It’s a rainy October morning and change is afoot in central London – Oxford Street, the nation’s high street, has officially gone traffic-free.
Well almost. Barriers have been erected at junctions, traffic signals covered up and new pedestrian signs laid down on the road warn of crossing traffic ahead.
At 7.30am workers were still frantically rushing to finish certain sections of the ‘transformation’ – in practice a blocked off section of road from Orchard Street near Selfridges to Great Portland Street just on the other side of Oxford Circus. A more permanent revamp will take place in the new year.
Buses and taxis have indeed been banished, clearing a wide walkway ahead of the festive shopping season, however WT saw multiple cyclists circumvent the obstructions to pedal down the road as before, contrary to planners vision of a pedestrian-only thoroughfare.
It’s very early days, as conveyed by a large green sign plastered onto the road near Oxford Circus with the strapline ‘we’re just getting started’, a clear message to visitors that this is only the beginning.
Meanwhile buses have been diverted down the parallel Wigmore Street, with new bus stops in place, although Oxford Street visitors now face a slightly longer walk to the high street
Lord Sadiq Khan hailed the milestone a ‘truly momentous occasion’ and said it marked the start of Oxford Street becoming a ‘new vibrant destination’.
However concerns remain at the pace of the scheme, with Westminster Council arguing the project has been too rushed.
Westminster Council leader Paul Swaddle had previously warned that council officers had no power to remove bikes from pavements or pedestrianised areas under current legislation.
Deputy leader Councillor Tim Barnes said that some issues remained unsolved and the pedestrianisation felt ‘slightly undercooked’.
He told BBC London this weekend: ‘It’s been the case right the way through this process, that it’s felt rushed and it’s felt under-resourced.
‘Realistically if we wanted this to be the best that it could be, we would have taken more time over it and the Mayor wouldn’t have put an artificial deadline on things.’
‘We would have had a much better scheme if we had launched it next year’, he added.
Following resistance from the local authority, responsibility for implementing the Oxford Street scheme and planning powers were given to a dedicated district corporation.
But the project has backing from several large stakeholders, including Selfridges and John Lewis, with the aim to create a destination to rival other major global shopping districts, many of which have undergone or are undergoing efforts to make them more pedestrian-friendly, including New York’s Times Square and Avenue des Champ-Elysées in Paris.