CoHSAT joined leaders of multiple transport modes in and around Oxford united on 4th July 2025 to support the proposed Temporary Congestion Charge and to call for the County Council to implement it.
Ten transport leaders, signed a letter declaring ‘The future is multimodal – for reliability and choice’ and setting out how the current congestion with Oxford ‘stuck in a mass of cars’ not only can’t go on, but is in danger of getting worse thanks to the county’s success in attracting jobs and people to the area.
The solution is to move more people in less space, with a transport system that includes private cars but is not overwhelmed by them. A system with multiple space efficient modes: walking, cycling and scooters for short distances; buses and trains for longer distances; shared cars and taxis when you need the flexibility of a car, but not the ownership cost.
These services already exist in Oxford, and bus services have been improve with new electric buses and new routes, but the roads are too congested for them to work properly. We can’t just provide options and hope for change because individual people have no incentive to switch from their driving habit – and this has been shown in other cities. That’s why a nudge like the temporary congestion charge (or the traffic filter trial that will follow it) is needed.
We don’t want to stay stuck in the same jams that we’ve been in since 2013 (or even before), we want to move forward together to a multimodal future of more reliable, more flexible transport that works for everyone.
Read the letter here
