Will a pedestrian-only Oxford Street be sustainable? Research can provide an answer

Pedestrianising #London’s Oxford Street could be a major step forward in making the #city #sustainable, but it does ask as many questions as it answers. The consultation period offers as opportunity for research on past schemes.

Every now and again, leaders of a city come up with a dramatic plan to push the sustainability agenda on in a meaningful way. This can be a change in laws and taxes such as the imposition of  a congestion charge, or creating a market such as enabling bicycles to be hired at the point at which they sit on the street.

But the most longstanding and impact change comes from investment in infrastructure, as it is more permanent and much harder for a future regime to reverse. This is why networks of cycle lanes have been so influential in continental Europe and why London Mayor’s Sadiq Khan’s plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street have grabbed the headlines.

Although general traffic has been banned from the kilometre-long (0.7 mile) road for some time, the seemingly endless stream of buses and taxis make the street less than ideal for visitors to the shops that line both sides of the road.  The full pedestrianisation would aim to create what Khan calls a “beautiful public space” and he has issued images of his proposed scheme such as this.

Source: Mayor of London

Similar-sized global cities have gone down the route of banning vehicles from major thoroughfares such as Barcelona’s La Rambla and Paris’s Champs-Elysees (both cities mayors offered laudatory quotes for Khan’s announcement).  Countless small towns and cities across the UK have created central vehicle-free areas for shopping and entertainment, especially in the last 80 years following the creation of the post-wear New Towns.

Balancing trade-offs

But as with all sustainability projects, successful ones ensure they strike a balance between environmental, economic and social goals (otherwise known as planet, profit and people). Environmental benefits might come in the form of  a more pleasant place to live, work and visit while presumably also seeing a further improvement in air quality.

Economic benefits should flow to shops on the street — the New West End Company (NWECD trade body that represents 600 businesses says it will be a “major leap in unlocking [the] full potential” of the area’s retail, leisure, and hospitality sectors. These should deliver social gains for people working or passing through.

However, it does raise the potential for downsides in all three channels. The first comes from the dispersion of the traffic that currently flows down the street. There are 16 bus routes that use Oxford Street, carrying more than 200,000 passengers daily in either direction, according to a former head of London TravelWatch. Given that many are either north-south or east-west commuter routes they will need to be diverted, potentially creating traffic-filled streets elsewhere. This might create an environmental negative impact.

The people who use those buses specifically to get the shops on Oxford Street who either have no tube or car option or who are elderly or disabled will find the journey either impossible or very stressful. This would have a negative social impact. The plans might impact earnings for taxi drivers deprived of hires to and from the street, delivering an economic negative.

These issues have been overcome in the past. Buses used to circulate around Trafalgar Square but once the positive decision was taken to close the road on its northern edge in front of the National Gallery, buses now run up and down the roads to the east and West. Of course that is only a 200 metre stretch of road.

Perhaps one option would to split long routes into two — one terminating just to the north of Oxford Street and the other to its south, thus maintaining connections for those who rely on them to get to the area.

Maybe those social and diverted environmental costs will be seen as too great and an alternative idea, such as the one drawn up by Westminster City Council alongside the NWEC to add improved footways and more greening, seating and pedestrian crossings while maintaining the bus and taxi routes, might get a new hearing.

Khan’s proposal will require the establishment of a Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) with greater planning powers, as has been used for the Olympic site in Stratford, east London, and the Old Oak and Park Royal schemes to the west. The MDC is subject to statutory consultation and consideration by the London Assembly so there will be period of debate and consultation.

This will be a great opportunity for deeper, independent research into what has worked, and not worked, in pedestrianisation schemes in towns cities both in the UK and across the world. Moulding sustainable cities requires trade-offs between the environmental, economic and social pillars, which is something that evidence-based research is well placed to identify.