Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: Campaigners Guide
Key learning points
2. Build a broad coalition
Quieter streets benefit everyone, not just people on bikes. Your campaign should reflect this, emphasising the diverse benefits of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and building coalitions between existing campaign groups.
In Oxford, various groups were campaigning separately on walking, cycling, inclusive access, low carbon, public spaces and air quality. So a new group, Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, was formed in 2018 with a holistic focus on neighbourhood design, street and highway layout. CoHSAT, a formal coalition of active travel and low carbon groups, was launched in 2019.
How we did it in Oxford
How groups in Oxford developed their vision
CoHSAT was formed in 2019, when several founding members recognised the need to work more collaboratively on healthy streets and active travel campaigning in Oxford.The Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel is a group of voluntary and campaigning organisations working across Oxfordshire to create attractive, accessible and people-friendly streets. We do this by encouraging efficient, active, low carbon and sustainable travel, which will reduce traffic, air pollution and noise, and enable healthy and thriving communities.
Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, a member of the coalition, was formed in 2018 with seven Directors and started outreach with existing active travel and liveability groups in Oxford. It was established as a limited company to give maximum flexibility around campaigning and fundraising. LTNs were not an explicit part of the OLS plan at beginning, but recognised as part of the solution. They were more interested in the bigger picture of “No through routes” where towns and cities are organised into quarters, on the Groningen model (where motorised traffic cannot visit one quarter from another without going around the outside or enter a town at one side and exit at the other). By 2020, OLS were presenting bold proposals for the future of Oxford, such as Connecting Oxford Plus, which were presented in online videos.
Key design principles
The principles which Oxfordshire Liveable Streets agreed to campaign on were:- Priorities reversed (away from ‘motorists first’)
- No through routes
- One-way arterial routes
- Continuous pavements
- Non-motorised rural routes
Next: 3. Inform & win support from local councillors 🡪