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Piccadilly Circus to become two-way after 40 years
Ruth Bloomfield02.07.09
A £10Million plan to ease traffic congestion in the heart of the West End was unveiled today.
The proposals involve reintroducing two-way traffic around Piccadilly Circus for the first time in more than 40 years.
Westminster council chiefs hope the scheme will end the jams which blight Piccadilly, Haymarket, Lower Regent Street, Pall Mall and St James's Street.
A complex one-way system was introduced in the early Sixties to tackle growing traffic problems. But the council believes turning them into two-way streets will tackle the increase in vehicles which causes congestion and creates rat runs through narrow roads nearby.
The revamp will also include new footpaths and lighting. Street clutter, including out-of-date signs and railings, will be removed.
Shaftesbury Avenue will remain one way while Piccadilly will stay one way for cars - from west to east - but a bus lane is being proposed which will effectively make it a two-way street.
Glasshouse Street will be closed to traffic at its east-side junction with Sherwood Street.
The scheme forms part of Westminster's seven major regeneration projects to transform central London in time for the 2012 Games.
The total cost of the works will be £40million and the council has already raised half of the money from its own coffers, Transport for London and funders including The Portman Estate, one of the West End's biggest landowners. Colin Barrow, leader of Westminster council, today called on Mayor Boris Johnson for financial help.
He said: "These seven projects will help transform the centre of our capital ahead of 2012 when the eyes of the world will be upon us. Visitors will rightly expect to be equally impressed with London's streets, hotels, restaurants, shops and transport as they are with the world's top sporting talent.
"The Mayor has been extremely supportive and has invested tens of millions of pounds in West End projects.
"However, we cannot rest on our laurels and the task of enhancing this economically vital area of London, which attracts more visitors than any other part of the country, needs as much vision, drive and funding as we can muster. Westminster is a world city of strategic economic importance to the whole of the UK so investment in the West End is not just a local issue."
A spokeswoman for Westminster said a date had not been set to start the Piccadilly Circus works as the funding had not been fully secured - but said the council was committed to completing all seven projects by 2012.
Last month, Westminster officially reopened Marble Arch after a £2.1million revamp which included the restoration of its fountains which had not been used for more than a decade. Work is also under way to create £5million Japanese-inspired diagonal crossings at Oxford Circus.
Reader views (11)
Lets be Very Clear about this.
This is NOTHING to do with easing Traffic Congestion but instead making things 100 X worse for the Motorist. You only need to look at the Plans. Why on earth are Westminster Council trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Shame on you Westminster Council. Im surprised you have not given that Car Hater Ken Livingstone a job by now
- Daniel, London
A lot of the congestion around the circus today is due to idiotic Ken's pedestrianising of Trafalgar Square, which has resulted in traffic gridlock around the West end and beyond. Boris said he was going to sort out traffic in London, the first thing he should do is rip up his predecessor's socialist road agenda and return a major thoroughfare through the square to its original use. Perhaps then we will see a return to a free-flowing London.
- David, London
Don't you just love the way that Tory councils refer to measures designed to protect pedestrians, such as railings, as "street clutter"? There's going to be an awful lot of flat tourists.
- Helen, West London
What a crock! Yes it will make traffic flow faster but most people are on foot in this area anyway, especially the tourists Westminster proports to be doing this for.
Lets take a look at Shaftsbury Avenue. Westminster has had all but a couple of the pedestrian crossings rubbed out. With the current one at the far Piccadilly Circus end the only one to have a walk now light. How does Westminster expect dawdling tourists to explore China Town and Theatreland if they have to risk life and limb to cross the road? How does it think this helps Londoners, Tourists, Traders or even it's own revenue? Or is this just so that their chauffeur driven limos can glide them to their destination quickly?
- Ian B, London
It makes for good contracts for the old school boy network in this recession, Westminster looks after its freemasons.
Reading what they say in the press; means nothing much will change at all, as has already been said on this forum; the current scheme is almost identical to the newly proposed scheme etc.
Here we have a Council that talks a lot about reducing and controlling congestion; yet they are the only council in the UK that charges motor cycles to park in bike bays etc.
Motor bikes and scooters were encouraged in order to reduce car use in crowded city areas, and to relieve the street and road congestion that these vehicles caused etc; then after many stopped using four wheels and took to using two wheels; Westminster started hitting them with the same charges they hit car users with etc.
Once this new scheme is finally finished and £40 million has gone to the road construction industry; Piccadilly will still be the same, bet your last penny on that.
I remember when one way streets never existed; even Park Lane and Piccadilly were totally two way streets in those days; you could go from point A to point B without a single problem, and by the shortest and fastest route, we never had yellow lines, parking meters, or even traffic wardens then either.
Westminster can find millions for their freemason work creation schemes; but cannot find a penny for social workers for its old age pensioners suffering from dementia and the likes.
Nothing will change.
- Mickinlondon, london.
One-way gyratories and streets are a 1960s curse on the road users of today. They force people to travel further than necessary and are particularly bad news for cyclists; two-way exemption for them, commonplace in Europe, rarely happens here.
The sooner these daft, outdated schemes are removed from our streets, the better for all of us.
- Austen, London
£40 million for a bit of tarmac and clearing? I'd like to see a break down of those costs.
- Bruce, London
A shame these proposals do not go far enough - the whole space should be pedestrianised. What a misssed opportunity. Traffic through the heart of historic London wins the day again!
- Mike, London SW
Why do they think it was built as a round-about in the first place?!
- Roz, France
"Shaftesbury Avenue will remain one way while Piccadilly will stay one way for cars - from west to east - but a bus lane is being proposed which will effectively make it a two-way street." This makes no sense. There is already an east to west bus lane along Piccadilly.
- Dicky, The Dark Side
Will be interesting to see how awful the execution is. Have a look at the 'juntion refurbishmnet' at the junction of Long Acre, Bedford Street and St Martins Lane by Leicester Square tube. Have now been going on over a year and still working on temporary traffic lights. Only in London.
- Nj, London, UK
