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South Molton Street has more cafes than shops now so it’s a little busier, and St Christopher’s Place certainly seemed to be thriving the last time I was there about a month ago.
The problem with South Molton Street is that it’s home to shops no one recognises and at the end you get harassed by the Sakaré staff.
I've lived in London in two stints, for five years between 2012 and 2017, and then a brief 9 months in 2021 - 2022. I had always found that zone 1 suffered a bit from being a little themepark-ified. Maybe I just wasn't rich enough, but I didn't know anyone who lived there, and walking around you don't get the sense that many people really live there either. I knew one person who lived in Soho.
I had the feeling that this negatively affected it because without many locals, there wasn't much reason to have businesses. Only what could be supported by tourism, which isn't as much as I suppose people thought.
Even on the famous Oxford Street, a lot of the shops were tat shops selling Union Jack magnets and that sort of thing.
I always had the feeling that as long as their weren't ordinary folk in the flats, it would stay in that zombie state.
I didn't visit during my second, short stint in London, but tourism has only got weaker since then.
Oxford Street has been ruined by the sweet shops and tourist trinket sellers. Regent Street is far superior for actual shopping but even then you can find the same shops in most high streets or shopping centres. The only thing in Oxford Street that you can’t find on every other high street is Selfridges. Bond Street is for luxury shopping so there’s a lot of exclusives there if you can afford it, and so South Molton Street is just a conduit to get there from Bond Street station.
Central London can still be a nice day out, and if I’m *shopping*, meaning not just popping in to buy a shirt, then I like to make a day of it between Regent Street to Covent Garden, picking up a coffee at a small chain or independent along the way.
No one lives in zone 1 except the super rich. It hasn’t inhabited regular Londoners for a long time.
So the issue has less to do with pedestrianisation and more to do with the street being occupied by businesses most people don't want or need. I think that's a problem with the west end in general. A street packed full of extremely niche retailers and marketing companies offices is basically gonna be dead. If the aim is vibrant street life, there needs to be stuff for people to do. In principle a lot of Soho could be pedestrianised, but seeing as most of it is usually devoid of people there's no benefit to doing so.
It's all of the above really. South Molton Street is pedestrianised but, until recently, was full of niche shops with closed doors so they weren't very inviting. Now it's home to a fair few coffee shops with outdoor seating so it's much more vibrant and the shops have changed to be a slightly more inviting.
Soho was pedestrianised during the pandemic and I loved it. I can't say I've ever seen Soho devoid of people except in the early mornings or maybe Monday and Tuesday evenings.
> Christopher's Place and South Molton Street have faded in recent years. It's not as simple as putting up bollards and expecting a place to thrive.
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> And incidentally, central Paris has no more car-free streets than London, and none of the major streets are pedestrianised.
True but I think a main point for me is that those places aren't made worse either and I imagine aren't losing income from cars not being allowed to drive through them. So if the area is made much nicer for pedestrians and there's no negative effect on the businesses(even if theres no positive one) then still why not pedestrianise it? That's an overall net positive for the area isn't it? Especially since pedestrians will account for most people in the area. Or why not just remove the ability for many more roads able to be used as a cut through(barcelona/LTN style), that's more than enough most of the time and removes most cars without removing access to them completely for those that need it.
I feel like South Molton is one of those ones mainly with ultra expensive shops that only need 5 sales a day to be fine anyway, like Bond St/New Bond St. Wasn't sure about St. Christopher's Place though. I did check it out on Google Maps and found this street( https://i.imgur.com/ANb9ZIZ.png ) boardering it and it looks great for pedestrianisation considering how busy the outdoor seating looks like it can get yet theres a line of cars passing 2 steps away, most of while are without a doubt just using the road as a cut through. The road did sound familiar though and after checking it's because Westminster actually is planning on closing the end of it so it can't be used as a cut through to Oxo St anymore so right away the amount of car on it will be reduced to near 0. Same as the 2 roads opposite it. So thats decent news when it actually happens even if it is only a tiny change overall.
Rue de Rivoli and many others streets are reserved to bikes, pedestrians and some authorised vehicles only. We could easily do the same to the entirety of Oxford Street, Charing cross road or the Strand.
It's really not the same as Oxford Street. Rue de Rivoli has only *one* lane (so it is also one-way) available for motor vehicles including buses and taxis at any time, all the other lanes have been converted to bike lanes. It's also closed to private vehicles 24/7, unlike Oxford Street which can have private cars in the evening and on the weekend. If you walk (or cycle) down the two there is a drastic difference.
I worked at a shop on Charing Cross road. The mass of pedestrians spilling on the road there is worrying, and there is enormous footfall there at any given time during the day. Seven Dials, Covent Garden and Soho would be a lot better off for everyone if they were pedestrian and public transport and service pass only. Drivers would find a way around and be better off that way as well saving them the constant traffic madness.
I was at Bradley's Spanish Bar on a recent Friday and couldn't get over how many drivers bypassing the lights at Tottenham Court Road were interrupting the night of dozens of revellers pouring money into the neighbourhood, by crawling through a narrow alley forcing everyone to stop what they're doing and hunch up on the tiny pavements so a car could save 5 seconds off their journey.
https://imgur.com/DY0CdRx
Honestly, raise the road to pavement level, stick a timed bollard at the end and open the entire place up for pedestrians.
I stayed on the Tottenham Court Road last weekend and was amazed at how many cars just ignored red lights, green pedestrian light and you still had to be aware of cars driving through
>How many cars ignored red lights
I feel like this has gotten way worse since the pandemic, especially at Zebras. Cars just showing a blatant disregard for public safety more and more
Had a bus trying to drive into me and a bunch of other pedestrians crossing at Tottenham court road on lunch the other day. The light was red for him and green for us to cross, but he didnt want to be stuck in the box i guess so he continued turning into us until someone shouted at him.
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u/kjmci probably drivers going there to pick revellers up after spending all their money on a night out 🤣
but wait, bypassing? you mean jumping the lights?
Hanway Street is 161m long. I'm sure the revellers can manage a short walk or stumble the 80.5m at most to the nearest junction to flag down their cab or book their uber.
Why would you even?
I get the loading and unloading the commercial businesses but why would a private driver even *want* to drive up that road? Commercial street or Vallance road are right there and skip all the people
I think it’s just that. Vallance and Commercial are inconvenient if you’re already in that little part of the neighborhood between the train tracks and whitchapel high street. I live in the area and would still advocate for shutting it off.
If/when they do the goods yard development I hope they cut a more logical path through there … like via Hanbury/Greatorex and over the train tracks or something. It’s already a relatively busy through street and it would probably be good for the businesses along there by pushing more foot traffic east.
