On 28 Apr, 22:21, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
Was in Oxford Street today, of which about half is currently closed to
all traffic due to a fire in the shop next to M&S (I forget what it
was called).

I couldn't help but notice that it was far more pleasant - less
crowded and pretty much unpolluted - compared with its usual bus- and
taxi-filled anarchy. I would as such consider that there is a serious
case for pedestrianisation, with buses serving passengers either on
all the crossing streets or perhaps on a specially-built bus station
or similar somewhere around the middle. There are plenty of parallel
streets that can take the through traffic.

What are peoples' thoughts on this?

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Even if there are plenty of parallel streets which could take the bus
traffic, that doesn't seem to be where it was going. While some of
the routes turned around at Tottenham Court Road (e.g. 25), there were
others (7, 8, 73) which appeared to be diverted via Regent Street,
Piccadilly and Shaftsbury Avenue rather than to the north of Oxford
Street. There were lots of "short" destinations on the front of buses
so traffic must have been bad.

However, I agree that Oxford Street isn't really the right place to
run a lot of the services that use it. On a Saturday, I reckon that a
journey from Aldwych to Paddington might sometimes be quicker using
11/36-436 via Victoria or 9/36-436 via Hyde Park than by taking the 15
or 23. There is some virtue in the idea of the Oxford Street / Regent
Street tram but I don't think the travelling public would necessary
buy having to change.

Jonathan