Oxford Circus Crossing A ‘Success’

By · March 3, 2010 at 9:46 am · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

oxcircussmall.jpg The sort-of-revolutionary pedestrian crossing at Oxford Circus has been declared a topping bit of town planning by its designers. (To employ an over-used phrase, ‘they would say that, wouldn’t they’.) TfL have done the math, and calculated that the decreased clutter and increased crossing options will save £6.5 million in journey times each year (we’d love to see the assumptions made in calculating this). While the nexus may have improved somewhat for the typical pedestrian, some grumble that traffic flow, already bad in the area, has worsened. The BBC quote one taxi driver who calls the crossing ‘quite absurd’. What’s your verdict? Image / Helen Duffett.

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  • http://undefined jamesu

    Love it!

  • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

    It’s good to see Balham’s influence on a central London design feature (albeit largely uncredited). I still maintain the need to cross the Diagonal slightly off-centre, lest you become engaged in a pedestrian pas-de-deux mid-way across.

    There’s also a recently opened semi-diagonal crossing at the junction of St martin’s Lane, Long Acre, Garrick St etc – one crossing now connects the Long Acre/Garrick St corner with the Great Newport St/Cranbourne St corner. Look on google maps satellite view, and you’ll see the whole junction blocked by an artic lorry. Look on google streetview, and you’ll see a man picking his nose :D

  • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

    It’s good to see the influence of Balham succeed in a central London design feature. I like the Oxford St Diagonal, but still maintain the need to cross slightly off-centre, lest you become involved in a pedestrian pas-de-deux mid-way across.

    There’s also a semi-diagonal recently appeared at the intersection of Long Acre, St Martin’s Lane, Garrick St etc round the back of Leicester Square tube station. The new crossing links the Long Acre/Garrick St corner with the Great Newport St/Cranbourne St corner.

    You can see the “before” on google maps: satellite view has the junction blocked with an artic lorry, streetview has the crossing being build, with a man crossing while picking his nose. :D

  • IanVisits

    The cost saving probably comes from the classic economists way of looking at time as if every minute has a cost.

    So, if x number of people save 10 seconds each, and presuming that every second of waking time is spent in productive labour – then there is a financial benefit to the pedestrian and overall economy.

    However, as most people are not productively working every second of their waking life, the calculation is rather spurious.

  • http://undefined Sarah

    Pedestrianise it all! And create lanes for walking traffic. Bloody tourists.

    • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

      The eastern end is almost navigable to the pesestrian at the moment with traffic only going one way.

  • http://undefined nm4471a

    this isn’t revolutionary at all. there’s been a similar thing in sidcup for years. all four directions are go on red, allowing the pedestrian to go diagnoally across the road. it hasn;t got the weird road markings but it’s essentiallythe same thing. man that’s dull!

    • M@

      Hence the ‘sort-of’ prefix. There’s something similar in Balham, and several examples in Japan. But this is on an order of magnitude busier than Sidcup or Balham, I expect.

  • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

    I’ve been trying to post about Balham but it refuses to show up. Do you have an anti-Balham filter installed?

    • M@

      Nope, we all love Balham. Are you putting in hyperlinks – it may be that the spam filter thinks you’re dodgy.

      • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

        Yep, links included – I was using HTML tags for style, as advised above. Here it is again, no hrefs this time:

        It’s good to see the influence of Balham (see http://jamescousins.com/2009/11/balham-was-there-first) succeed in a central London design feature. I like the Oxford St Diagonal, but still maintain the need to cross slightly off-centre, lest you become involved in a pedestrian pas-de-deux mid-way across.

        There’s also a semi-diagonal recently appeared at the intersection of Long Acre, St Martin’s Lane, Garrick St etc round the back of Leicester Square tube station. The new crossing links the Long Acre/Garrick St corner with the Great Newport St/Cranbourne St corner.

        You can see the “before” on google maps: satellite view has the junction blocked with an artic lorry (see http://bit.ly/9NSYy5), streetview has the crossing being built, with a man crossing while picking his nose (see http://bit.ly/9a3vjd). :D

        Doesn’t quite read the same without links :(

      • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

        It says “Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.” Can you ask the blog owner to approve it please?

        • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

          (and that’s with links removed, but URLs included)

          • http://undefined M@

            It’s appeared above. I think the spam filter is happy with one one link, but more than that and it gets all flustered.

          • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

            so it has. did you fiddle with something or was it in transit the whole time?

          • http://undefined M@

            It was there all along, waiting approval, but I didn’t notice.

          • http://www.toneknob.com iSleepDiagonal

            Thanks Matt :)

  • http://undefined Helen Duffett

    A new diagonal crossing is under construction in Wood Green. (Though only across one axis.)

  • http://undefined Alex T.

    No idea whether it was revolutionary or not – but I certainly found it very useful, because I often need to cross the circus diagonally and for me it replaced two slow crossings (filled to the rim with tourists) with just one.

  • Dave

    This was such a ‘no-brainer’. The only thing that is remarkable is that the original designers of the junction had somehow thought that constructing big concrete barriers that were specifically and deliberately intended to impede pedestrians was a good idea.

    Remove the deliberate obstructions, and look — people are no longer obstructed! Hardly a miracle, is it?

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