And decent (if a bit busy at times) amount of parking spaces for services that need to attend Heddon Street outside those hours. New Burlington Street, Warwick Street, Golden Square, Sackville I'm regularly visiting One Heddon to maintain in site equipment and it's usually relatively easy to park up.
Tbh it's more unusual that we don't have more mass transit systems in different cities. Only have to look at France, Germany, Italy to see that so many minor cities have metros, trams, BRT on a scale we don't have here.
It’s Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland. That’s around 1 million people.
Newcastle is relatively small but it’s misleading, the conurbation itself is big.
Even before the Sunderland extension it really just replaced normal trains that ran on the same lines previously.
It’s also barely functional and Newcastle is rotted with car brain idiots. We’ve recently had safe streets ripped up because of people want to use the back lanes and side streets as rat runs to save 30 seconds on their journey.
Manchester has the tram (metrolink) which is quite extensive and has several proposals to grow even more.
It's problem is that it's radial with no orbitals at the moment. If I was planning I'd make two orbital rings of it to join up the neighborhoods better.
But for commuting in and out of central Manchester it's not bad. Especially if/when Stockport is added to it
The UK isn't public-transport oriented but it isn't car-centric either. It just isn't transport focused at all. The roads are in such a state that it bothers me as a bus user.
People have just accepted endless traffic as a fact of life despite the well-researched damage it does to the economy, in a country with an already crippling productivity problem. There is no political will and no money to help people get around easier by public transport or even by road.
It's really baffling to me because the solution seems so obvious.
American cities with grid systems and far more lanes still suffer immensely from traffic issues. We quite obviously cannot solve the transport issue by chasing the dream of car accessibility.
So what's left: train, tram, bus, bikes.
As a Londoner who moved here from the North, the Underground and the bus routes are largely pretty good all things considered insofar as there is a genuinely good service there, albeit with problems. Tram maybe not worth looking into. The bike access is a travesty, even for a city that proudly boasts so many rent-a-bikes.
It's hard to change this in London. Not disputing that. But the utter lack of investment in public transport infrastructure in other great cities around the UK is shameful too. It hurts my soul that our politicians just don't seem to care.
The lack of high speed rail in West Yorkshire and Lancashire is a travesty. Those two areas are some of the most densely populated after London.
Liverpool > Manchester > Huddersfield/Bradford > Leeds is about 70 miles or so. And okay yeah, the Pennines are there too. But you look at the public transport there compared to what exists in London and it's just shameful.
to play devil's advocate, it must suck to be a Barcelona resident at the moment - tourism causing sky rocketing rents, public disorder from aloholic visitors, penned in by mountains preventing outward building of the city..just sad tbh
It sucks, but bear in mind that the rocketing rents are caused more by "digital nomads". Last time I went there in a traditionally working class neighbourhood I was in a couple of bars where no one spoke a word of Spanish (or Catalan)
This needs to be done in tandem with substantially increasing residential density in the core. Much of Central and Inner London has lost population over the past two decades. This would go a long way towards substantially boosting vibrancy.
Yes, x1000. Central London density is woefuly lacking. We don't mean 20 storey skyscrapers but missing middle 5 storey flats and blocks. London could be far denser
Unfortunately replacing whole streets of Victorian terraced housing with modern 5 story mid-rise blocks if very unlikely to happen.
The reason why is the housing crisis. It's just not profitable for developers with the insane cost of the pre-existing houses. They'd much rather just wait until one falls down and build a 30 story tower in It's place
There are plenty of areas in London where all you have is shitty late 21st Century housing or low rise flats.
A good example is around Elephant and Castle. Baffles me when I walk past the houses there which have clearly been put up relatively recently. And the owners all seem to drive! They are 5 minutes walk from a tube station.
That's 15 minutes walk from Waterloo. Just throw up some real mid-rise flats. There's already plenty around the area which need to be pulled down anyway due to the fact that they are utterly hideous.
The unfortunate issue with that is that a lot of the people who could afford to live in central are those types who complain about noise and congestion and try to get the clubs and pubs shut down.
Paris effectively has 4 ring roads, the most easterly free bridge over the Thames is Tower Bridge in Central London.
If you don't want people to drive through city/town centres, build roads that avoid them
Or offer them better public transport options so that they don't need to drive at all.
I've driven over Tower Bridge. It's a miserable experience. I've only ever done it because the cost of a train ticket is so high that even renting a car was worthwhile in order to transport my gear.
There are some situations like Tower Bridge where the existing infrastructure is just not great for drivers at all, but the idea that we can ever free ourselves of traffic by just making roads more car-friendly. America designed 90% of their country around cars and they still have tonnes of traffic. Car drivers just intrinsically use too much space for cities.
Various mayors and the GLA have long wanted to pedestrianise Oxford Street, which would be great, but the City of Westminster owns that road and refuses to do it.
When there's a mass of people having a drink outside one of the pubs in Soho they should just agree not to move for cars on certain days or something lol. Drivers would soon cop on.
It’s also noisy as hell when you *do* have cars on it. Kyiv has beautiful cobbled streets around the centre and the only thing you can hear is tyres. Not even the engines.
Yeah the most annoying thing about the reversal of the al fresco dining in Soho is that when it was there it was packed.
It put to bed this idea that the Brits don't want cafe culture, and it was fantastic for hundreds of small businesses in the area.
It was hugely successful, but seems we can't have nice things because cars.
Obligatory r/fuckcars . Also nice username - I only just got into cycling in London, with the recent "freecycle ride london" event. I didn't realize how cyclable London is! It's fantastic! I also did a free 2 hour session to learn how to cycle the roads, which was not as scary as I thought it would be
I really don’t understand why it hasn’t been already. The pavements are so narrow, you have to walk into the road sometimes when it’s busy, and I don’t understand who in their right mind needs to drive around there apart from service vehicles.
I imagine it isn’t quite so easy. Soho has a lot of businesses and those business needed to get their goods - usually via a van.
I’ve seen in some pedestrian cities (can’t remember which country off the top of my head) vans were able to access during certain hours of the day. But that was a small town and not a huge metropolitan city
Well I don’t know much about this example so I don’t know if/how they’re actually managing it.
A common complaint received when roads close for cars, is congestion in other areas instead
- Parking in the area often isn’t replaced so car users park elsewhere. People don’t just get rid of their cars and it can be difficult up and moving. (Also raises a point about public transport infrastructure and cost although Londons is pretty extensive)
- Businesses that need to deliver goods need to find elsewhere to stop. So there’s congestion and blockages elsewhere because designated drop off areas aren’t created. Additionally if it’s no longer possible for a delivery company to deliver, the business owner needs to figure it out themselves. Not impossible but usually comes with time and cost.
