Oxford Street Without Traffic? London’s Busiest Street Faces the Unthinkable
Oxford Street London could soon be pedestrianised. In this episode we explore the history of London’s busiest shopping street and the radical plan that could change it forever.
London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you, London walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Thursday, March 5th, 2026.
And here it is, here’s your daily London fix.
Today we’ve got a bang-up-to-date London story for you.
Pretty much breaking news, in fact.
Because something rather remarkable may be about to happen to one of the most famous streets in the world.
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Oxford Street.
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Now if you know Oxford Street you know the soundtrack.
Buses roaring.
Taxi horns.
Engines revving.
Delivery vans edging forward inch by inch like nervous chess pieces.
It’s noisy.
It’s chaotic.
It’s gloriously, unmistakably London.
So how about it?
Do you fancy a stroll down a street that sooner or later every visitor to London makes a beeline for?
A street that’s famous…
infamous…
beloved…
loathed…
overcrowded…
over-lit,
over-commercialised, and yet somehow completely irresistible.
Yes, Oxford Street, here we come.
And if you’ve ever been on one of our London Walks that passes through the West End
you’ll know something else as well:
the moment you step off Oxford Street and round a corner the city suddenly changes.
Stories tucked into the bricks.
But first… Oxford Street itself.
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For starters, it’s the busiest shopping street in Europe.
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More than half a million people pass through Oxford Street every single day. On the busiest shopping days that number can surge toward a million.
And threading its way through that human tide are the buses. Lots of them. At one time more buses ran along Oxford Street than anywhere else in Europe.
Which means that for decades this mile-long stretch between
Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road has been one of the most congested pieces of road in Britain.
But listen closely, because something historic is about to happen here.
Traffic on Oxford Street. Its days are numbered.
Yes, really.
Plans have been floating around City Hall for years now. The idea is simple enough.
Radical, but simple.
Turn a good sized chunk of Oxford Street into a largely pedestrian boulevard.
In other words,
take the traffic away.
No buses grinding past.
No taxis jockeying for position.
No delivery vans playing chicken with the kerb.
Instead you’d have something much closer to the great pedestrian shopping avenues you find in cities like Copenhagen or Barcelona.
Just people.
And space.
Lots more space.
Now this idea has been proposed before.
Several times, in fact.
Previous mayors have toyed with it.
Transport planners have drawn maps.
Architects have produced handsome artists’ impressions full of trees, benches, and cheerful shoppers wandering freely across the street.
And every time the idea surfaced it ran into the same obstacle.
London itself.
Because London, as we know,
is a complicated organism. Diverting traffic away from Oxford Street doesn’t make it disappear.
It sends it somewhere else.
Neighbouring streets worry.
Bus routes have to be redesigned. Shopkeepers fret about deliveries. Taxi drivers raise an eyebrow or two.
So the project has stalled more than once.
But now it’s back.
And this time the momentum feels stronger.
Partly because Oxford Street itself has been struggling.
Anyone who’s walked it recently will have noticed the change. Some of the big department stores have closed or moved.
Rents have been volatile.
A few rather dubious souvenir shops have crept in.
In short, the street needs a bit of love.
And pedestrianisation,
the argument goes,
might just give it that.
Imagine it for a moment.
You step out of the tube at Oxford Circus.
But instead of that familiar wall of traffic there’s open space stretching in both directions.
The buildings are still there of course.
Selfridges gleaming at the western end.
The great retail palaces marching eastward.
But the roar of engines is gone.
You hear footsteps.
Voices.
Street musicians perhaps.
Maybe even birds.
It would feel very different.
And yet, in a curious way,
it would also be a return to the past.
Because the Oxford Street we know today began life as something much simpler.
In Roman times this was part of a road heading west out of Londinium.
Later it became the Tyburn Road, leading to the infamous gallows at Tyburn where public executions took place for centuries.
Crowds gathered here then as well.
Just not for shopping.
By the 18th and 19th centuries the road was transforming into a bustling commercial street.
Shops multiplied.
Omnibuses appeared.
And by the 20th century
Oxford Street had become one of the great shopping streets of the world.
Traffic was simply part of the deal.
But cities evolve.
They always have.
Look across Europe and you’ll see it happening everywhere. Streets that once belonged to cars are slowly being given back to people.
And London,
cautious as it sometimes is, now looks ready to do the same with its most famous shopping street.
If it happens – if it happens? when it happens – it’ll be the biggest change Oxford Street has seen in generations.
And one day, years from now,
you might find yourself strolling down the middle of the road where buses once thundered past.
A curious thought.
But then London is full of curious thoughts.
And surprising futures.
So next time you find yourself on Oxford Street,
take a moment.
Listen to the engines.
Watch the buses edging through the crowds.
Because history is quietly approaching.
And when it arrives, it’ll bring a remarkable change.
Traffic on Oxford Street. Its days are numbered.
And that’s London for you.
Layers of past, present, and future all jostling together on the same pavement.
Just waiting for someone to notice.
This is London Walks.
If you’d like to see London properly – not just the shop windows but the stories behind them – come and walk with us.
We do more than 500 different walks across this extraordinary city.
Guides in a league all of their own. Accomplished professionals. Barristers, surgeons, museum curators, historians, archaeologists, geologists, university professors, Royal Shakespeare Company actors…well, you get the idea.
To that you can add Small groups.
And Real London.
Just go to walks.com.
C’est tout for today.
London calling.
London Walks disconnecting.
But not before wishing you lots of good Londoning.
See you tomorrow.