First Great Western starts work next month on a major refurbishment of Oxford station (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/NewsItem.aspx?id=537

More on this and other Meet the Managers sessions in the link below.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=237

Mulled wine and a slice of cake...very nice 

Like FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s trains it was running late 

Oxford could soon have its own low-cost, 24-hour rent-a-bike scheme in an effort to cut traffic congestion, as seen in several European cities (link below.)
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.2067765.0.oxford_may_get_rentabike_scheme.php

Oxfordshire County Council has pledged ^100,000 to pay for a feasibility study.

The scheme could see a network of bike stations set up at key points in the city, including the train station, Westgate Centre, park-and-ride sites and city hospitals.

Although plans are currently at an early stage, council chiefs hope a credit card-payable rent-a-bike scheme would take a significant number of cars off the city's roads. They say they want to make any scheme cheap and convenient.

A rent-a-bike scheme started in Paris last July recorded more than seven million bike trips by the end of the year.

It is believed the county council wants to replicate the French capital's blueprint of providing robust bikes, which weigh about 20kg, to make them unattractive to thieves and sturdy enough to withstand damage from vandals.
 
The council's feasibility study starts in April and, if the scheme is viable, it could be introduced in the city before summer 2009.

Update on the progress of Oxfordshire County Council's ^80m Access to Oxford scheme, which was given the green light by the Government last year, and includes plans to expand Oxford railway station, with a new bay platform built on part of the station car park on the southern side of Botley Road. Network Rail hopes to carry out this work in 2010-11 (link below.)
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.2206361.0.park_to_ride_fees_will_go.php

I've been wondering what the next step to the Oxford rail station re-furb was going to be... looks like M&S web guys are ahead of themselves.  Presuming that the store is going to slot in where the smoothie store and AMT used to be located.

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/store-locator/store-locator.html/202-0559640-0756638?ie=UTF8&viewID=details&postcode=&storeID=0120&prevView=listing&client=mands_01&f_id=709&lon=-1.255880&lat=51.752250&db=GB^▸ (Great Britain)

OH well, the much lauded new temporary information screens at Oxford have indeed become temporary. The old and unreliable system is still soldiering on but 2 of the 3 new LCD screens on the main concourse have been switched off for days and the solitary screen on platform 2 has had the same incomplete and out of date information showing for 2 days now.

Long live the old system, we are going to need it!