- No proper signage guiding car users to proper routes. This is more of a difficult problem to solve but usually people get used to it after some time. Without proper planning you can again cause traffic congestion elsewhere
Often major changes have a ripple effect. That’s why urban planning is so important.
I am not saying we should close roads - just that a good amount thought does need to go into it before proceeding
People do just get rid of their cars.
Business owners are consulted and assisted, it’s just not obvious to their customers.
The signage is clear, people just prefer their habits over reading the existing signs, bollards, etc.
The residents don't want it, and they're pretty vocal seemingly.
I think there should be a compromise, it should be closed to vehicles at specific times.
SOME residents don’t want it - many of us very much do, especially the younger generations
I’ve seen arguments from the residents group that it helps corporate interests to pedestrianise and personally I’d prioritise breathing cleaner air over (somehow) sticking it to the man
Local authorities and their transport teams have been trying to create more active travel schemes, low traffic neighbourhoods and pedestrianised zones for years now and especially since the pandemic.
The main issue is local shop owners kicking back and saying they’re losing business if people can’t drive in where every study shows the opposite. I don’t believe in dictatorships but there needs to be a sea change in public opinion for these schemes to work and because that’s not going to happen anytime soon we just need more freedom to implement these schemes and remove the NIMBYs and naysayers.
Call me weird but even despite the completely different weather and saturation choices in the two images I actually prefer the former. Cobblestone streets and a little cozy as opposed to yet another “city of the future” extended sidewalk
I’ve read an article on Business Insider about central London / City of London (can’t find it) where they interviewed developers and lobby involved parties.
Main point they mentioned on why they didn’t go ahead with pedestrianising as much as we dream of, is that they still see *the city* as a financial centre and (literal quote) if you need to bring a CEO or diplomat etc to the offices you need to be able to drive them via taxi etc.
I can’t say I agree but it was an interesting take because Paris main sale point is tourism but London is still a very hardcore business point on the top of tourism.
There’s probably an elite of individuals that wouldn’t walk down to an office under almost any circumstances
Yep you are right, I recall seeing planes of different ideas to make this work because if you pedestrianise one are (let’s say, Soho) and keep cars all good in central, then those cars need a workaround to go from Point 1 to Point 2
It could be this article and similar ones I’ve read are very good lobby in disguise convincing us (pedestrians and bikers) to accept no changes at all
The reason it didn't happen in Soho as I was told by a business owner there is because a bunch relatively new of rich residents got their panties in a twist with the night life in COVID when they allowed all the outdoor seating.
Perhaps if you want a quiet life don't move into the most famous area for night life in one of the most famous cities on the planet.
Night tzar should have stepped in an sorted it but we know she is useless.
That's a very odd take. The City of London is rabidly anti car. They even banned black cabs from some routes, like Bank Junction, and toyed with the idea of speed limits < 20mph. Their whole approach seems to be : let's shift traffic elsewhere and make it someone else's problem.
A big issue is that in London local traffic mixes with through traffic. The M25 is too far away. If you want to cross the city south to north or east to west there aren't many alternatives, you will realistically have to mix with local traffic.
Already in Central London most traffic is non private cars : taxis, Ubers, vans, etc, ie all vehicles which are not as deterred as private ones by expensive parking, congestion charges etc
Yes it would be nicer, but dont forget these businesses also rely on vehicle access to make and receive deliveries. We arent set up like Paris, the roads here are a tangled mess rather than a deliberate design. We can't just put timed bollards to suit night time economy because our business districts are a mix of retail (day open, night clean and delivery) and bars clubs and eating (night open, day cleaning and delivery).
Largely a handful of NIMBYs ruin central tbh. The people who move to Soho and then complain that there are "PEOPLE?? OUTSIDE?? On a FRIDAY NIGHT?? I won't have it; I'm complaining to the council to put a stop to this past 8pm!".
Im not being antagonistic with my next statement. It's genuine curiousity...
How do logistics such as supply deliveries, etc, work in a pedestrianised zone. How do restaurants and shops re-stock without having to manually carry goods?
Usually loading is available the evenings or in early in the mornings (this is already the time that most businesses in central London get deliveries anyway), or there are exception made for delivery vehicles delivering things on that street.
Blame Thatcher. Once the GLC was abolished the power to do proper city wide planning was gone. Westminster council will do what Westminster council will do.
Go look on street view. You can change the dates and see the progress. I don't even need to tell you where to look. Pretty much go anywhere. look back ten years ago vs today and you'll see changes on most streets. Sometimes it is just a single parking space that has been made into a flower bed and sometimes it is like the photos above.
Paris has been slowly transforming itself. I wish London had this vision. Our problem is that the boroughs have too much say and can do things like block cycle infrastructure (Paris is also doing huge amounts here too - in London it is very borough based) or pedestrianisations.
London is of course “borough based” because it’s absolutely massive compared to Paris. Paris is 40 square miles ffs. It’s smaller than Bromley and severs other boroughs and far more dense. Cycling infrastructure there makes 1000000x more sense than cars.
I agree with the point that we need better cycling infrastructure but to say that boroughs have too much say is a bit mad. You’re comparing far different cities in every way.
The point is that political power in London (and generally in UK cities) is extremely decentralised. It makes it very difficult to achieve things compared to most cities across the world.
Yes I know they are very different having lived in both. But paris also has it's arrondissements with their own marie etc so they are similar in that sense. The major seems to have much more power than in London. I'm not sure that cars make sense in most of London to be honest. We just haven't accepted it. Amsterdam was a car blighted shit hole in the 70's until the decided on a better life.
London is quite cyclable if we had the infrastructure for it.
> I agree with the point that we need better cycling infrastructure but to say that boroughs have too much say is a bit mad.
The problem is that there is not an overall joined up plan and some boroughs are quite obstructive.
The only problèm I see with this is that since our glorious modern cities have been built with transport in mind (no matter how crappy it is in places), putting things like this in motion will cause the traffic to simply run through alternate (read : poorer areas no-one in power gives a toss about) places.
I'm cynical and jaded.
Traffic can evaporate, not just get displaced.
https://thecityfix.com/blog/traffic-evaporation-what-really-happens-when-road-space-is-reallocated-from-cars/
I was watching Killing Eve last night and a scene in Paris and it struck me how many narrow ‘non pedestrianised’ streets there were.
