Sadiq Khan’s vision of a tranquil, pedestrian-friendly Oxford Street has come under immediate strain, only days after the first phase of the scheme was completed.
Promotional digital artwork depicted smiling shoppers and tourists walking beneath trees, hand in hand and admiring the shop windows.
The images also suggested that traffic and buses would move smoothly through nearby streets once vehicles were removed from the famous shopping thoroughfare.
Instead, pedestrians have been forced to contend with groups of cyclists riding through the new zone, while security staff looked on this week.
Black-cab drivers say the changes have also made journeys across central London more difficult, adding as much as 20 minutes to some routes.
Video filmed one evening appears to show dozens of cyclists—many of them young men or teenagers—ignoring the restrictions and riding along Oxford Street as though the rules had not changed.
“He’s given up,” one person can be heard laughing, referring to a security guard standing with his arms extended beside the bollards.
A large group of cyclists had gathered near a crossing where vehicles are still permitted to pass, before weaving through shoppers who appeared caught off guard.
Cyclists have continued to ride along Oxford Street despite the new restrictions, according to footage shared online
One video appears to capture bikes weaving between startled shoppers in the newly pedestrianised area
Oxford Street was closed to cars, bikes, buses and taxis from Monday morning
Sadiq Khan struck several poses for photographers on Monday morning as the scheme began
Against a backdrop of loud music, the disorder stood in sharp contrast to the calm, welcoming vision presented to Londoners ahead of the launch.
Among those closely monitoring the impact is Bahrain “Baha” Mujagata, a 21-year-old believed to be London’s youngest black-cab driver.
He said traffic on surrounding roads had quickly intensified, prompting him to reminisce about “how it was before” the changes were introduced.
Mr Mujagata told the Local Democracy Service: “Yesterday, I felt the real-time repercussions—there was so much traffic on Regent Street with nowhere else to go. Sitting in traffic that I used to bypass makes life much harder.
“Regent Street going northbound is very crowded, with a cycle lane on the left and a central reservation. If a bus stops to pick up passengers, you have to wait behind it. If it’s like that at night, I can only imagine what it’s like during the day.”
The driver stressed that he was not opposed to pedestrianising Oxford Street in principle, but said the current approach under Mayor Khan was not the right solution.
Mr Mujagata added: “We will evolve and get used to it, as we do whenever they change a road or a turn. But drivers who knew how it was before will always remember.”
At dawn on Monday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan stood in the middle of Oxford Street as the scheme got under way, posing for photographers with his arms outstretched, waving to passing workers and looking towards the sky.
Bahrain ‘Baha’ Mujagata, 21, thought to be London’s youngest black cab driver, is not a fan of Lord Khan’s scheme
A video from Wigmore Street this week showed cars and buses backed up to a standstill
Locals had warned of congestion on the roads around Oxford Street, and their fears were realised
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A team of security guards on day one barked instructions at cyclists to dismount, with mixed results
New signs were installed overnight that asked cyclists to dismount from their bikes and walk them through the pedestrianised zone
Hours earlier, green bollards had been installed at either end of a 0.9km stretch of the famous shopping hub – from the famous Selfridges department store down to Ikea.
Despite a team of guards barking orders to disembark, at mid-morning cyclists continued to race through the bollards and down the road, trundling over the big new green sticker that had been laid over the tarmac.
Perhaps it would take a day or so for them to get the message, onlookers suggested. The fresh footage suggests not.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Tim Barnes, Westminster City Councillor for Growth and Planning, said after the scheme’s launch: ‘We have been concerned from the outset that taking London’s main east-west road and pushing it to the smaller side roads behind was always going to inevitably lead to traffic problems.
‘You just can’t take that much traffic out of central London and push it on to roads that are smaller, less well suited to taking big vehicles, and not expect it to cause problems.
‘Last night there were all sorts of complications. There was traffic on Regent Street that was backed up, and indeed it stopped for so long at times that we even saw a big waste truck having to turn around and go the wrong way [up the street].
‘And if you look at Wigmore Street, there are points where buses now have to make very, very hard right-hand turns or 90-degree turns, which I think will be a problem for pedestrians and cyclists.
‘I also think it’s only a matter of time until we see more incidents with cyclists hitting pedestrians on Oxford Street itself.’
Artists’ imaginings of pedestrianised Oxford Street were a far cry from the recent scenes
Workmen erect bollards at one end of Oxford Street as the pedestrianisation came into force
Lord Khan claimed the street had been ‘in decline’ for the past two decades
The changes have prompted fears that traffic, noise and pollution will simply be pushed on to smaller residential roads, leaving those living and working nearby to bear the brunt of the Mayor’s flagship project.
Among the roads affected by the new arrangements are Wigmore Street, Henrietta Place and Cavendish Place, which are now accommodating diverted bus services.
Transport for London has confirmed that five bus routes – the 98, 139, 390, N98 and N207 – have been redirected on to surrounding roads, with new stops introduced to accommodate passengers.
Other services have been shortened or altered, while taxis and private hire vehicles are no longer permitted to enter the pedestrianised section.
The upheaval comes despite warnings from Westminster City Council that the scheme risked creating serious problems for residents, businesses and motorists.
Residents in neighbouring Marylebone had also raised concerns before the closure that their streets would become increasingly congested as buses and other vehicles were forced away from Oxford Street.
The Marylebone Association previously calculated that Wigmore Street could see around 46 additional bus movements an hour during peak periods.
Henrietta Place has also been converted to accommodate two-way traffic as part of preparations for the scheme.
The changes represent a major transformation of one of Britain’s most famous shopping destinations, which attracts around 500,000 visitors every day.