Should Oxford have a tramway?

[Bletchleyite]

I think a city may need more than that, but for easier public communication it really helps to group them into distinct service groups along the main routes to the centre. Nottingham does this really well, with buses coloured by service group, so all the orange buses go down the Derby Road, and all the green buses go to West Bridgford etc. The City bus map makes it really clear where the high frequency bus routes go.

I think the point was more that most demand would involve trams or trains, with buses just connecting to them except in inner areas. Nottingham does have trams, but the integration isn't there and there aren't enough routes.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Other changes to the overall transport network, including revised bus routes and parking provision, would need to be part of the scheme - it would be pointless maintaining a competing parallel bus route.

Difficult here with deregulation but one of the reasons many European cities, including Dublin, have a more successful tram network than say Sheffield, is that they are planned as part of an integrated public transport network with complementary rather than competing services. Integrated fares and ticketing and integrated high density complementary planning policies help too.

This is the myth of trams imho. City buses are rarely complementary these days. Buses typically follow the notional tram route out of the centre, then diverge at the ends, often terminating a good ten or even twenty minutes walk away from the rails. Gone are the days when cities could sustain the number of different tracks and termini that these bus networks do, which they of course often inherited from the days of trams and later trolleybuses. Passengers don't like and don't want to be forced off a bus onto a tram for the convenience of the council, not least because it rarely saves them any time or money (which I imagine is the case in Oxford). Trams only work these days when you have busy point to point flows, like an airport or park and ride sites. Even then, you can't just eliminate parallel buses, if only for disabled and elderly passengers, for whom even a short walk to a tram stop can be very daunting, especially if it is sited on a busy traffic flow.

 

[Nottingham59]

Nottingham does have trams, but the integration isn't there and there aren't enough routes.

Nottingham does indeed have trams, which last year lost £22M. Compared to the successful bus network which serves many more sectors of the city and, as far as I can tell, needed only £11M in subidies to maintain some unprofitable services.

The problem with a bus-tram combined system is that when you've filled a bus going round the housing estates at the edge of the city, then it's a lot easier and quicker to run it straight into the centre rather than faffing around disgorging those passengers onto a tram - even if the ticket prices are the same.

In Nottingham there is the city wide Robin Hood Smart card, and the free bus passes work on the trams too. How would you see integration working better?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nottingham does indeed have trams, which last year lost £22M. Compared to the successful bus network which serves many more sectors of the city and, as far as I can tell, needed only £11M in subidies to maintain some unprofitable services.

A superior mode costs more to run than an inferior mode. Do I see the Pope wandering towards a building with a cross on top on a Sunday morning, perchance?

The problem with a bus-tram combined system is that when you've filled a bus going round the housing estates at the edge of the city, then it's a lot easier and quicker to run it straight into the centre rather than faffing around disgorging those passengers onto a tram - even if the ticket prices are the same.

If your tramway has decent segregated right of way and your buses are timetabled to connect to it (unless it's very high frequency) the European approach would indeed be to connect with it rather than waste buses by running them through traffic congestion from outer suburbs into the centre. You probably would want some innersuburban bus services where that advantage goes, though. And back onto Oxford, it is probably too small for that to gain benefit, but the advantage of its odd shape is that you'd need very few buses.

In Nottingham there is the city wide Robin Hood Smart card, and the free bus passes work on the trams too. How would you see integration working better?

As noted above, a single coordinated network where buses are used to connect to trams, like it is in civilised countries.

 

[Nottingham59]

A superior mode costs more to run than an inferior mode.

That's one definition of superior, I suppose. An even more superior mode would pay better.

If your tramway has decent segregated right of way

I think we both agree that's the key. I don't know Oxford that well, but looking at the map it seems to me that they should make either one of Woodstock Rd or Banbury road a dedicated bus road and make private cars / ubers / taxis use the other one. Similarly one or more of the radial routes in the South East quadrant could be bus-gated to make them effectively bus-only roads. And ban cars from the centre, ideally between Magdalen Bridge and the station.

Then you could run tram tracks down those routes if you really wanted to, but it would be a lot cheaper to run buses or trolleybuses instead. The only advantage of trams that I can see it that it might be easier electorally to ban cars from a route if the space were to be tram-only rather than bus-only. And you might be able to get away with routing a new tram route across ancient meadows (of which there are lot in Oxford) rather than a new bus route.

As noted above, a single coordinated network where buses are used to connect to trams, like it is in civilised countries.

