London’s Oxford Circus Is Kicking Out Cars

The shopping hub is about to transform into a pedestrian plaza — a move that will help accommodate an influx of Crossrail link passengers next year.

One of London’s most important public spaces is about to get a dramatic pedestrian makeover.

Oxford Circus, where two of the city’s busiest shopping streets intersect, will be transformed into two semi-circular pedestrian plazas, separated by a roadway with substantially reduced traffic, according to an announcement this week. Aided by closing  some feeder streets to traffic, the changes will begin this year, with a design chosen this summer from a competition overseen by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Generally packed with shoppers but now rethinking its post-pandemic retail future, Oxford Circus is one of the city’s busiest commercial  hubs.  It’s lined by a circle of imposing neo-baroque buildings that could so easily function as an inviting pedestrian-friendly plaza that it actually feels strange that, as yet, it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Oxford Circus is known locally as much for its pollution as its stores, with Oxford Street, the road that bisects it, a high-walled bottleneck notorious for trapping fumes. Plans to fully pedestrianize the street — made complicated by its vital role as a channel for numerous bus routes — have been mooted for years. Preparations to ban motor traffic from the London Mayor’s office on this strip were in place as recently as 2018, when they were overruled by local authority Westminster Council.

Read the full article on Bloomberg City Lab

Author: Feargus O’Sullivan

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