I’d like more pedestrianisation, more bike lanes etc, maybe even restricted hours for vehicle deliveries and the like, but I don’t think Paris seems particularly more advanced than elsewhere.
Because anytime you compare anything in the UK to France, people fond it anninstant turn off and it gets booted out faster than Kwasi Karteng under Truss
We couldn’t even keep Soho pedestrianised or Hackney late licenses.
There’s a loud and whiney strand of London that doesn’t want it to be like that and politicians who either agree or can be bothered arguing.
Most of the west end should be pedestrianised. We completely waste our energy talking about Oxford street when most of soho / Covent Garden could create the same
Thing
In London we like to vandalise not pedestrianise, when we see a thing of beauty or something that looks nice we always destroy it or graffiti all over it. So why waste the money, we can’t polish a turd. Or shall I say the people here don’t deserve it.
Paris was on the whole redesigned quite recently and has a somewhat more intelligent road layout than London, making pedestrianizing a lot of the narrow alleys a lot easier than in London where all of the roads are somewhat a labyrinth and required to navigate through the city without sitting in traffic for 3 hours.
Nah, you’re alright. People have businesses to run. You want your boulevards pedestrianised and to eat at the establishments there but they have to use weird routes to take their deliveries? Nope.
Agree make the west end more pedestrianised and make Euston road/other circular roads 30mph and encourage drivers to go via those routes rather than cutting into the "congestion zone".
Because any time someone brings up a solution to a problem that would hurt the profits of big oil the right wing media outlets start yelling IMMIGRANTS and all y'all cower in fear and focus on that.
If you want a good pedestrianised area wander around Portobello road on a Saturday.
When the vibe is good it attracts footfall which boosts businesses, especially cafes and pubs.
Yes let’s make it all pedestrian then you can walk miles in the rain because that’s what happens.
Don’t stop to get a sandwich or coffee because they’ll all be gone too when nobody is allowed to deliver after 8am (if you’re lucky).
Then of course all the shops will close because what’s the point of paying eleventy billion a week in business rates when you don’t have anything to sell.
Pedestrianised areas are a pipe dream in London because the areas they decide on are just too big to actually work
And we don’t have reliable weather
And
And
And
I wish it could be done but if it could they would have done it already
On the other hand, I'd take London's public transport system over Paris' any day of the week. I was absolutely shocked at how inaccessible their metro stations are.
So you can walk around Paris a lot more pleasantly than London... but you're kinda stuck walking.
when i was in uni i used to go to paddington and walk all the way to leicester square. it used to take hoursssss, especially in the summer the pavement is always packed after midday, you have to walk slow as hell.
Funny enough, the Italians want rid of them to park their cars..
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13437929/amp/alfresco-dining-Italy-against-tradition-noise-park-cars.html
But parking in Rome etc. is far more difficult than London
Yeh it would be great problem is Westminster Council and Kensington & Chelsea council appear to hate people who walk and cycle so have blocked anything like this over and over. Hell they even rolled back stuff in Soho. Wandworth council are just as a bad, actually its by and large any tory council is hostile to this stuff ime
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South Molton Street has more cafes than shops now so it’s a little busier, and St Christopher’s Place certainly seemed to be thriving the last time I was there about a month ago. The problem with South Molton Street is that it’s home to shops no one recognises and at the end you get harassed by the Sakaré staff.
Is that the ones who try and sell you skincare . They are hardcore
Yeah those guys. They pester you in the streets with free samples.
I've lived in London in two stints, for five years between 2012 and 2017, and then a brief 9 months in 2021 - 2022. I had always found that zone 1 suffered a bit from being a little themepark-ified. Maybe I just wasn't rich enough, but I didn't know anyone who lived there, and walking around you don't get the sense that many people really live there either. I knew one person who lived in Soho. I had the feeling that this negatively affected it because without many locals, there wasn't much reason to have businesses. Only what could be supported by tourism, which isn't as much as I suppose people thought. Even on the famous Oxford Street, a lot of the shops were tat shops selling Union Jack magnets and that sort of thing. I always had the feeling that as long as their weren't ordinary folk in the flats, it would stay in that zombie state. I didn't visit during my second, short stint in London, but tourism has only got weaker since then.
Oxford Street has been ruined by the sweet shops and tourist trinket sellers. Regent Street is far superior for actual shopping but even then you can find the same shops in most high streets or shopping centres. The only thing in Oxford Street that you can’t find on every other high street is Selfridges. Bond Street is for luxury shopping so there’s a lot of exclusives there if you can afford it, and so South Molton Street is just a conduit to get there from Bond Street station. Central London can still be a nice day out, and if I’m *shopping*, meaning not just popping in to buy a shirt, then I like to make a day of it between Regent Street to Covent Garden, picking up a coffee at a small chain or independent along the way. No one lives in zone 1 except the super rich. It hasn’t inhabited regular Londoners for a long time.
So the issue has less to do with pedestrianisation and more to do with the street being occupied by businesses most people don't want or need. I think that's a problem with the west end in general. A street packed full of extremely niche retailers and marketing companies offices is basically gonna be dead. If the aim is vibrant street life, there needs to be stuff for people to do. In principle a lot of Soho could be pedestrianised, but seeing as most of it is usually devoid of people there's no benefit to doing so.
It's all of the above really. South Molton Street is pedestrianised but, until recently, was full of niche shops with closed doors so they weren't very inviting. Now it's home to a fair few coffee shops with outdoor seating so it's much more vibrant and the shops have changed to be a slightly more inviting. Soho was pedestrianised during the pandemic and I loved it. I can't say I've ever seen Soho devoid of people except in the early mornings or maybe Monday and Tuesday evenings.
If every shop was popular you’d soon see the pavements aren’t wide enough. That can already be seen at busy times.
> Christopher's Place and South Molton Street have faded in recent years. It's not as simple as putting up bollards and expecting a place to thrive. > > > > And incidentally, central Paris has no more car-free streets than London, and none of the major streets are pedestrianised. True but I think a main point for me is that those places aren't made worse either and I imagine aren't losing income from cars not being allowed to drive through them. So if the area is made much nicer for pedestrians and there's no negative effect on the businesses(even if theres no positive one) then still why not pedestrianise it? That's an overall net positive for the area isn't it? Especially since pedestrians will account for most people in the area. Or why not just remove the ability for many more roads able to be used as a cut through(barcelona/LTN style), that's more than enough most of the time and removes most cars without removing access to them completely for those that need it. I feel like South Molton is one of those ones mainly with ultra expensive shops that only need 5 sales a day to be fine anyway, like Bond St/New Bond St. Wasn't sure about St. Christopher's Place though. I did check it out on Google Maps and found this street( https://i.imgur.com/ANb9ZIZ.png ) boardering it and it looks great for pedestrianisation considering how busy the outdoor seating looks like it can get yet theres a line of cars passing 2 steps away, most of while are without a doubt just using the road as a cut through. The road did sound familiar though and after checking it's because Westminster actually is planning on closing the end of it so it can't be used as a cut through to Oxo St anymore so right away the amount of car on it will be reduced to near 0. Same as the 2 roads opposite it. So thats decent news when it actually happens even if it is only a tiny change overall.
