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Transition Oxford

Sustainable Woodstock is a member of the West Oxon Sustainable Transport Forum that meets at regular intervals to promote sustainable travel including public transport, cycling and walking

Woodstock Town Council and Sustainable Woodstock have successfully secured £5000 from developers of the new housing estate in Shipton Road Woodstock to provide bike racks in the town.  We are currently negotiating where these will be situated but it is likely that there will some facilities provided by the town hall, maybe near to the museum and also somewhere close to the Millennium Triangle near the Coop.  The money cannot be released until a certain percentage of the homes in Shipton Road are sold but we hope to have the bike racks in place during 2011.

Transition Oxford aims to drastically cut carbon emissions and to significantly reduce Oxford's reliance on fossil fuels.  For more details see www.transitionoxford.org.uk

Transition Initiatives like these in Oxford have been set up in response to the twin pressures of climate change and peak oil.

Climate Change is already well understood and is perhaps the most urgent environmental crisis of our time.  The Kyoto protocol established legally binding commitments through which countries signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below 1990 levels in the period from 2008 to 2012.  Since Kyoto, the Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change and the recent UK Climate Change Act 2008 has reinforced the message and set a binding framework for reducing carbon emissions in the UK by 80% by 2050 based on 1990 levels.  Transport is responsible for 20% of all CO2 emissions and is the only sector with a still rising trend.

Peak Oil refers to the point in time when the world reaches the maximum achievable level of oil production, after which output will decline.  Peak Oil does not imply "running out" of oil but that as extraction becomes more costly, less oil will become available to us.

Climate Change makes a transition to carbon reduction essential
Peak Oil makes it inevitable
Transition initiatives make it feasible, viable, achievable and in lots of ways attractive.

Transition Oxford - Transport Event - 23rd April
by Colin Carritt

I was fortunate to attend this extended seminar at Oxford University's Centre for the Environment on 23rd April.  The event sought to examine how Oxford and the wider County might re-organise itself to cope with the massive reductions in transport related CO2 emissions that will be necessary in the future.  The event was organised by Sustrans, the cycle charity and champions of sustainability, and it was an inspirational day.

Speakers included, amongst others, County Council Cabinet Member Ian Hudspeth who explained what the County was doing for Oxford in terms of its Transform Oxford strategy which will see pedestrianisation across a wide range of city centre streets.  There was also a stirring presentation from Summertown resident Ted Dewar who explained his efforts at creating a budget priced "home zone" in Beechcroft Road, a project as anarchic and mischievous as it is grounded in good sound community values.  Academic presentations were made by Robin Hickman from transport planners Halcrows, and by Peter Headicar from Oxford Brookes University.  These speakers set the ground rules for some serious brain storming and (unsurprisingly for such a disparate group of environmentalists) much blue skies thinking.

The task we were set was in two stages:-
First we had to imagine what the world, and in particular at local level, would look like in 30 years time.  As a result of the certainty of climate change and sky high energy prices due to "peak oil" and the international competition for oil, how will we have adapted our lifestyles?
Secondly, given that we need to get to that position painlessly and equitably what should we be doing now to set us on the right course?

There were many answers and the organisers will need to digest all the many options available as they prepare their blueprint for the Transition Oxford Strategy document.  When completed I will try to ensure it is available on this website.

In the meantime here are just two of the ideas that struck me as important:-

1. By 2040, the energy crisis will have forced a reversal in the trend for commuting to work and distance shopping.  We felt that by then, some 80% of our lives will necessarily take place within our local communities.  Theses communities will, of course, have porous boundaries but distance travel will become exceptional rather than routine.  Schools, shopping, work and leisure will all be essentially local.  Transport within the locality will be by cycle, walking and, maybe, even by a sophisticated type of rickshaw for those less able or for the carriage of larger items.  Car ownership will be drastically reduced, replaced by car clubs and public transport.

2. To get to such a situation we believe that significant devolution of powers will need to take place from central government to local administrations and a new culture of respect for pedestrians and cyclists over motorised traffic will have to be nurtured.

Please let Sustainable Woodstock have your comments

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