Oxford black cab drivers say the city’s new traffic filters are wrecking station work, with some refusing Oxford railway station pick-ups because getting in and out via Botley Road takes too long, the Oxford Mail reports.
The filters, run by [Oxfordshire County Council](https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/oxford-traffic-filters/about-traffic-filters), replaced the temporary congestion charge on 28 September after Botley Road reopened on 20 September. Cars without permits are barred from camera-controlled points; the council says taxis, private hire and other non-car vehicles can still pass the filters. The squeeze for cabbies is not the cameras themselves so much as the queue: private cars are being pushed onto Botley Road — the main free route into the centre and Westgate — and the rank traffic goes with them.
Over the weekend, congestion was bad enough that bus services were suspended along Botley Road, the station area and Westgate. Stagecoach said Frideswide Square was so blocked that a Speedwell Street service had to be stood down both days until the roads cleared.
What drivers say on the rank Zafer Hussein told the Oxford Mail it now takes him about half an hour to reach Oxford station from either direction. He wants Abingdon Road opened to share the load. “They’re creating more pollution because people are sitting still with their engines running for 40 minutes,” he said. “I’ve got no choice but to come to the station for business, but this is a mess created by the council.”
Ijaz Chaudry also called for Abingdon Road to be opened free of charge so traffic is not funnelled one way. Imran Abasi said he had planned to buy his own cab before the filters, then stuck with renting because he could not make ownership add up. He now aims to work the station about 8–9am and avoid returning after 2pm. “I’ve had to refuse jobs,” he said, after trying Becket Street, Speedwell Street and Hythe Bridge Street and packing up for home.
An Uber driver told the paper a Westgate-to-station run took 45 minutes over the weekend — a walk of under ten minutes.
Councillors and motorists Drivers blamed councillors who “do not live in Oxford” for not seeing the damage on the ground. Motorists echoed the jam from the A34 into Park End Street, with one calling a Sunday “the worst ever” and another saying vans and HGVs were using the park-and-ride slip to cut the queue.
This is Oxfordshire had already flagged Botley Road as a likely bottleneck once filters made it the free car path to Westgate, with the council saying it would watch flows and tweak signals if needed.
Council response Oxfordshire County Council said it knows about the Botley Road traffic and will look at signal timings at Seacourt Park and Ride. “It is still early days in the traffic filter trial, and we will be monitoring the scheme’s impacts carefully,” a spokesman said.
For the trade, the early lesson is blunt: even when hackneys and PHVs are exempt from filter cameras, a scheme that dumps general traffic onto the station approach still burns unpaid minutes — and some drivers will simply stop accepting the work.