Very important pedestrian day in London makes major shopping districts pedestrian only

Evening Standard photo.

Streetsblog alerts us to Mayor Livingstone's "Very Important Pedestrian Day," edict, which closed Oxford Street, Regent Street (they have a great website), andBond Street to pedestrians only, for one day, during the holiday shopping season. See "£100million shopping bonanza as Oxford St bans cars for one day," from the Evening Standard.

Also see the press release "Transport for London supports Very Important Pedestrians Day."

The only thing that worries me about communicating something like this is that most people think pedestrian malls that work do so because they are exclusively for walkers. Really they are successful because there is lots of foot traffic, and the density of people on foot makes it possible to ban cars from a street without significantly reducing positive street activity.

Pedestrian malls don't produce pedestrians. Great numbers of pedestrians can produce successful pedestrian malls. (Note that Project for Public Spaces doesn't run around mandating pedestrian malls.)