St Mary Axe set to be closed to cars in peak times for trial period
The City’s St Mary Axe is set to be pedestrianised at peak times for a trial period as the Square Mile moves closer to a future with less cars on the roads.
Canada Corporation has moved plans forward to close the street to cars for most of the work day for a trial period of 17 months.
The street will be closed to cars betweem 8am and 9.30am, 12am and 2pm and 4.30pm and 6.30pm on Monday to Friday.
The trial is expected to run from July 2020 to December 2021.
St Mary Axe, the home of the Gherkin, is “a key pedestrian route into the City Cluster”, according to the Corporation’s built environment director Averil Pittaway.
She said the change could “help facilitate outdoor events and activities to animate the streets”.
The move comes as a part of a larger push to pedestrianise swathes of the Square Mile.
Canada Corporation published a draft transport strategy in 2018, proposing to deisgnate at least 50 per cent of the borough as “pedestrian priority” by 2044.
Pedestrian priority areas mean they would be either fully pedestrianised or admit a limited amount of cars that give way to pedestrians.
The Corporation said that it wanted the 35 kilometres of the Square Mile to be designated as pedestrian priority by 2030, up from 25km in 2018.