Same here with Oxford. They've made it almost impossible to get to by car - unless you're a tourist with no time issues, in which case the park and ride scheme works well. But as you say, you can't carry tools on a bus. The cynic in me says they're trying to keep the 'town' out of the 'gown' areas so our future leaders don't have to mix with the common herd at any point at all other than the coach loads of admiring and well heeled foreign visitors that prop up the city's economy. If the council said they were going to build a wall round the place I don't think it would come as any surprise. All of this is justified on anti pollution grounds but the other three comparable conurbations in the area don't have any similar rules and seem to get on fine.

I'm down in the Grenoble area of France quite often and there's a substantial anti pollution zone in place there. Your car (not sure about bikes) has to be classified and categorised, and an appropriate sticker mounted on the windscreen. Thats been the case for a few years now and we've dutifully spent our €5 on stickers for the various vehicles we use. But I've never seen it enforced. I've been there summer and winter and never had an issue. If they're doing it by camera then they must be invisible. You'd think that riding through the city on a smoky old two stroke would have alarms going off everywhere but nothing has ever happened. I've wondered whether having the zone in place looks good on Grenoble's social tick list but actually enforcing it has an unacceptable economic price. Voters want to feel proud of their city's 'progressive agenda' but draw the line at it actually costing them money.