Thursday 28 February 2008
Let's have TRAMS in Oxford
Do we really want to fill the city every day with as many cars as there are in Oxford during Christmas Week? Asthma levels are on the rise everywhere and while - according to Sir Richard Peto - it's difficult to prove that this is down to the pollution from cars, inviting in a lot of extra traffic is only going to exacerbate the respiratory problems many people already have. So why not have trams in Oxford? They've got one in Dublin and the people love it there. The air would be left cleaner and the trams could be powered by a wind farm..
In Dublin they took out the original tram and replaced it with a Parry tram that didn't have any cables overhead. This sounds like the one we could use in Oxford as we wouldn't want to obscure the views of its magnificent colleges and churches in any way.
The trams could head out to the Park and rides, down the Iffley road, up to Headington, up the Woodstock or Banbury road and down the Marston road. This would effectively negate the need for most of the cars entering Oxford.
There could be wagons on the back to take goods to shops, although some goods vans would certainly have to have space to enter.
Trams would leave the air cleaner, make it safer for cyclists and shorten the time it takes for the airport and London buses to reach their destination because they could leave from the tram stations on the ouskirts rather than winding slowly through the city centre, smogging up our streets with diesel fumes as they go.
The network could be extended into Oxfordshire or more efficient bus systems could bring people to the tram stations from the surrounding villages and towns, meaning even less cars.
Again, I'm just throwing these ideas up in the air. If you've got any ideas that link up with these in a positive ways or would even like to point out any drawbacks, please leave a comment.
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3 comments:
This reminded me of a book called "New City Spaces" by Jan Gehl and Lars Gemzoe (2000). Lots of wonderful examples of cities transformed by the introduction of tram and pedestrian streets.
Thanks Supapim
Supapim Gajaseni
4:15pm Mar 13th
Hi,
Thought this might be of interest to you, although it's a bit brief but raises a few good questions:
http://www.communigate.co.uk/oxford/thamesvalleyforum/page7.phtml
There should be previous studies somewhere, no?
Grenoble has roughly the same population as Oxford and they also have tram system but i felt their city's much bigger. (Their metro. pop is about 500,000. I don't know about Oxford.)
The book that i referred to the other day has quite a detailed case of Copenhagen which makes me think a bit of Oxford for its cutey streets with city centre choked by traffic back in the 60s. Gehl managed to convince the municipality and they started in the 70s to gradually decrease the number of parking spaces and added pedestrian streets and it works.
I guess you have lots of contacts in consultancy & academia who can help brainstorm. Prof. David Banister recently left UCL for Oxford and he's an expert on urban transportation and Prof. Mike Jenks at Brookes also writes a lot on sustainable cities. They both should be able to give your lots of answers, as well as about funding.
Well, just wanna throw in some ideas. Hope you're well.
Supapim
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