We are very keen to hear your views on what we should be campaigning for. You can contact us by email, letter, or phone.
Health and Wellbeing
OxPA believes that walking brings both social and health benefits to people of all ages. See the evidence we submitted to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs.
Transport policy has for too long given priority to the convenience and efficiency of motor traffic. We are active in lobbying local and national government to give specific consideration to the needs and rights of pedestrians in the use of public space. See, for example, our response to the Department of Transport's consultation on "making Britain's roads the safest in the world".
Congratulations to the County Council for the implementation of 20mph limits on residential streets throughout Oxford on September 1st 2009. Our campaigns included active collaboration with Life Begins at 20. With Cyclox and Residents’ Groups, we campaigned for a lower speed limit throughout Oxford. See our response to the consultation on lower speed limits, launched by Oxfordshire County Council in September 2008. We will be carefully watching the progress of the new lower limit and will continue to press for extending the benefits to radial roads where people live, walk, shop or cycle.
We have long campaigned against the obstruction of pavements by parked cars. Pavement parking is antisocial, dangerous, damaging to the shared environment and, strictly, illegal.
We are therefore protesting against the current proposal to formalize pavement parking in East Oxford. While Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) are clearly essential in this heavily congested area, we do not accept that taking over the footway for private parking is an equitable or long-term solution. The outcome of the consultation process is still awaited.
A long-standing campaign is to restore Broad Street to its former glory. We would like to remove the car parking from the central area, with an appropriate number of disabled parking spaces around the periphery. Along with the Oxford Civic Society and Oxford Consumers’ Group we conducted a survey of driver and pedestrian views in October 2002 (see Report Summary) and we continue to press for a design worthy of this important part of our historic City.