I think it's more a case of those countries having a system of central control that designs a public realm, like Baron Hausmann did in Paris, and forcing it through.

 

[MarkyT]

Then you could run tram tracks down those routes if you really wanted to, but it would be a lot cheaper to run buses or trolleybuses instead. The only advantage of trams that I can see it that it might be easier electorally to ban cars from a route if the space were to be tram-only rather than bus-only. And you might be able to get away with routing a new tram route across ancient meadows (of which there are lot in Oxford) rather than a new bus route.

A big advantage of trams/light rail is the potentially higher number of passengers that can be carried per service/driver if you have long enough formations, which are easier to cater for on rails. There's also the flexibility to vary capacity throughout the day if desired by coupling multiple trams together under control of one driver during the peaks. This can also save road space on busy corridors. Multisection bendy-buses are also possible of course, but tend to be harder to accomodate in the narrow streets and tight turns of ancient city centre street layouts. I know long trams are not trouble-free either, particularly when stood at one junction while blocking back through another to rear.

I think it's more a case of those countries having a system of central control that designs a public realm, like Baron Hausmann did in Paris, and forcing it through.

It's not essential to have wide Parisian boulevards to accommodate trams.

 

[fishwomp]

And you might be able to get away with routing a new tram route across ancient meadows (of which there are lot in Oxford) rather than a new bus route.

No way. At most I could imagine a small (Volks Electric Tramway or Little Ratty) running on existing paths such as the cycle path from Marston to the University Parks - but not full or near full size transport.. Permitting bikes on that path was a big enough lift 30 years ago..

There are far more roads to close first.. and that'd be the approach. Woodstock/Banbury as you suggest would be one.

Water Taxi from Wolvercote on the canal.. and from Iffley to the centre on the Isis - but they are both not in ideal starting locations.

 

[Nottingham59]

coupling multiple trams together under control of one driver during the peaks.

I really don't see that Oxford is anywhere big enough to generate the corridor flows that would need trams in multiple. Manchester is. Nottingham urban area certainly isn't, with peak tram frequency of 6-8tph on each arm.

Are there any bus corridors in Oxford that carry, say, more than 20bph?

It still looks to be a quite complicated network once you get out in the boonies.

Of course it's complicated. If you want to run a public transport system in a city that actually serves the people of the city, then the network has to be comprehensive.

My point is that a few tram lines along the most intensively served corridors really don't add anything. The value of a network comes from serving the communities, and if it's worth running a bus around a peripheral estate onto a main corridor, then it's much better all round for that bus to then run into the centre, with bus-only roads and proper bus lanes. Don't turf them off to wait for a tram.

I'm surprised to see they have retained this type of retrograde network design.

It actually works very well. What's retrograde about it? I understand the Nottingham bus network is one of the best in England. If you want a simpler map, then this is latest iteration:

 

[Mikey C]

This is the myth of trams imho. City buses are rarely complementary these days. Buses typically follow the notional tram route out of the centre, then diverge at the ends, often terminating a good ten or even twenty minutes walk away from the rails. Gone are the days when cities could sustain the number of different tracks and termini that these bus networks do, which they of course often inherited from the days of trams and later trolleybuses. Passengers don't like and don't want to be forced off a bus onto a tram for the convenience of the council, not least because it rarely saves them any time or money (which I imagine is the case in Oxford). Trams only work these days when you have busy point to point flows, like an airport or park and ride sites. Even then, you can't just eliminate parallel buses, if only for disabled and elderly passengers, for whom even a short walk to a tram stop can be very daunting, especially if it is sited on a busy traffic flow.

Which is an argument for guided busways like the Luton-Dunstable one, as the busway has a high frequency of different routes which fan out at the Dunstable end, to where people actually want to go.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It still looks to be a quite complicated network once you get out in the boonies. The variations in Plains and Wolds for example give me a headache just looking at them, and also makes it harder to use the high frequency corridors (because you have to remember the 9/9A/9B etc all go to the stop you want). I'm surprised to see they have retained this type of retrograde network design.

Most of it looks OK but the light green set of routes in the bottom right hand corner is just ridiculous, far too many variants there.

The real issue with that map is that it doesn't clearly show the tram routes. Single mode transport maps are just wrong (and for the record I have just as much of an issue with the 1990s InterCity map).

Which is an argument for guided busways like the Luton-Dunstable one, as the busway has a high frequency of different routes which fan out at the Dunstable end, to where people actually want to go.

