Motorists driving into Oxford “have to own” problems of traffic gridlock after waterworks caused misery across two days, a council traffic chief said.

Drivers have been subjected to long delays on Tuesday and Wednesday after Thames Water carried out emergency work on the Southern Bypass.
Tim Bearder apologised but said motorists are “part of the problem” if they are not using public transport.
Thames Water said work should be complete by 13:00 BST on Wednesday.
The company said it had been repairing two leaks found in key mains on Monday but work has caused long delays along the Southern Bypass, A34 and Hinksey Hill.
Councillor Bearder, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for highway management, said the city needs “radical change”.

This problem is called congestion. When it happens, a city’s options are to:
(A) Stop growing — because congestion has become terrible and growth will make it worse.
(B) Widen streets. This requires huge amounts of land, and land in cities is very expensive. What’s more, if you tear down enough buildings to widen streets, you are effectively destroying your city in order to save it.
(C) Focus on helping people get around using less space than cars require — through walking, cycling and mass transit.
Given the options, it’s not surprising that urban leaders — regardless of political ideology — eventually decide that C is the only real answer.

Larry Elliott

It all seems so simple. By the end of this decade the government will ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles. Cars will be greener and cleaner, making it easier to achieve the goal of a net carbon zero future.
Boris Johnson will no doubt impress on fellow world leaders the rapidity of Britain’s transport revolution when he hosts the Cop26 meeting in early November. Rishi Sunak may even be persuaded to announce measures to speed up the transition in the budget in October, carefully timed for the week before the international gathering in Glasgow.
There are two ways the government’s plan could run into trouble. The first is if the transition happens more slowly than expected, because new battery electric vehicles are too expensive or if the infrastructure to keep them charged is not put in place again.