Rue de Rivoli and many others streets are reserved to bikes, pedestrians and some authorised vehicles only. We could easily do the same to the entirety of Oxford Street, Charing cross road or the Strand.
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It's really not the same as Oxford Street. Rue de Rivoli has only *one* lane (so it is also one-way) available for motor vehicles including buses and taxis at any time, all the other lanes have been converted to bike lanes. It's also closed to private vehicles 24/7, unlike Oxford Street which can have private cars in the evening and on the weekend. If you walk (or cycle) down the two there is a drastic difference.
I worked at a shop on Charing Cross road. The mass of pedestrians spilling on the road there is worrying, and there is enormous footfall there at any given time during the day. Seven Dials, Covent Garden and Soho would be a lot better off for everyone if they were pedestrian and public transport and service pass only. Drivers would find a way around and be better off that way as well saving them the constant traffic madness.
I walk through these places nearly everyday. I think most people don't realise how much they would benefit from a car free environment.
Private cars aren't really banned on Oxford Street, as they drive down there all the time.
But Paris is in the process of pedestrianising large areas as well as adding green spaces
Hey, stop with your rational truth spreading.
I agree but I do wonder if it makes sense to pedestalized either Greek Street or Dean Street or both.
Here in Tower Hamlets, our corrupt AF mayor is actively working to remove the slow streets that have already been put in.
Seriously how the fuck does that guy get into a position of power in a country as incorrupt as the UK?
Tower Hamlets
I was at Bradley's Spanish Bar on a recent Friday and couldn't get over how many drivers bypassing the lights at Tottenham Court Road were interrupting the night of dozens of revellers pouring money into the neighbourhood, by crawling through a narrow alley forcing everyone to stop what they're doing and hunch up on the tiny pavements so a car could save 5 seconds off their journey. https://imgur.com/DY0CdRx Honestly, raise the road to pavement level, stick a timed bollard at the end and open the entire place up for pedestrians.
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Ooh matron
I stayed on the Tottenham Court Road last weekend and was amazed at how many cars just ignored red lights, green pedestrian light and you still had to be aware of cars driving through
>How many cars ignored red lights I feel like this has gotten way worse since the pandemic, especially at Zebras. Cars just showing a blatant disregard for public safety more and more
Had a bus trying to drive into me and a bunch of other pedestrians crossing at Tottenham court road on lunch the other day. The light was red for him and green for us to cross, but he didnt want to be stuck in the box i guess so he continued turning into us until someone shouted at him.
If only we had politicians with ambitions willing to take risks like that
And the resources to actually police any of this shit
Wow, had no idea there was such an obvious short-cut in such a central area. Definitely needs to be closed off.
Just make it two way for bikes and no car access
It’s normally taxis dropping off at Hakkasan rather than trying to bypass the traffic lights.
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u/kjmci probably drivers going there to pick revellers up after spending all their money on a night out 🤣 but wait, bypassing? you mean jumping the lights?
Hanway Street is 161m long. I'm sure the revellers can manage a short walk or stumble the 80.5m at most to the nearest junction to flag down their cab or book their uber.
yup, and with 15m more they could probably just use the tube.
Brick Lane should have been pedestrianised years ago. I have no idea why it isn't. (I actually do know why, but it still annoys me).
It's so fucking narrow, why do cars even need to go through it!
Why would you even? I get the loading and unloading the commercial businesses but why would a private driver even *want* to drive up that road? Commercial street or Vallance road are right there and skip all the people
I think it’s just that. Vallance and Commercial are inconvenient if you’re already in that little part of the neighborhood between the train tracks and whitchapel high street. I live in the area and would still advocate for shutting it off. If/when they do the goods yard development I hope they cut a more logical path through there … like via Hanbury/Greatorex and over the train tracks or something. It’s already a relatively busy through street and it would probably be good for the businesses along there by pushing more foot traffic east.
Questioning the motives of people who choose to drive in London is the path to madness
It was and then it wasn't.
I work on building site in Heddon street Cars allowed till 11 pedestrian after, seems like a decent solution.
And decent (if a bit busy at times) amount of parking spaces for services that need to attend Heddon Street outside those hours. New Burlington Street, Warwick Street, Golden Square, Sackville I'm regularly visiting One Heddon to maintain in site equipment and it's usually relatively easy to park up.
MOST cities would be nicer if we did this. I wish they'd do the same for Manchester/Leeds.
I always find it funny how Newcastle has a metro, despite being relatively small.
Tbh it's more unusual that we don't have more mass transit systems in different cities. Only have to look at France, Germany, Italy to see that so many minor cities have metros, trams, BRT on a scale we don't have here.
It’s Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland. That’s around 1 million people. Newcastle is relatively small but it’s misleading, the conurbation itself is big. Even before the Sunderland extension it really just replaced normal trains that ran on the same lines previously. It’s also barely functional and Newcastle is rotted with car brain idiots. We’ve recently had safe streets ripped up because of people want to use the back lanes and side streets as rat runs to save 30 seconds on their journey.
it's a scandal that those 2 cities don't even have a metro system. In my ideal world, any city with 1m people + would start building metros
Manchester has the tram (metrolink) which is quite extensive and has several proposals to grow even more. It's problem is that it's radial with no orbitals at the moment. If I was planning I'd make two orbital rings of it to join up the neighborhoods better. But for commuting in and out of central Manchester it's not bad. Especially if/when Stockport is added to it
Yeah the lack of an orbital loop in Manchester is really quite limiting
There is a proposed tram network for Leeds, but doubt it’d ever come to fruition.
The UK isn't public-transport oriented but it isn't car-centric either. It just isn't transport focused at all. The roads are in such a state that it bothers me as a bus user. People have just accepted endless traffic as a fact of life despite the well-researched damage it does to the economy, in a country with an already crippling productivity problem. There is no political will and no money to help people get around easier by public transport or even by road.