Fanning out is about the only sensible argument for a Busway over trams, though it's interesting to note that the Cambs one no longer does, other than Huntingdon it's mostly just connections.

 

[Mikey C]

Fanning out is about the only sensible argument for a Busway over trams, though it's interesting to note that the Cambs one no longer does, other than Huntingdon it's mostly just connections.

For a network like in the Luton-Dunstable area, it's a massive advantage over trams, unless you have the finances to build a comprehensive tram network that fans out in several directions after leaving the core route.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For a network like in the Luton-Dunstable area, it's a massive advantage over trams, unless you have the finances to build a comprehensive tram network that fans out in several directions after leaving the core route.

Indeed. Back to Oxford, though, its curious shape would minimise the need for fanning out.

 

[Nottingham59]

the light green set of routes in the bottom right hand corner is just ridiculous, far too many variants there.

Why do you think that? West Bridgford is a diffuse residential suburb. All the green buses start in Nottingham centre, follow the uncongested bus-gated road to Trent Bridge, traverse Central Avenue in WB where all the shops are, and then fan out across the suburb.

It looks to me that SE Oxford is very similar. A rubbish place for a tram route, but perfect for battery trolley buses which could recharge in the centre before fanning out alond the Iffley, London and Cowley Roads.

EDIT: Here is the Oxford Bus Map. Where should we put the tramline?

https://images-oxfordbus.passenger-website.com/2023-04/SmartZone%20Network%20Map%20-%20April%202023%20--WEB.pdf

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why do you think that? West Bridgford is a diffuse residential suburb. All the green buses start in Nottingham centre, follow the uncongested bus-gated road to Trent Bridge, traverse Central Avenue in WB where all the shops are, and then fan out across the suburb.

Still doesn't need to be a mess like that.

It looks to me that SE Oxford is very similar. A rubbish place for a tram route, but perfect for battery trolley buses which could recharge in the centre before fanning out alond the Iffley, London and Cowley Roads.

EDIT: Here is the Oxford Bus Map. Where should we put the tramline?

https://images-oxfordbus.passenger-website.com/2023-04/SmartZone%20Network%20Map%20-%20April%202023%20--WEB.pdf

Fairly obviously, the thick lines. I'm proposing a network like a similar sized European city might have, not just a single route.

 

[Nottingham59]

Still doesn't need to be a mess like that.

Fairly obviously, the thick lines. I'm proposing a network like a similar sized European city might have, not just a single route.

OK. So tram lines to Oxford Parkway P&R, Blackbird Leys, Redbridge P&R, Headington Hospital, and out to Botley. Fabulous if it ever happened.

I think we're more likely to get a tram network in Leeds / Bradford Metropolitan area (pop 1.7M) than Oxford (150,000)

 

[Merioneth]

It could work here in Oxford if you had a couple of sensible routes which had inter available ticketing from feeder buses.

Woodstock to the city centre via the airport, Kidlington and the Banbury Road.

Cowley Centre, out through the business park to the ring road, along the cycle path (which could be replaced fairly easily by linking other paths along the inner edge of the bypass), through Headington past the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, then down the London Road past Brooke’s University, over Magdalen Bridge, and on to the centre.

A route from the south, starting in Abingdon, using the railway alignment to Radley Station, parallel to the railway line past the park and ride, and then parallel to the Abingdon Road, before crossing the Thames on a new bridge, with the line splitting, the inbound one up the side of the Westgate, the outbound one down St Aldate’s.

The eastern route would come in from Witney, along the side of the A40 to Eynsham, cross the Thames and follow the road to Botley, and then up the Botley Road to the Centre.

Within the city centre each route would join a circuit and trams would alternate their routes. (ie: Woodstock to Abingdon would be followed by a Woodstock to Cowley etc…)

This would cover most of the main traffic flows without jamming the Cowley Road, and would cover 3/5 park and ride sites. The other two could have a bus shuttle to the nearest tram stop.

It would also increase the population served to more than twice that of Oxford itself.

To make it work there would need to be strict bus/tram integration and a huge cut to the number of services running into Oxford centre. For passengers travelling from Witney, Eynsham, Abingdon and Kidlington, many of whom work on the opposite side of the city from their homes, it would reduce their commuting time hugely.

I know it is very unlikely, but it could work, and really enhance people’s lives here.

