Experimental transport policies make Oxford a 'petri dish'

"England is a garden". "London is the place for me". "Oxford is a petri dish".

Two of these are heartfelt tributes from musicians to their home country. One of them is a comment from a man lamenting delays to the reopening of Botley Road.

We can only guess what local journalist John Mair thought to mean when he awarded our city such a lofty designation.

It does, however, bring to mind the number of experimental transport policies that have been implemented in the past few years.

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Things can never be so straightforward as there’s a problem, here’s a solution.

It’s more of a we will implement an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order for 18 months to try something new – which, mind you, is more likely to just end up permanent.

So it’s all the ‘experimental’ but less of the ‘temporary’. You get the fun of both worlds.

Botley Road works. (Image: Oxford Mail)

It is amusing to compare Oxfordshire County Council’s approach to congestion caused by LTNs to the clearing up of traffic caused by the cutting off of Botley Road due to works at the station.

Works at Botley Road – which have faced delay after delay under Network Rail management – have had the happy side effect of easing congestion on a part of the route as access to the city centre is no longer a thing.

The council has capitalised on this and used it as an opportunity to carry out resurfacing works outside Waitrose while Thames Water works are also carried out, which would cause traffic delays.

It’s a bit of a -1 + 1 = 0 approach in the hope the works may cancel each other out. Except they don’t exactly cancel each other out as we still have net congestion.

With LTNs, Andrew Gant, county council cabinet member for transport management suggested in an interview with us in June he was bringing in the traffic filters trial to fix congestion caused by the controversial measures.

Again – this vision of Oxford as a petri dish begins to become more and more lucid – measure after measure is piled on in the hope of finding a solution.

It’s adding things instead of taking them away.

Andrew Gant. (Image: Oxfordshire County Council.)

At the end of the day, is it really so bad that Oxford is a ‘petri dish’?

There is surely a place in political planning and decision-making for bold new ideas, creativity and innovation.

The problem is when you start to grow something toxic. No one wants that.

Whatever crazy new ideas are implemented, the council should do it with the support and consent of local residents.

Perhaps Oxford can remain as a petri dish. But it should be our petri dish.