Oxford City Council
PO Box 10, Oxford, OX1 1EN
Tel 01865 249811
Email customerservices@oxford.gov.uk
Web http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
PO Box 10, Oxford, OX1 1EN
Tel 01865 249811
Email customerservices@oxford.gov.uk
Web http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
Oxford
City
Council
Two councillors will be joining forces and challenging fellow councillors and commuters to cycle into the city to celebrate Car Free Day.
Councillor John Tanner, Board Member for a Cleaner, Greener City at Oxford City Council and Councillor Ian Hudspeth, Cabinet Member for Growth and Infrastructure at Oxfordshire County Council, will be leaving Redbridge Park and Ride at 8.30am on Tuesday 22 September.
The pair will be cycling along the main road and cycle routes into Carfax in the city centre.
The joint bike ride is to celebrate Car Free Day which is part of European Mobility Week (16-22 September).
Councillor John Tanner, says: "Car Free Day is held each year to celebrate our streets as valuable spaces for everyone to enjoy, especially pedestrians, cyclists and bus passengers. It's a chance to leave that car at home, reduce your carbon footprint and find a healthier, less polluting way to travel to work.
"Car Free Day should make us all think about how we travel in Oxford for the rest of the year too. Come and join Ian Hudspeth and me on our cycle ride from Redbridge to Carfax, if you can, but please do your bit on Tuesday 22nd."
Councillor Ian Hudspeth, Cabinet Member for Growth and Infrastructure at Oxfordshire County Council, says: "'The County Council is very keen to promote modes of transport other than the car.
"Oxford is a medieval city whose streets were never designed to cope with the numbers of cars currently on its streets - the more people who cycle, walk or use the bus the better."
To celebrate Car Free Dar, Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach will be giving away prizes for the best green travel initiatives.
Stagecoach will be giving:
We're looking for nominations for community groups, schools, company representatives or individuals who have made consistent efforts to think about the way they travel to work, school or the city.
If you'd like to nominate a community group, school, workplace organisation or individual, let us know the reasons why including how they travel and their name, age and address as well as your name and address.
We're looking for people who organise and promote walking to school, organise a car lift scheme, work place travel schemes as well as individual initiatives.
Send your nominations to Green Travel Awards, Oxford City Council, Ramsay House, 10 St Ebbe's Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT. The closing date is 23 October.
Councillors and staff from Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are excluded from entering as well as staff from Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach Oxford Ltd.
Stagecoach will also have several buses on display in Gloucester Green on Monday 21 September. They will be handing out literature and promote bus travel to people as well as having low emission buses on display.
Away from the city centre Low Carbon Headington is aiming to reduce car journeys through Headington on Tuesday 22 September.
The group will be lobbying car drivers during the run-up to the day to make people think about how they get around the area.
Oxford Civic Society is promoting and supporting Oxford Streets for People in partnership with Oxford City Council and in association with European Mobility Week.
They hope that as many streets as possible hold an event to celebrate the week.
Some of the streets that are holding events are Binswood Avenue who are holding a street party on Sunday 20 September from 3pm onwards, Divinity Road Area Residents Association who are closing the street on the evening of Saturday 19 September to show open-air films, and St Mary's Road Residents Association who are holding a picnic on the front lawn of All Saint's Covent on Saturday 19 September from midday until 2pm.
Car Free Day is an established event which takes place throughout Europe. This year European Mobility Week 2009 takes place from 16 -22 September and will incorporate the day.
The day celebrates our streets as valuable social spaces, not just space for traffic and aims to encourage the use of alternative forms of transport instead of private cars, to raise awareness among the public of the risks connected with pollution, and to show how towns and cities could look with much less traffic.