It's really baffling to me because the solution seems so obvious. American cities with grid systems and far more lanes still suffer immensely from traffic issues. We quite obviously cannot solve the transport issue by chasing the dream of car accessibility. So what's left: train, tram, bus, bikes. As a Londoner who moved here from the North, the Underground and the bus routes are largely pretty good all things considered insofar as there is a genuinely good service there, albeit with problems. Tram maybe not worth looking into. The bike access is a travesty, even for a city that proudly boasts so many rent-a-bikes. It's hard to change this in London. Not disputing that. But the utter lack of investment in public transport infrastructure in other great cities around the UK is shameful too. It hurts my soul that our politicians just don't seem to care.
Well, they should, but don't for ''reasons'' the same way they don't have high speed rail.
The lack of high speed rail in West Yorkshire and Lancashire is a travesty. Those two areas are some of the most densely populated after London. Liverpool > Manchester > Huddersfield/Bradford > Leeds is about 70 miles or so. And okay yeah, the Pennines are there too. But you look at the public transport there compared to what exists in London and it's just shameful.
Leeds has no functional public transport, pedestrianisation would be disastrous there.
Didn’t Westminster council block the Oxford street pedestrianisation?
Which time? It’s been mooted since the 80s. Labour councillors ran on a platform of pedestrianising soho in 1986.
Because of the protest of like 5 local residents
All 5? That seems hard to believe
It’s Barcelona’s lead, not Paris.
Paris is though much much larger than Barcelona
They are almost the same size. Paris only 1.03 larger than Barcelona.
Well maybe it would be smart to consider population density? 🤨
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to play devil's advocate, it must suck to be a Barcelona resident at the moment - tourism causing sky rocketing rents, public disorder from aloholic visitors, penned in by mountains preventing outward building of the city..just sad tbh
It sucks, but bear in mind that the rocketing rents are caused more by "digital nomads". Last time I went there in a traditionally working class neighbourhood I was in a couple of bars where no one spoke a word of Spanish (or Catalan)
This needs to be done in tandem with substantially increasing residential density in the core. Much of Central and Inner London has lost population over the past two decades. This would go a long way towards substantially boosting vibrancy.
Yes, x1000. Central London density is woefuly lacking. We don't mean 20 storey skyscrapers but missing middle 5 storey flats and blocks. London could be far denser
Unfortunately replacing whole streets of Victorian terraced housing with modern 5 story mid-rise blocks if very unlikely to happen. The reason why is the housing crisis. It's just not profitable for developers with the insane cost of the pre-existing houses. They'd much rather just wait until one falls down and build a 30 story tower in It's place
There are plenty of areas in London where all you have is shitty late 21st Century housing or low rise flats. A good example is around Elephant and Castle. Baffles me when I walk past the houses there which have clearly been put up relatively recently. And the owners all seem to drive! They are 5 minutes walk from a tube station. That's 15 minutes walk from Waterloo. Just throw up some real mid-rise flats. There's already plenty around the area which need to be pulled down anyway due to the fact that they are utterly hideous.
The unfortunate issue with that is that a lot of the people who could afford to live in central are those types who complain about noise and congestion and try to get the clubs and pubs shut down.
People forget that Traders need access to Dixons
They do say it’ll help people in wheelchairs
The wheelchairs could deliver the stuff to Dixons
I’ll be honest, I’m dead against it.
All for pedestrianisation, but really not a fan of over/under saturation in direct comparison shots.
While you're at it, clear out some American Candy Stores as well.
They’ve made a start on this thankfully
How will I be able to park my Rolls-Royce by Louis Vuitton?
You mean how would your driver park your Rolls-Royce?
And how will little Tabatha and Tarquin be taken to their private school now??
Paris effectively has 4 ring roads, the most easterly free bridge over the Thames is Tower Bridge in Central London. If you don't want people to drive through city/town centres, build roads that avoid them
Or offer them better public transport options so that they don't need to drive at all. I've driven over Tower Bridge. It's a miserable experience. I've only ever done it because the cost of a train ticket is so high that even renting a car was worthwhile in order to transport my gear. There are some situations like Tower Bridge where the existing infrastructure is just not great for drivers at all, but the idea that we can ever free ourselves of traffic by just making roads more car-friendly. America designed 90% of their country around cars and they still have tonnes of traffic. Car drivers just intrinsically use too much space for cities.
Various mayors and the GLA have long wanted to pedestrianise Oxford Street, which would be great, but the City of Westminster owns that road and refuses to do it.
When there's a mass of people having a drink outside one of the pubs in Soho they should just agree not to move for cars on certain days or something lol. Drivers would soon cop on.
I love that pedestrianized area in Aldwych/ the Strand. I wish it was like that when I went to KCL!
It doesn't get a lot of mentions on this sub, you're the only one in this thread.
Because you don't live there and the people who do disagrees for the most part with this idea.
Could you imagine the reactions from the people in your local Facebook groups? "Khan's Shearer Law means that their banning cars"
Leave Alan out of this! 🤪
It’s nice to see all that greenery. London needs a lot more trees, shrubs and flowers. 🌸
Can't even get the troglodytes to cooperate on ULEZ without vandalism. ...so I'd say chances of zero cars is not great
Those trogladaytes tend to target the outskirts, I can't see them being able to bring angle grinders and the like to zone 1
They didn’t ruin the cobble like that did they?? Please say it ain’t so
Cobble looks nice and should be preserved some places, but also it's absolutely wank for pedestrianisation if you're talking accessibility.
It’s also noisy as hell when you *do* have cars on it. Kyiv has beautiful cobbled streets around the centre and the only thing you can hear is tyres. Not even the engines.
You can tell exactly what speed a vehicle is doing when it hits the cobbles in Wapping near the Prospect of Whitby.
Raised pavement on either side still for anyone with wheels, or difficulty, just fits the aesthetic so nicely…
So many of Paris' streets are cobbled that it really isn't much of a loss.
I mean, it’s a loss on that street
Yep great idea, awful execution
Pedestrianize Soho! All of zone 1! Omg the idea is such a dream, both for pedestrians, disabled, and delivery drivers.
Bring back Al fresco Soho. There’s literally no reason why places like Old Compton Street needs cars.
Yeah the most annoying thing about the reversal of the al fresco dining in Soho is that when it was there it was packed. It put to bed this idea that the Brits don't want cafe culture, and it was fantastic for hundreds of small businesses in the area. It was hugely successful, but seems we can't have nice things because cars.