 

[Fleetmaster]

To make it work there would need to be strict bus/tram integration and a huge cut to the number of services running into Oxford centre. For passengers travelling from Witney, Eynsham, Abingdon and Kidlington, many of whom work on the opposite side of the city from their homes, it would reduce their commuting time hugely.

Why are huge cuts necessary? If the proposed tram is so advantageous, and if the predicted traffic flow is mostly from car using commuters, why does the bus network have to be slashed to make it work?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why are huge cuts necessary? If the proposed tram is so advantageous, and if the predicted traffic flow is mostly from car using commuters, why does the bus network have to be slashed to make it work?

Because why would you wastefully duplicate the tram?

Urban public transport is made worse by competition, not better.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Because why would you wastefully duplicate the tram?

Urban public transport is made worse by competition, not better.

It rarely duplicates, for reasons already given up thread.

A tram system should stand on its own two feet, attracting more or different passengers as its main source of income. Oxford's core city buses would never be empty even with a modern tram.

I've done the Edinburgh tram from the western park and ride to city centre, and even that optimal flow offers no serious advantages over the buses given their existing frequency and relatively traffic free runs, services which were thankfully not decimated along parallel routes as was threatened. I took the tram for the novelty and the fact it isn't as expensive as it should be (because it's being cross subsidised from the buses!).

I would also be frankly amazed if the current extension to Newhaven results in any bus cuts, even though that route is even more obviously duplicating bus routes along the main drag of Leith Walk.

 

[Falcon1200]

It could work here in Oxford if you had a couple of sensible routes which had inter available ticketing from feeder buses.

Woodstock to the city centre via the airport, Kidlington and the Banbury Road.

Cowley Centre, out through the business park to the ring road, along the cycle path (which could be replaced fairly easily by linking other paths along the inner edge of the bypass), through Headington past the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, then down the London Road past Brooke’s University, over Magdalen Bridge, and on to the centre.

A route from the south, starting in Abingdon, using the railway alignment to Radley Station, parallel to the railway line past the park and ride, and then parallel to the Abingdon Road, before crossing the Thames on a new bridge, with the line splitting, the inbound one up the side of the Westgate, the outbound one down St Aldate’s.

Some interesting and imaginative ideas there, but surely, should Oxford ever have trams, they would have to serve the huge traffic draw that is the JR Hospital?!!

However, IMHO Oxford does not, and never will, have the passenger flows to justify the expense of trams, nor does the city's geography lend itself to such a system; The main east-west route through the city, via the High Street, divides at the Plain roundabout into three roads, Iffley Road, Cowley Road and St Clements, and the last then has two further divergences to Morrell Avenue and the Marston Road. The busiest bus route is the Cowley Road, but even then nowhere near busy enough for trams. And please don't get me started on forcing passengers to change from a bus to a tram to somehow justify the latter! I don't see any public transport need within Oxford that cannot be served by electric buses at an infinitely more affordable cost than trams.

 

[Clayton]

Sadly the roads are generally too narrow. And what advantage would trams have over buses? We’d still need buses

 

[Haywain]

Excellent? Hahaha not a chance. Granted, the buses do have amazing liveries and the routes are frequent but the routes are inefficient using completely unsuitable single door buses which unnecessarily increase journey times on busy key city routes like the 1 / city5 (Rail Station - Blackbird Leys), 400 (Harcourt Hill - Wheatley), city 8 (Westgate - Barton) & city X3 (Barton - Abingdon via JR & City). Now before a certain someone who I won't name comes here, I'm not saying all routes in Oxford need dual door buses (the S routes like the S2 and S4 are perfectly fine being single door) but I'm a regular user of Oxford's busy city bus routes and they would certainly benefit from dual doors.

I've been to Oxford in the last few days and I have to say I was stunned at how good the bus services are. I live in a much larger town where most services finish in the very early evening, and have fairly poor frequency. So, to find I was able to use a service that has a 10 minute frequency all day (and evening) and runs from 05:30 to 01:00 was a revelation. That is what most people outside the metropolitan areas do call an excellent bus service.

 

[Fleetmaster]

I've been to Oxford in the last few days and I have to say I was stunned at how good the bus services are. I live in a much larger town where most services finish in the very early evening, and have fairly poor frequency. So, to find I was able to use a service that has a 10 minute frequency all day (and evening) and runs from 05:30 to 01:00 was a revelation. That is what most people outside the metropolitan areas do call an excellent bus service.

