Hello,
I went down to Oxford the other day and had a ride through the city from the South and out to Woodstock and back - the country parts of the ride were pretty good with some off road cycle tracks, but I was pretty appalled by the provision for cyclists in a city which is often characterised by the high number of cyclists. These are two bit that came to mind - firstly crossing Magdalen Bridge to go up the High Street, there is a very thin cycle lane which no car seems to observe, then disappears with no warning at a pinch point where the lane of traffic becomes two. This at a point where the manifold cyclists who would ideally want to have 3 lanes themselves:
And another on the Botley Road with the same problem of thin bicycle lanes marked only by paint which just disappear.
I thought it was interesting as Edinburgh and Oxford both suffer from perceived problems of existing historical narrow streets which can't be modified. Quite a bit of Oxford City Centre is pedestrianised, and there are some lovely parks as you would expect, but travelling into the city from the outskirts is very difficult with the volume of traffic - just as it is in Edinburgh in many places.
Oxford is so small and with one or two notable exceptions, pretty flat, that cycling from within the ring road is pretty easy and within the capabilities of many people who obviously go everywhere by car. Cycling doesn't seem very prioritised to me - I can't find anything similar to this forum for Oxford but I reckon it could do with one...
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