Friday Reads – 18 June 2021

On By In Aerial, Arts, Cable Car, Design, Friday Reads, Pedestrians

• Oxford Circus to be part pedestrianised (IanVisits)

• Manchester Victoria’s Telpher (RogerFarnworth)

• The last Zeppelin flight: the 1939 spy mission (MarkFelton)

• Ememem’s (not that one) street mosaics (MyModernMet)

• Vancouver’s Broadway SkyTrain extension will narrow Broadway to just 4 lanes (DailyHive)

• Slime molds design a more efficient highway system (Jalopnik)

• The importance of wearing a helmet (DanishRoadSafety)

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12 comments

  2. @JamesB – Surprisingly little, Regent St traffic is unaffected. 2 Bus routes crossing on Oxford St divert north around the Circus using Margaret St. Longer Pedestrian Crossing light phase, the buildings either side will front onto new street entrances to the tube.

  3. I wonder why there are virtually no references to cycling in the Oxford Circus proposals? Doesn’t seem a particularly integrated plan to me

  4. I see that TfL intend to start the Oxford Circus redesign with an Experimental Traffic Order. This recalls the situation at Torrington Place where the road layout redesign started with an Experimental Traffic Order. TfL lost the public enquiry that followed, albeit on a technicality, but found an excuse to ignore that loss and it became permanent. The opponents who won the public enquiry must have lost considerable confidence in the system as a result. They won, and it counted for nothing.

    So it seems it can be quite hard to reverse an Experimental Traffic Order when TfL is determined. I would also suspect that once they have got this much, they will find it easier to justify pedestrianising more of Oxford St. Whilst that is good for the majority of us, I expect that the local Westminister residents who oppose that might see this first thing, perhaps correctly, as the thin end of the wedge, and put up a strong fight.

    @PeterG
    Experienced people on bicycles mostly avoid Oxford Circus, and more generally Oxford St, like the plague. Narrow roads heavily infested with buses and with traffic lights every 25 yards, or so it seems, are unpleasant and slow cycling. There are many good ways to avoid it, which are both more pleasant and faster. Closing Oxford Circus in an EW direction will give greater impetus to avoid this unsuitable road.

    The difficulty is that for the inexperienced, or poor navigators, Oxford Street offers a very obvious straight way from A to B. If you don’t know the ways, it is easy to get lost, or find yourself facing a wrong-way 1-way street you don’t know how to get around. Only very few routes are signposted for cyclists, and that rather badly. The real requirement is for much better, and more detailed, cycle route signposting. The first step is to invent something more suitable for cycle signing than the standard blue signs, which are designed to be readable by motorists. And also the supplementary little sticker signs, which are hard even for cyclists to spot and correctly interpret, and often removed or damaged to unreadability.

  5. @ Aleks
    Currently the following bus routes cross Oxford Circus
    88 – Parliament Hill Fields – Clapham Common
    94 – Acton Green – Piccadilly Circus*
    98 – Holborn – Willesden Garage
    139 – Waterloo Station – Golders Green Station*
    159 – Marble Arch – Streatham Station*
    390 – Victoria Station – Archway Station
    453 – Marylebone Station – Deptford Bridge Station

    Page 18 of the brochure indicates that from 2022 buses will only operate East-West or North-South. However, routes marked * traverse Oxford Street and Regent Street which the diagram indicates will not be possible. Page 19 has a further map which contradicts the first one by showing the 139 still serving both streets but the 159 disappears from Oxford Street and the 94 disappears entirely. In addition, the 22, having come up from Piccadilly to serve Bond Street wanders of southwards again down Regent Street to some indeterminate terminus rather than the more logical one of Oxford Circus.

    No explanation is given as to how the bus proposals fit in with the routes and places served or what will happen to them. It is the logic of what the proposal is doing to these, rather than just enabling the pedestrianisation of two short sections of Oxford Street, that I cannot grasp.