Well yes, and it probably escapes most people's notice that this doesn't happen by accident. The congestion issue in Oxford means there has always been a healthy market for bus services that bucks national trends (to the point there was firece competition post deregulation).

Add to that the fact the council has always been aggressively proactive in trying to promote public transport, not least because being seen as as a pollution choked hell hole does nothing for their global image, and this is what you get. A very good service. Good enough that people think trams could be realistic, forgetting that Oxford is not Edinburgh, and Edinburgh is not Vienna.

Most better performing towns have one or the other, either a massively negative or positive driver, to ensure there is the market for a good service. Most have neither.

 

[HSTEd]

And please don't get me started on forcing passengers to change from a bus to a tram to somehow justify the latter! I don't see any public transport need within Oxford that cannot be served by electric buses at an infinitely more affordable cost than trams.

The fundamental problem with buses is they have huge labour requirements per passenger moved, much higher than with comparable technologies. (Lack of segregation leading to slow journeys, onboard payment leading to slow journeys and only an absolute maximum of 80 ish people on a bus)

In the long run this will kill buses because labour costs are already far higher than they once were and are only going to get higher.

Real bus operating costs per vehicle-km were increasing 2+% per annum, despite years of wage stagnation, up to coronavirus. I dread to think what it will be like after coronavirus.

 

[southern442]

I think it's worth noting that the town of Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany has under 60,000 people and has a 5-branch tram system. Scaling it up that means Oxford ought to have 10 branches!

In all seriousness though, I really don't think size of the city is a huge issue at all, if the system will bring in benefits. Ok, there's probably not really going to be any justification for giving Didcot it's own tram system, for example, but Oxford there may well be. Size wouldn't be an issue if there is a problem with the transport that having a tram system would solve, so long as you are willing to put in all the extra service planning and road planning effort alongside the infrastructure investment itself in order to shift attitudes and highlight a tram as a valid option.

I'm not hugely familiar with Oxford, but using places I am familiar with as an example, I think you'd be quite likely to draw a lot of bus users over to tram networks pretty easily, once again car travel is the difficult one.

 

[W-on-Sea]

While a tram network would certainly be useful in Oxford, I can't see practically where one could go, without either unreasonable expense being incurred (I'm not even sure the generally marshy terrain would lend itself to many tunnels or underground sections), or environmental impact that the local primary and powerful land-owners (i.e. the colleges) would permit. (There is current uproar at the suggestion that more leeway to the use of cycles across Christchurch Meadows and the University Parks should be granted, for example)/ The fact that the previous (and then only horse-drawn) network was fairly limited in what admittedly what then was a substantially smaller city also speaks for itself.

If I were going full-blown crayonista, I think there'd be a stronger case for a light railway network in the surrounding area (perhaps including some on-street tram running in the very centre of Oxford) linking the city with (a) Witney and possibly Carterton (via in large part but not entirely the former rail route) (b) some or all of Abingdon, Culham, Didcot - including Ladygrove, Milton Park, Harwell Campus, Grove and Wantage (again in some cases using land immediately adjacent to existing railway lines, or in the case of Abingdon, perhaps the former line). The whole question of the Morris Cowley branch and access beyond that to Wheatley and beyond might be up for discussion too.

And the current LTN-related situation of forcing more cars onto the roads used by buses, therefore creating extreme delays for public transport users in the rush hours is.....spectacularly stupid in its way, even given the long history of spectacularly stupid things done by local government in Oxfordshire.

The problem with Oxford is that it is essentially a small medieval city built at a location (all those flood plains and streams and vast uninhabitable open areas between residential neighbourhoods) spectacularly unsuited for expansion to even its current size. The current bus network (and general quality of service) by English standards is good, but orbital links are relatively poor, and are unlikely to be feasible from any even semi-commercial perspective. The absence of a proper central bus station doesn't really help. (Gloucester Green is fine as far as it goes, just that it doesn't cater for many of the local services nor is likely to ever meaningfully do so)

 

[Bartsimho]

While a tram network would certainly be useful in Oxford, I can't see practically where one could go, without either unreasonable expense being incurred (I'm not even sure the generally marshy terrain would lend itself to many tunnels or underground sections), or environmental impact that the local primary and powerful land-owners (i.e. the colleges) would permit. (There is current uproar at the suggestion that more leeway to the use of cycles across Christchurch Meadows and the University Parks should be granted, for example)/ The fact that the previous (and then only horse-drawn) network was fairly limited in what admittedly what then was a substantially smaller city also speaks for itself.

