Quokk.auMayor of London to move ahead with Oxford Street traffic ban
www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5e555g5qro
Plans to pedestrianise parts of Oxford Street will move forward "as quickly as possible", the mayor of London has said.
City Hall claims two thirds of people support the principle of banning traffic on one of the world's busiest streets, with Sir Sadiq Khan adding that "urgent action is needed to give our nation's high street a new lease of life".
Vehicles would be banned from a 0.7-mile (1.1km) stretch between Oxford Circus and Marble Arch, with further potential changes towards Tottenham Court Road.
That piece of road gets a half million visitors per day. It cannot scale with cars taking up all.of the space and resources. I'm really happy to see the Mayor pushing this through. London needs to make more effective use of the scarce room it has. Returning more streets back into places for people instead of cars should be a huge part of that.
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The reason the mayor is pushing this through over the Councils is that Councils don't want to upset car owners while the mayor needs some actual change to happen so the city can recover from all the damage done by car drivers.
I loved the classic complaints. "What about grannies, parents, and people with heavy shopping!?!?". I dunno, maybe we use some of the solutions other places have affected in the last decades for them? There's other forms of mobility other than driving your car and walking. Do what England does best: go overseas and steal stuff to use at home. You'll be fine. People survived before cars and can do so again.
Biggest concern for me is where do the busses go. Pushing them down side roads is not a good idea.
The roads in Oxford are like packed with buses, I dont understand why people think using a car is a good idea anyway. The buses even have a £3 ticket cap at the moment!
I'm yet to see a majority support from businesses when pedestrianization efforts begin(18% in this case), but they always do a 180 when they see sales growth
Arguments in favour of the abstract "people" are always just selfish interests in disguise. Business owners don't want to be inconvenienced, e.g. with delivery vehicles having to park further away or only in strict time slots. They definitely know that more foot traffic always means more business.
This is always an interesting point.
It's hard to believe that any small business in a busy tourist area would see less business with more foot traffic, as they almost always benefit from it.
Something tells me that businesses who are doing worse after something like this, might just have a failing business, and use this as a scapegoat.
Good article but this shouldn't be framed as a traffic ban. The street is not being closed for cars: it's being opened for people.
I think Oxford Street only allows busses and taxis, so private cars aren't going down there anyway. Still a good move though.