Dare to Dream: A Low Traffic West End

Now is the time

LCC’s new report, ‘A Low Traffic West End’, calls on the Mayor to go beyond pedestrianising Oxford Street and make the whole West End people-friendly with a ‘traffic circulation’ plan – indeed, that such a move will be vital when the Mayor’s scheme on Oxford Street happens.

Beyond Oxford Street

The Mayor of London announced in June that he’s going ahead with his plan to pedestrianise a section of Oxford Street, following widespread public support, including nearly 1,000 LCC members and supporters.

But pedestrianising a part of one street doesn’t go far enough. The West End is an economic powerhouse and global icon for its retail, entertainment, culture and tourism offer across the entire area. Yet it’s falling behind other global cities with far bolder plans to remove or reduce motor traffic and prioritise people in their city centres.

What about cycling?

It’s also a hostile area to cycle through, despite playing host to half a million jobs and thousands of residents – and certainly, the Mayor’s current plans for Oxford Street risking making that worse, rather than better! TfL’s assessment of the cycling potential in the area is that multiple east-west high-capacity and direct routes are needed in the area (and north-south ones too).

Yet current plans for Oxford Street make the likelihood we’ll get a single cycle route far north of Oxford Street as the scraps off the table. Obviously, the likelihood is even when the scheme is in, some people will keep trying to cycle on Oxford Street if nothing else is provided and certainly the proposals go nowhere near enabling cycling to thrive and diversify in the area.

Many of the roads both sides of Oxford Street are already really narrow and wiggly. So it’s unlikely wide and direct cycle tracks both sides of Oxford Street will be viable or desirable.

If Oxford Street itself is not to get cycle tracks, the answer has to be low traffic zones. Of course, these aren’t only about cycling – they’re about eating out, they’re about people wheeling and strolling, and they’re about people-friendly streets. And it’s not as if these don’t already exist in the West End.

The new look to Oxford Street we’re set to see. Great! But this can’t be where low traffic changes end…

It’s already been done

The West End already has some low-traffic success stories, including Covent Garden, The Strand and Carnaby Street – but they’re isolated islands in a sea of motor traffic.

This piecemeal approach to traffic reduction doesn’t cut it anymore. An area-wide approach is now vital – every scheme that has gone in for decades (from The Strand and Seven Dials more recently to Leicester and Trafalgar Squared decades ago) has simply made the next scheme more fraught and complex.

And this piecemeal approach increasingly sees London post-Brexit left floundering as other global cities surge forward.

Global rivals lead the way

Our report shows what other cities are doing internationally in comparison to London. Paris’s ‘limited traffic zone’ is already live and covers the same size as London’s West End, and Ghent’s ‘circulation plan’ area is 60% larger than the West End and operational since 2017. What’s to stop the Mayor doing the same?

Update: Regent Street scheme announced & ‘secret’ wider West End plan too!

The morning we launch our West End report, it seems almost fitting that not one but two major news stories break about the West End and motor traffic reduction.

Firstly, The Crown Estate and Westminster Council this morning have announced plans to improve Regent Street and pedestrianise the separate Regent Street St James. The latter is a side road that runs parallel to Haymarket south of Piccadilly Circus and the exciting plans would see Picadilly Circus less traffic-dominated.

You can see more on the plans here (they appear to show widened cycle lanes, but not necessarily cycle tracks on Regent Street itself, but with big gaps for provision), but actually, they simply underline the importance of taking our action and asking the Mayor and Westminster Council and stakeholders to be far bolder, move quicker and consider the wider West End area as a whole.

The West End needs more than differing landowners and authorities moving forward their own plans in isolation. So take the action, today.

On top of that, The Londoner has this morning released its investigative report on a report by the New West End Company (a ‘Business Improvement District, or BID, covering part of the west end including Oxford Street) looking at a ‘Zero Emission Zone’ that the Mayor and TfL had mooted covering central London in the Mayor’s 2018 Transport Strategy.

The Londoner piece is somewhat lurid, but seems to suggest the New West End Company were at least as recently as 2023 discussing potential options to reduce motor traffic in the west end, and discussing them with TfL.

The areas of Ghent’s low traffic central zone and Paris’s ‘limited traffic zone’ compared to London’s West End. Yet more evidence of how far we’re lagging behind the rest of Europe…

The piece does say that in the wake of the Labour government putting pressure on Sadiq following the Uxbridge by-election and pushback to ULEZ, “Khan has repeatedly pledged to make London carbon neutral by 2030, but hitting that target will require a radical drop in car usage in the capital — a 27% reduction citywide in car vehicle kilometres travelled is needed by 2030, according to City Hall’s own estimates.

The Ulez hasn’t even come close to hitting these figures, and the former official we spoke to expressed doubts that City Hall or TfL would ever be able to hit that kind of target without more radical policies, like pay-per-mile charging — or a zero emissions zone. But now that such measures have become seen as contentious culture-war issues, capable of losing votes, similarly radical proposals haven’t materialised.”

So while pay-per-mile plans and Zero Emissions Zone plans are shelved, and the West End is being slowly tamed for motor traffic but in piecemeal fashion, that only makes the need to ask the Mayor to act now, be bolder and dream bigger all the more urgent. Please do take action, today. Takes just one minute.

Take action today

A low traffic West End would benefit the economy, residents, tourists, and the many thousands who need to travel on its streets daily. And it isn’t just a nice to have once Oxford Street goes in, it will become a necessity.

Will the Mayor dare to dream of a low traffic West End as part of his legacy?  Ask him to act today to plan a future for the West End that works…