No more trucks, cars and buses on this stretch of the Strand at Australia House, London.Google Street View
“It’s been amazing to create a place for people rather than cars,” says urban designer Cannon Ivers in a video promoting the transformation of a traffic-choked four-lane gyratory into a pedestrian-friendly space in the heart of London.
Ivers is the design lead of a $26.5m project which, earlier in December, reclaimed a short stretch of the Strand in Westminster from motorists.
In a Westminister City Council press release, Ivers said the 850-foot makeover, two years in the making, had also been a “rescue mission,” saving the Grade-1-listed St Mary Le Strand church from its recent role as a “glorified traffic island.”
The Strand is a historic main thoroughfare through London, part of the former Roman Road from the City of London to Bath in the West of England, via Trafalgar Square, and denoted as the A4 since the early 1920s.
“Strand has long been a place to hurry through rather than linger, with pedestrians pinned to narrow pavements,” said Ivers.
“The volume of traffic and parked buses made cycling extremely challenging, too. Now, with a significant stretch of Strand pedestrianized, visitors will get a far stronger sense of the leading cultural and educational institutions based here.”
The easternmost stretch of the Strand is home to King’s College, one of the two founding colleges of the University of London, the Royal Courts of Justice, and Australia House, the diplomatic mission of Australia in the U.K.
The semi-circular Aldwych road remains as the busy A4 through London while an 850-ft stretch of the … [+] Strand has been pedestrianized. The green blob in the center of this 15-year-old aerial is the St Mary Le Strand church now no longer a “glorified traffic island.”Google Earth
North of the Strand is Aldwych, a semi-circular road and area that is part of the Northbank business improvement district, or BID.
Westminister City Council said the Strand was one of London’s “most congested and polluted streets” but, since removing the motor traffic, now becomes a “world-class destination.”
“Anyone familiar with that part of Westminster will know just how awful it was for pedestrians, who would take their life in their hands every time they tried to get from one side of Aldwych, across to Strand,” stated Cllr Geoff Barraclough, Westminster City Council’s cabinet member for urban planning.
Barraclough further said that removing motor vehicles demonstrated that “placemaking” was “for all, not the few.”
Businesses have welcomed the transformation, with Ruth Duston, CEO of the Northbank BID, saying the scheme will provide a “blueprint for the delivery of [additional] major projects in the future.”
The Strand has been part of a four-lane one-way gyratory system circulating around Aldwych since the 1950s, an era when many cities encouraged through design the incursion of cars.
Work to transform the Strand into a pedestrian space started in 2021.
Westminster City Council said closing the Strand to motorists would “provide better movement of [motor] traffic” and, at the same time, “improve the public realm.”
Reducing motor traffic also improves air quality. The change will also “support the area’s economy” by “enhancing its vibrancy, productivity, and creativity” said the council.
London is one of many global cities investing in reducing motor vehicle use. This investment helps curb air pollution and fight climate change, and many urbanists argue it also makes cities better places to live, work and visit.
And safer, too: with fewer cars, vans, and—especially—trucks, pedestrians and cyclists are much less likely to be killed or injured.
Pedestrianization schemes are often fought tooth-and-nail by opponents because, once introduced, they almost always become extremely popular.