Re-imagining Headington’s roads and junctions - Headington Centre junction

HLS -

Following the popularity of our first junction redesign of the "WGOR" junction outside Cheney School and a successful crowdfunding campaign to raise money for further junction redesigns, Headington Liveable Streets engaged InfraCGI to produce a second design, this time for the Headington Centre junction - where London Road, Windmill Road and Old High Street meet.

A huge thank you to all the HLS members and local residents who donated so generously to this effort.

We asked contributors to vote for the junction they would most like to see re-designed, but as there wasn’t a clear vote winner, we opted to commission a visualisation of the Headington Centre junction, as this central Headington intersection is at the heart of our community and used by many thousands of residents and visitors every day, including many Cheney pupils travelling from Headington, Barton, Risinghurt and Sandhills. This junction was also found to have the longest crossing waiting time for pedestrians of all the retail areas in Oxford in a city-wide survey of pedestrian crossings in conducted by Oxford Pedestrians Association.

As with the WGOR junction redesign, this design aims to improve safety and convenience and give priority for people walking, wheeling and cycling, in the following ways:

  • The central roundabout, narrowed carriageways and tighter turns into the road entrances force drivers to slow down, creating a safer junction through lower speeds.
  • The two-lane exits for motor vehicles have been reduced to single-lane exits, with the space previously used for the second lanes re-allocated to create protected cycle lanes instead.
  • The use of zebra crossings means that drivers have to yield/give way to people walking, wheeling or cycling, and those ‘active travellers’ don’t need to push a ‘beg button’ or wait to cross, shifting priority from drivers to non-drivers.
  • Cyclists have to yield/give way to people walking and wheeling, reflecting the Council’s transport user hierarchy with people walking and wheeling at the top, followed by cyclists.
  • Clear separate provision for cyclists and pedestrians shown by road markings, coloured tarmac and kerbs removes conflict and reduces collision risks between those groups.
  • The pedestrian crossings are straight, single-stage and shorter.
  • Cyclists are protected from motor vehicles by raised kerbs and the planted ‘buffers’ you can see on each rounded corner and continuing along the roads – this of course also protects pavement users, for whom the cycle lane acts as an additional buffer, creating greater distance between pavement users and cars.
  • The lack of timed signalised crossing phases will eliminate the practice of drivers speeding up to ‘catch the green light’, removing that source of danger for active travellers.

This design should also benefit drivers with fewer delays: without signalised crossing phases, there will be no arbitrary waiting periods – if there are no pedestrians/wheelers/cyclists crossing at the time, drivers can proceed straight through the junction.

Another benefit of this design is that it provides opportunity for planting trees and other plants, which would make this central public area more beautiful, provide shade in hot weather and drainage when it rains and benefit everyone's mental health. A win all-round for the environment and public health!

We’ve included some links at the bottom of this page to help explain how this type of junction works.

Can you help us re-design Headington?

We would like to obtain re-designs for all the main roads and junctions in Headington – both 3D visualisations like this one and, eventually, 2D preliminary engineering designs.

These visualisations by Infra CGI cost £600 per junction, which reflects a 50% discount for voluntary/non-profit groups like us. We’ve been in discussions with engineering firm Royal Haskoning, which designed the Dutch roundabout in Cambridge and worked with the BikeSafe charity in Oxford to produce designs for a protected cycle track along the B4044 (Farmoor Road). They have quoted a rough figure of £5,000 per junction/road corridor to produce concept designs.

Which Headington junction do you think the new designs should prioritise? Let us know at hello@headingtonliveablestreets.org.uk and copy in your local councillors if you want to let them know you want safer roads too!

Headington Liveable Streets is run entirely by local volunteers. We’re seeking grant funding from various organisations but were unfortunately turned down for CIL funding by Headington Action last year. Whilst we’ll continue to pursue grant funding opportunities, we’ve set up a crowdfunding campaign using the ko-fi platform and Stripe payments so that people who have an interest in this can make a donation.

If you’d like to contribute to the junction design fund, please visit our ko-fi page, letting us know in the “Your message” box which Headington junction(s) you think should be prioritised.

If you or someone you know might be able to contribute some design work free of charge or at a reasonable rate reflecting our voluntary/non-profit status, please get in touch at hello@headingtonliveablestreets.org.uk.

Here are some links that may help explain how Dutch roundabouts work:

If you want to see more examples of good active travel infrastructure, have a look at these links: