Riding together

6:28am Friday 18th April 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

It is good to see the councils of Oxford and Oxfordshire putting tribal rivalries aside for the good of the city and the county. We write, of course, of the proposal to hand control of all park-and-ride car parks to Oxfordshire County Council.

The fact that Oxford's park-and-ride car parks have been owned and run by two different authorities has always been an anomaly. The fact that one charges for parking in its facilities and the other does not is plain daft.

For the city council, it will be something of a wrench to lose its park-and-rides. The city council pioneered park-and-ride more than 30 years ago and deserves the accolades for a system that has been copied both nationally and across the world.

Today, however, the park-and-ride car parks serve the wider population of Oxfordshire and hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting the city by car.

They are one of the key elements in a transport infrastructure managed by Oxfordshire County Council to the benefit of the whole county.

It is right that the cost of park-and-ride should be borne by the wider council tax payer. It is right too that the one authority responsible for traffic management should have all park-and-rides under its control so that we have one consistent system in place.

It should now mean that motorists will not have to pay to park in any of Oxford's park-and-rides. The county council will also be free to expand park-and-ride car parks in the most appropriate locations.

Ultimately, we trust that this decision will go some little way to easing congestion on Oxford's streets.