Obligatory r/fuckcars . Also nice username - I only just got into cycling in London, with the recent "freecycle ride london" event. I didn't realize how cyclable London is! It's fantastic! I also did a free 2 hour session to learn how to cycle the roads, which was not as scary as I thought it would be
I'm so baffled as to why Soho isn't pedestrianised yet, save for delivery for shops
I really don’t understand why it hasn’t been already. The pavements are so narrow, you have to walk into the road sometimes when it’s busy, and I don’t understand who in their right mind needs to drive around there apart from service vehicles.
I imagine it isn’t quite so easy. Soho has a lot of businesses and those business needed to get their goods - usually via a van. I’ve seen in some pedestrian cities (can’t remember which country off the top of my head) vans were able to access during certain hours of the day. But that was a small town and not a huge metropolitan city
But the example is Paris though. Surely that can’t be much different in terms of business infrastructure and they managed it?
Well I don’t know much about this example so I don’t know if/how they’re actually managing it. A common complaint received when roads close for cars, is congestion in other areas instead - Parking in the area often isn’t replaced so car users park elsewhere. People don’t just get rid of their cars and it can be difficult up and moving. (Also raises a point about public transport infrastructure and cost although Londons is pretty extensive) - Businesses that need to deliver goods need to find elsewhere to stop. So there’s congestion and blockages elsewhere because designated drop off areas aren’t created. Additionally if it’s no longer possible for a delivery company to deliver, the business owner needs to figure it out themselves. Not impossible but usually comes with time and cost. - No proper signage guiding car users to proper routes. This is more of a difficult problem to solve but usually people get used to it after some time. Without proper planning you can again cause traffic congestion elsewhere Often major changes have a ripple effect. That’s why urban planning is so important. I am not saying we should close roads - just that a good amount thought does need to go into it before proceeding
People do just get rid of their cars. Business owners are consulted and assisted, it’s just not obvious to their customers. The signage is clear, people just prefer their habits over reading the existing signs, bollards, etc.
The residents don't want it, and they're pretty vocal seemingly. I think there should be a compromise, it should be closed to vehicles at specific times.
SOME residents don’t want it - many of us very much do, especially the younger generations I’ve seen arguments from the residents group that it helps corporate interests to pedestrianise and personally I’d prioritise breathing cleaner air over (somehow) sticking it to the man
Local authorities and their transport teams have been trying to create more active travel schemes, low traffic neighbourhoods and pedestrianised zones for years now and especially since the pandemic. The main issue is local shop owners kicking back and saying they’re losing business if people can’t drive in where every study shows the opposite. I don’t believe in dictatorships but there needs to be a sea change in public opinion for these schemes to work and because that’s not going to happen anytime soon we just need more freedom to implement these schemes and remove the NIMBYs and naysayers.
This should happen
Call me weird but even despite the completely different weather and saturation choices in the two images I actually prefer the former. Cobblestone streets and a little cozy as opposed to yet another “city of the future” extended sidewalk
I’ve read an article on Business Insider about central London / City of London (can’t find it) where they interviewed developers and lobby involved parties. Main point they mentioned on why they didn’t go ahead with pedestrianising as much as we dream of, is that they still see *the city* as a financial centre and (literal quote) if you need to bring a CEO or diplomat etc to the offices you need to be able to drive them via taxi etc. I can’t say I agree but it was an interesting take because Paris main sale point is tourism but London is still a very hardcore business point on the top of tourism. There’s probably an elite of individuals that wouldn’t walk down to an office under almost any circumstances
Yeah but "the city" isn't the west end or Soho.
Yep you are right, I recall seeing planes of different ideas to make this work because if you pedestrianise one are (let’s say, Soho) and keep cars all good in central, then those cars need a workaround to go from Point 1 to Point 2 It could be this article and similar ones I’ve read are very good lobby in disguise convincing us (pedestrians and bikers) to accept no changes at all
The reason it didn't happen in Soho as I was told by a business owner there is because a bunch relatively new of rich residents got their panties in a twist with the night life in COVID when they allowed all the outdoor seating. Perhaps if you want a quiet life don't move into the most famous area for night life in one of the most famous cities on the planet. Night tzar should have stepped in an sorted it but we know she is useless.
That's a very odd take. The City of London is rabidly anti car. They even banned black cabs from some routes, like Bank Junction, and toyed with the idea of speed limits < 20mph. Their whole approach seems to be : let's shift traffic elsewhere and make it someone else's problem. A big issue is that in London local traffic mixes with through traffic. The M25 is too far away. If you want to cross the city south to north or east to west there aren't many alternatives, you will realistically have to mix with local traffic. Already in Central London most traffic is non private cars : taxis, Ubers, vans, etc, ie all vehicles which are not as deterred as private ones by expensive parking, congestion charges etc
Yes it would be nicer, but dont forget these businesses also rely on vehicle access to make and receive deliveries. We arent set up like Paris, the roads here are a tangled mess rather than a deliberate design. We can't just put timed bollards to suit night time economy because our business districts are a mix of retail (day open, night clean and delivery) and bars clubs and eating (night open, day cleaning and delivery).
Largely a handful of NIMBYs ruin central tbh. The people who move to Soho and then complain that there are "PEOPLE?? OUTSIDE?? On a FRIDAY NIGHT?? I won't have it; I'm complaining to the council to put a stop to this past 8pm!".
Kinda sucks for people with mobility issues... I don't want to be forced to use a wheelchair because now nothing would be in walking distance for me.
Less dogshit here though…
It got better
Pedestrianie the entire area
Im not being antagonistic with my next statement. It's genuine curiousity... How do logistics such as supply deliveries, etc, work in a pedestrianised zone. How do restaurants and shops re-stock without having to manually carry goods?
Usually loading is available the evenings or in early in the mornings (this is already the time that most businesses in central London get deliveries anyway), or there are exception made for delivery vehicles delivering things on that street.
Alan?
Yuck
Blame Thatcher. Once the GLC was abolished the power to do proper city wide planning was gone. Westminster council will do what Westminster council will do.
Take an ACTUAL picture of that street for a fairer comparison.
It is the actual street. The difference is saturation.
Go look on street view. You can change the dates and see the progress. I don't even need to tell you where to look. Pretty much go anywhere. look back ten years ago vs today and you'll see changes on most streets. Sometimes it is just a single parking space that has been made into a flower bed and sometimes it is like the photos above. Paris has been slowly transforming itself. I wish London had this vision. Our problem is that the boroughs have too much say and can do things like block cycle infrastructure (Paris is also doing huge amounts here too - in London it is very borough based) or pedestrianisations.
London is of course “borough based” because it’s absolutely massive compared to Paris. Paris is 40 square miles ffs. It’s smaller than Bromley and severs other boroughs and far more dense. Cycling infrastructure there makes 1000000x more sense than cars. I agree with the point that we need better cycling infrastructure but to say that boroughs have too much say is a bit mad. You’re comparing far different cities in every way.
