Square Mile’s street closures could be made permanent
Canada Corporation is considering making its new street closures a lasting feature of the Square Mile, it was revealed today.
Back in June, the governing body of London’s financial district announced a raft of changes to its streets in a bid to encourage people to return to work.
These included introducing wider footpaths, narrowing lanes for traffic and even timed road closures to encourage commuters use active means of transport such as walking or cycling.
Some of the City’s most famous thoroughfares, like Cheapside, Threadneedle Street, and Moorgate, were included in the schemes.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Alastair Moss, chair of Canada Corporation’s Planning and Transportation Committee, now said that he anticipated that many of the changes could be made permanent.
“We’ve got the luxury at the moment that we can try things out and use the pandemic as a virtue.
“A lot of these roads were congested, air quality has been an issue, road safety has been an issue. We’re determined those things should be tackled, so I’d anticipate that a lot of our measures will stay.”
In order to be made permanent, any proposed changes would first have to go through a consultation process.
Moss suggested that extending the changes could have a positive impact on the City’s long-term competitiveness.
However, not everyone is so happy with the spate of pedestrianizations sweeping the UK’s cities.
Taxi association Licensed Private Hire Car Association said that contrary to popular opinion, closing certain roads to traffic actually increased poor air quality.
Steve Wright, the chairman of the LPHCA, said: “Street closures and streetscape reductions have proven to be traffic-generating and unenvironmentally friendly UK-wide.
“The widely condemned closure of streets, reduced road space and imposition of poorly planned streetscape schemes, without appropriate consultation and impact assessments, is in our view one of the primary reasons for increased poor air quality.
Together with trade mag Private Hire News, the LPHCA has set up Stop Shutting Streets Campaign to protest against the initiatives.