is terribly upset about complaints reported the previous week from the Warden of All Souls amongst others, who protested about the vandalism perpetrated the length of Oxford’s High Street by the uncultured, insensitive oafs of Oxfordshire County Council.

Howell boasts of the work already done to the High with paving and road surfaces improved with a de-cluttering of signage where possible. He goes on:

I, therefore, slightly resent the undertones that that we are cold and unfeeling towards the heritage of the High Street and its status as an Oxford gem.

I saw no such undertones in the reported comments. The paper’s short report included expressions like “vandalism”, “ill thought-out”, “too appalling to contemplate”, “a thoughtless proposal from engineers who have studied maps, not organisations or people”, “further vandalism of the High Street”, “a sorry sight in terms of signage, street furniture, eyesore boxes and machines”. If Howell thinks these are merely “undertones” then his skin is as thick as his head.

Thinking expensively for us at Tackley Halt

There is a disappointing leader in the Oxford Times this week, with the Editor apparently subscribing to the widely-held idea that “they” must do our thinking for us. It is the job of sensible newspaper editors to try and stem the flow of such nonsense, not to ride it or encourage it.

The context is the unfortunate death of an elderly woman under a train at Tackley Halt. Villagers, says the Oxford Times, had warned Network Rail five years ago of their “real concerns”. Network Rail had applied successfully for planning permission for a tunnel but had decided after a risk assessment that warning signs were sufficient.

The leader writer concludes from this that a death on the crossing is “sad proof that the assessment was wrong”. It might be “might simply be pure luck” that there have been no other fatalities. A “fresh assessment…is needed urgently”.

Bollocks.

FGW dumps its albatross

Even as I was writing my piece about the closure of the Travel Centre at Oxford Station, First Great Western was relieving Alison Forster of the top job.

The company is performing very badly all over its region, but Oxford suffered in particular from timetable changes last winter. If the original decision was bad, Forster’s handling of the fallout was worse, culminating in an embarrassing climb-down. Commuters are generally docile, resigned to their lot as fodder for First Group’s shareholders and victims of New Labour’s neglect of public transport. It was quite a feat on Alison Forster’s part to incite the formation of a protest group, Ox Rail Action.

Come to see how not to do it at Aristotle Lane

I came across this little party yesterday afternoon, standing amongst the 15 pillars, posts and other clutter which Oxfordshire County Council has dumped at the end of Aristotle Lane.

Small groups hanging around in Aristotle Lane are usually waiting for their dealer to arrive, but not generally at school-out time, not at the primary school anyway. They look like local authority employees, I decided – that look of tired-biscuits-left-on-a-dusty-shelf which identifies those who trudge the corridors of councils everywhere.

FGW closes Oxford Travel Centre

There is not much positive to say about Oxford railway station. Its operator is First Great Western, presently bottom of the table of worst performing railway companies, with a record for poor service, late arrivals and over-crowding which is second to none (or strictly, joint-equal at the bottom of the table).

FGW was the company which was forced to restore some of the Oxford services which it slashed at the beginning of the year after protests both locally and in Parliament. There was a fares strike. Alison Forster, the woman in charge, brazened it out for a few weeks at the turn of the year and then was forced into a humiliating climb-down.

Capital ignorance at the Plain

My post Gents in St Giles Oxford referred in passing to “the screaming capitals so beloved of officious plonkers in council offices” – the habit of council pen-pushers of beginning words with Capital Letters to Emphasise their Importance. In that case, the capitalisation was the least part of the offensive ignorance shown in the notice in question.

Here is one where the capitals – and the lack of them – is the main point.

Plain unnecessary works

Oxfordshire Highways, which is a kind of blind-leading-the-lame joint venture between Oxfordshire County Council and two other organisations, has started work at the Plain, the critical junction which connects East Oxford, London and Vladivostok with Oxford city centre.

This is the third and final stage in the long-drawn-out “improvement” to the High Street, which started at Carfax a year ago. The aim is threefold – to restore the surface which has been patched for years and does actually need attention, to bugger up the traffic flow at the roundabout, and to replace the existing set of signs and lines with a bigger, shinier set.

Signs of no cultural hinterland in Oxford

I wrote a post a few days ago called Signs obscuring the sights of Oxford about the forest of metal obscuring the view of the Clarendon Building. I was trying to work out how anyone could do this, could be so blind to beautiful things that he could stick signs up in front of everything.

Oxford traffic lights could come down

“City traffic lights could come down” screams the Oxford Times headline. “Radical shared space scheme being considered”. The implication is that Oxfordshire County Council may consider the removal of some traffic lights and the other junk which they have spent the last 30 years sticking up all over Oxford.

People (and street works) cause accidents

As the mob continues to bay for street works at the King’s Arms, we look at the real cause of urban accidents – people and thoughtless tinkering with road layouts.

We are still no clearer as to the cause of the accident at the King’s Arms junction in central Oxford in which a student cyclist was dragged under the wheels of a dust-cart and killed. The arguments continue as to what (if anything) should be done at the junction.

We have the usual cries of “something must be done”, generally from people whose ignorance of the circumstances matches their lack of logic and their inability to relate an effect to its cause. They would have major works done here with lots of signs, lines, barriers and lights. See the Oxford Inciter post A cyclist dies at the lights – no action required for an critique of this approach.

Thames towpath repairs at Oxford

I have been down to see the works from Medley to Sheepwash Channel where the towpath has been crumbling for years. Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council suddenly found the money to make urgent repairs, apparently as a first phase of more comprehensive strategy to restore the path.

More on Oxford’s cycling “blackspots”

I commented adversely yesterday on the casual use by the student newspaper Cherwell of the word “blackspot” to describe the junction where a student was killed under a lorry last week.

By chance, I today came across a Cherwell article of 27 January 2006 headed “Risk factors for student cyclists” which was about a report by Oxford City Council on cycling hazards in the city. A number of “blackspots” were highlighted. They did not include the King’s Arms junction.

Oxford plans its ruin

The Westgate Shopping Centre is only one of the vast building projects planned for Oxford. Oxford University will redevelop the Radcliffe Infirmary Site and is building a vast book store in the flood-plain of Osney Mead. The Poly is redeveloping Headington. The so-called West End, nearly a quarter of the city centre, is going to be redeveloped into a cross between Vegas and a Midlands industrial estate. The railway station is to be redeveloped. Oxford University plans to build 200 homes at Wolvercote. A housing estate of up to 8,000 homes will probably be built at Grenoble Road. Smaller schemes include a housing estate at Castle Mill Boatyard.

The university’s RI plans are the only ones which have any real potential to better the place, to build something which people will travel to see and which will be admired in the next century. The book depository looks like a factory. The Brookes plans look like those of a former Poly anxious that we should forget its origins. The civic proposals look like reheated plans from the 1970s, lots of cheaply-built girder-and-glass office blocks leavened with token gestures towards a dimly-understood cultural heritage with a cod-European flavour.

Oxford’s Street De-cluttered?

Is it possible that Oxfordshire County Council are taking notice of the complaints about street clutter and trying to cut it down? Probably not, but let’s grab the chance to show what part of Oxford looks like when some at least of the signs come down.

Wrong direction for Oxford cyclists

A city lucky enough to have a network of cycle lanes needs the occasional sign to point them out to would-be users. I suspect that the hideous pale blue is a national standard which must be complied with. Thus far, I am ready to accept the need for notices as shown below at the point where South Parks Road in Oxford bends at the junction of two cycle lanes. I do think, however, they should bear some approximation to accuracy.