Transport Symposium

Today, I attended a Transport Symposium organised by Oxford Civic Society held at St. Hilda's College in Oxford.  We had an interesting range of speakers as outlined below:

• Peter Headicar, former Reader in Transport Studies, Oxford Brookes University
• Steve Howell, Deputy Director of Environment & Economy, Highways & Transport, Oxfordshire County Council
• Ros Weatherill, previously Environment Secretary Oxford Civic Society and OxClean Chair
• Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Director of Hamilton-Baillie Associates, Bristol
• Louisa Weeks, Oxford Bus Co and Martin Sutton, MD Stagecoach
• Chris Aldridge, Principal Network Planner (West & Wales) Network Rail
• Professor David Bannister, Director of Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford

We discussed a whole range of transport issues, covering Oxford's past history right up until the present day.  We heard about the importance of creating space for pedestrians and cyclists and above all how good public transport is essential to make the whole transport planning system work.  Everyone agreed that creating a car-free environment can only benefit us all.

However, the challenge we face for the future is how we can manage the system to avoid total gridlock.  We can now see the benefits of the Smartcard Joint Ticketing and joint timetabling in Oxford and how it has helped to reduce congestion in the city.  I have been campaigning for this to happen for a long time - see my blog post here and I did ask the question today if this could possibly be extended to areas like ours.  Residents often contact me about this issue and indeed there was a comment posted on my blog recently here

The other issue I raised with Network Rail was about the re-opening of Grove railway station.  I was told that when Didcot power station closes in 2015 there may be spare capacity on the lines, however, there was also a suggestion that the company may switch to using biomass and therefore still need the trains.   The possibility of the station re-opening was resurrected after the ATOC report was published in 2009 which said that Wantage could be a viable station in the future.  I followed this up with a motion to the County Council. This was after planning permission was granted by the Vale of White Horse District Council in 2007 see here.  I will continue to campaign for this.