  6. The same day you mention this pedestrianisation thing on Oxford Circus I published a post (on my blog Variably) which illustrates the proposed works (at least to the tube) inc new entrances isn’t really any sort of upgrade or ‘massive enhancement’ as some make out – since it uses existing tunnels dating back to the 1960s/1920s and in my view a capacity problem with the station means to even benefit from any additional add on bits – it would have to be considerably rebuilt.

    Others too are pointing out the scheme doesn’t even have any innings in terms of disability accessibility – for which purpose once again a considerable rebuild would be needed.

    Overall the scheme looks exciting on certain aspects eg pedestrianisation but poor on other aspects.

  7. Is it known if TfL are party to this. I have never seen an appraisal of a new tube entrance in the middle of the street, as stated considerable congestion occurs further into the tunnels.

    It is an achievement to get the major stakeholders to at least enact a minimum redesign that could lead to further enhancements. This proposal is an agreement between Westminster City Council and the Crown Estate. It caps the East and West ends of Oxford Street to through traffic (still the A40 historic route) with planters and seating.

    As far as cycling the scheme is linked with Westminster City Council’s Greenways project, which is designed to improve the experience of cyclists across the Oxford Street District and in the borough.
    Not that much room if they start adding the second phase of the programme, “major improvements to the public realm”, will start in spring 2022.

    For buses Transport for London officials hope the impact on side routes will be limited as the number of buses passing down Oxford Street has been reduced in recent years. Currently only two routes, the 98 and the 390, pass the entire length of Oxford Street via Oxford Circus.

    It is certainly not the pedestrianisation of Oxford Circus as all the headlines have declared.

    The undesigned, unagreed, unfunded TfL access will be part of the design competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) starting this summer to deliver the final scheme to ensure “world-class designs” and “value for money”. The project will work with TfL to prioritise pedestrians and longer-term plans to improve access with “major enhancements” to the western and eastern concourses of the Tube station.

    The impetus seems like a Crossrail opportunity to attract after COVID retail renewal. Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of New West End Company which represents 600 businesses on Oxford Street, Bond Street, Regent Street and in Mayfair, said the plans provide “fresh hope” for businesses after a tough year, adding: “With footfall at 50% of what it was pre-Covid this is exactly what retail, hospitality and offices alike need to draw visitors back in, ensuring Oxford Street can be the thriving hub it once was, and we know it can be again.”

  8. @Aleks I agree its not clear re TfL’s role however the Metro for example say ‘Officials will also be working with Transport for London (TfL) to improve access to Oxford Circus tube station, due to start next spring.’ (I don’t know where the Metro got that from!) TfL must have given the scheme an initial thumbs up since its their station and subways that will be part of the scheme.

  9. @ROG – compliments on your review. It could improve conflicts and entry regulation if the street centre entry pens allow the corner subways to be exit only.

  11. @Aleks Thanks! By the way the local newspapers Camden New Journal had reports citing various local groups saying they will object the scheme. There too was great concern about disability access mainly because Oxford Circus tube is no sort of accessible station. There was also a full statement from Westminster Labour, who say the proposals “could well improve the public realm'”…. but had a “rushed implementation and lack of consultation.” They added the new bus routes were also of concern and the traffic displacement presented huge problems. Labour didn’t outright reject the proposals but expressed concern that it needed proper consultation with local residents as well as a better focus on community engagement.

  12. @ Aleks
    The map that you mention is a jpg of the one on page 19 of the brochure. The information shown on it does not fit with the current services along Oxford Street and Regent Street and there is no explanation about the missing or incorrectly shown bus services. That is why I put the link to the brochure in my first post.

    The plan as promoted does very little to consider the effect that closing two short sections of Oxford Street, nice as that will be for the pedestrians to use, will have on the wider area of the West End. The street structure does not lend itself to a simple fix and requires much deeper thought than appears to have been given so far.

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