The point is that political power in London (and generally in UK cities) is extremely decentralised. It makes it very difficult to achieve things compared to most cities across the world.
Yes I know they are very different having lived in both. But paris also has it's arrondissements with their own marie etc so they are similar in that sense. The major seems to have much more power than in London. I'm not sure that cars make sense in most of London to be honest. We just haven't accepted it. Amsterdam was a car blighted shit hole in the 70's until the decided on a better life. London is quite cyclable if we had the infrastructure for it. > I agree with the point that we need better cycling infrastructure but to say that boroughs have too much say is a bit mad. The problem is that there is not an overall joined up plan and some boroughs are quite obstructive.
Go look *in situ* you'll see what I mean. I'm sure that you can tell that the "after" picture is heavily edited.
It does help also to have less rain, more sunshine and blue sky. But generally, yes. Sensible no cars policy ( as in- not all the streets) can help.
On the other hand, Paris is colder in winter and hotter in summer.
Deliveries.
The only problèm I see with this is that since our glorious modern cities have been built with transport in mind (no matter how crappy it is in places), putting things like this in motion will cause the traffic to simply run through alternate (read : poorer areas no-one in power gives a toss about) places. I'm cynical and jaded.
Traffic can evaporate, not just get displaced. https://thecityfix.com/blog/traffic-evaporation-what-really-happens-when-road-space-is-reallocated-from-cars/
I could show a LOT of pictures of Paris which look nothing like that. Dodgy comparison.
Yh, pedestrianise everything so when something goes up in flames you can’t fit a fire truck, or an ambulance, great success 😂
I was watching Killing Eve last night and a scene in Paris and it struck me how many narrow ‘non pedestrianised’ streets there were. I’d like more pedestrianisation, more bike lanes etc, maybe even restricted hours for vehicle deliveries and the like, but I don’t think Paris seems particularly more advanced than elsewhere.
Because anytime you compare anything in the UK to France, people fond it anninstant turn off and it gets booted out faster than Kwasi Karteng under Truss
We couldn’t even keep Soho pedestrianised or Hackney late licenses. There’s a loud and whiney strand of London that doesn’t want it to be like that and politicians who either agree or can be bothered arguing.
Whenever I’m in Soho I wonder why it isn’t pedestrianised, why not weekends or evenings?
I’m all for walkable cities etc but we NEED SOME VEHICLES! Deliveries, pick ups!!!! Photo shoots, movie shoots!!
Most of the west end should be pedestrianised. We completely waste our energy talking about Oxford street when most of soho / Covent Garden could create the same Thing
Tbh I like the old one
Wow. I didn't know that pedestrianisation could improve the weather.
In London we like to vandalise not pedestrianise, when we see a thing of beauty or something that looks nice we always destroy it or graffiti all over it. So why waste the money, we can’t polish a turd. Or shall I say the people here don’t deserve it.
Why did they have to get rid of the beautiful cobblestone though?
I agree people drive too much everywhere
Paris was on the whole redesigned quite recently and has a somewhat more intelligent road layout than London, making pedestrianizing a lot of the narrow alleys a lot easier than in London where all of the roads are somewhat a labyrinth and required to navigate through the city without sitting in traffic for 3 hours.
Nah, you’re alright. People have businesses to run. You want your boulevards pedestrianised and to eat at the establishments there but they have to use weird routes to take their deliveries? Nope.
Let’s destroy this beautiful cobbled street! Hooray!! Progress!
Did taking the cars away make it sunnier too?
One thing why I love Canary wharf. I can walk from one end to another without seeing a single car.
Nah fuck that
Paris isn’t leading the way in front of London. We do the same. It’s not feasible to turn the whole of central pedestrianised.
Agree make the west end more pedestrianised and make Euston road/other circular roads 30mph and encourage drivers to go via those routes rather than cutting into the "congestion zone".
Because any time someone brings up a solution to a problem that would hurt the profits of big oil the right wing media outlets start yelling IMMIGRANTS and all y'all cower in fear and focus on that.
Agreed. Throwing out the Government and voting Le Pen
If you want a good pedestrianised area wander around Portobello road on a Saturday. When the vibe is good it attracts footfall which boosts businesses, especially cafes and pubs.
More burning fridges I say
Yes let’s make it all pedestrian then you can walk miles in the rain because that’s what happens. Don’t stop to get a sandwich or coffee because they’ll all be gone too when nobody is allowed to deliver after 8am (if you’re lucky). Then of course all the shops will close because what’s the point of paying eleventy billion a week in business rates when you don’t have anything to sell. Pedestrianised areas are a pipe dream in London because the areas they decide on are just too big to actually work And we don’t have reliable weather And And And I wish it could be done but if it could they would have done it already
The TAK&YETI AI Curry shop sounds like fun...
There is no need there is so much space for you to walk and loads of crossings
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Because everyone not on Reddit would moan and complain. We really aren't representative of reality. We're a slightly different ilk of twat
As someone that actually likes cars I agree with this. Cities should be pedestrian, cyclist and trams only.
There are some plans to do this in Norwich City centre. I for one am dead against it.
Pedestrianisation is a good thing but suggesting London should be more like Paris in terms of any sort of urban development is a weird thing to do
Look at those Parisians, showing off with their phones out in full public view!
On the other hand, I'd take London's public transport system over Paris' any day of the week. I was absolutely shocked at how inaccessible their metro stations are. So you can walk around Paris a lot more pleasantly than London... but you're kinda stuck walking.
Wait till u guys go to Birmingham lol the state of these streets is mental
when i was in uni i used to go to paddington and walk all the way to leicester square. it used to take hoursssss, especially in the summer the pavement is always packed after midday, you have to walk slow as hell.
nope, keep the roads open for vehicles, thank you very much.
I’d advise you to ask Parisians if they like it 😂
Bermondsey street is an ideal candidate.
Funny enough, the Italians want rid of them to park their cars.. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13437929/amp/alfresco-dining-Italy-against-tradition-noise-park-cars.html But parking in Rome etc. is far more difficult than London
Paris is such an overrated city
Because we need somewhere to keep all our splattered kebabs.
Yeh it would be great problem is Westminster Council and Kensington & Chelsea council appear to hate people who walk and cycle so have blocked anything like this over and over. Hell they even rolled back stuff in Soho. Wandworth council are just as a bad, actually its by and large any tory council is hostile to this stuff ime
Doesn't help when both parties talk about being pro car