If I were going full-blown crayonista, I think there'd be a stronger case for a light railway network in the surrounding area (perhaps including some on-street tram running in the very centre of Oxford) linking the city with (a) Witney and possibly Carterton (via in large part but not entirely the former rail route) (b) some or all of Abingdon, Culham, Didcot - including Ladygrove, Milton Park, Harwell Campus, Grove and Wantage (again in some cases using land immediately adjacent to existing railway lines, or in the case of Abingdon, perhaps the former line). The whole question of the Morris Cowley branch and access beyond that to Wheatley and beyond might be up for discussion too.

And the current LTN-related situation of forcing more cars onto the roads used by buses, therefore creating extreme delays for public transport users in the rush hours is.....spectacularly stupid in its way, even given the long history of spectacularly stupid things done by local government in Oxfordshire.

The problem with Oxford is that it is essentially a small medieval city built at a location (all those flood plains and streams and vast uninhabitable open areas between residential neighbourhoods) spectacularly unsuited for expansion to even its current size. The current bus network (and general quality of service) by English standards is good, but orbital links are relatively poor, and are unlikely to be feasible from any even semi-commercial perspective. The absence of a proper central bus station doesn't really help. (Gloucester Green is fine as far as it goes, just that it doesn't cater for many of the local services nor is likely to ever meaningfully do so)

How about this then: Pear Tree Park and Ride following crossing the A40 here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...!8m2!3d51.788224!4d-1.270459?hl=en&authuser=0
Running down Banbury Road with a one way system around St Mary Magdalen church and then a Southbound around the University taking Broad Street, Holywell Street, Longwall Street and High Street while the Northbound has taken Cornmarket Street straight up onto the A420 over Folly Bridge down to Redbridge Park and Ride. A secondary route could be from Headington down London Road and past Oxford Brookes, through St Clements joining the section from Longwall Street but continuing toward New Road and Frideswide square to interchange with the station and out to Seacourt Park and Ride

 

[The Planner]

Would all the river bridges be able to take trams in their current state? Osney wouldnt, I'd question if Folly and Magdalen could either. Double decker buses come in at 12 13 tons. Trams are three or four times that. I doubt anyone is going to agree to structurally messing with the bridges.

 

[Fleetmaster]

The fundamental problem with buses is they have huge labour requirements per passenger moved, much higher than with comparable technologies. (Lack of segregation leading to slow journeys, onboard payment leading to slow journeys and only an absolute maximum of 80 ish people on a bus)

In the long run this will kill buses because labour costs are already far higher than they once were and are only going to get higher.

Real bus operating costs per vehicle-km were increasing 2+% per annum, despite years of wage stagnation, up to coronavirus. I dread to think what it will be like after coronavirus.

Out of all towns in the UK, Oxford is exactly the place where you would think it both feasible and entirely foreseeable that they counter these pressures by setting up and operating their own bus company to run a core network of cross city bus services using all electric opportunity charged 100 seat triaxle double deckers running along fully bus laned and priority signaled routes (shared with taxis and car clubs) connecting major terminals like park and rides, at turn up and go but not nose to tail headways, with exclusively tap on tap off boarding, driven by drivers who only have to drive and readily accept low basic pay and unsociable hours in exchange for a relatively easy and fulfilling job that is about as guaranteed for life as it gets these days.

Or they can spend millions and wait years for a tram system whose effectiveness may or may not be intrinsically tied to reducing the number of passengers carried by buses without necessarily reducing the overhead costs of buses in any significant way.

 

[didcotdean]

If I were going full-blown crayonista, I think there'd be a stronger case for a light railway network in the surrounding area (perhaps including some on-street tram running in the very centre of Oxford) linking the city with (a) Witney and possibly Carterton (via in large part but not entirely the former rail route) (b) some or all of Abingdon, Culham, Didcot - including Ladygrove, Milton Park, Harwell Campus, Grove and Wantage (again in some cases using land immediately adjacent to existing railway lines, or in the case of Abingdon, perhaps the former line). The whole question of the Morris Cowley branch and access beyond that to Wheatley and beyond might be up for discussion too.

A concept of some kind of transport link for the route Culham to Harwell via Didcot appears in the Didcot Garden Town Delivery Plan as the 'Garden Line' but what form it actually could be is very nebulous and mainly left to the imagination of the reader. Autonomous pod vehicles, or an elevated light railway are floated n the Plan but it probably wouldn't get beyond just a cycle way.