Bob wrote:
Steve wrote:
Haveing jsut spent the best part of a Saturday (I know I shouldn't but
need's must) doing Oxford Street and witnessing the nightmare of buses
Causes of the problems.
Too many busses
Too many bus stops/laybys which despite busses pulling in, others can't
overtake and then the ones that do, block the ones that pulled in from
escaping.
Too many tourists not understanding 'pay before entry' and unable to read
the English only instructions on the roadside ticket machines.
Drivers telling passengers they can't take money, then waiting at the stop
while the passenger tries to figure out the machine.

Dave's site has a neat project summary.
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/77

To expand on that, I did hear a rumour that some of the difficulties on
Oxford St are caused by a disagreement between TfL and Westminster
Council, who control all the traffic light timings. The allegation was
that the Council preferred favourable timings for north-south traffic
than for east-west traffic (for some unknown reason), and so this
prevented signal timings on Oxford St being optimised to ease the
bus/taxi jams. It's just a rumour, though.

Oh, and that crane work was also going on during the night, and the
traffic was terrible then too; I managed to get a bus from Centrepoint
at about 0130 on Saturday morning, but then spent the next half an hour
sitting in diversion traffic down Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury
Avenue... (incidentally, Cambridge Circus must be one of the
worst-arranged junctions in central London; at any time of day or night
it seems to be a mess of confused pedestrians, red-light-jumping cars
and box-blocking buses)

"Too many buses" is certainly a problem on Oxford St, and I think the
only real solution is to remove some of them (if not all). The problem
is deciding which ones should be removed; those which terminate on
Oxford St are relatively easy candidates for curtailment, because most
passengers alight at Marble Arch or Centrepoint. However, some provide a
very useful through service (e.g. 15, 94) so a bit of judicious
diverting could be helpful; I wonder if Brook Street in Mayfair might be
a good diversionary route in addition to Wigmore Street to the north.

I think that in the long term, pedestrianisation should be the goal; if
Oxford Street is to survive in the face of competition from other
shopping areas such as Brent Cross or (particularly) White City, it
needs to be an *pleasant* place to shop; something it really isn't at
the moment. Trams would be a great help, particularly if connected up to
Cross River Tram at Holborn, but I don't think the nature of shopping
along Oxford Street (either start at one end and shop your way to the
other, or head for a specific shop) absolutely requires them.


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London