Celebrating a British icon 39
partly to allow the street to be
pedestrianised. According to
official thinking, both retailers
and shoppers will benefit
from the resultant traffic-free
environment.
It will be a massive upheaval,
and some see it as a withdrawal
of the very lifeblood of the
street: the means to deliver
shoppers and retail workers to
it. Reportedly, in recent times
up to 220,000 people have been
travelling by bus along part of the
street every day, and many will
now have to break their journey
or start and finish it on foot.
Official thinking is that this is a
small price to pay. Estimates vary,
but it is thought that in recent
years more than 300 buses an
hour were using Oxford Streetat peak times. Some of the major
retailers were complaining that
congestion and pollution were
driving away customers. The plan
to remove the buses will provide
a severe test of that argument.
Buses have not disappeared
from Oxford Street altogether
yet, but the initial wave of
changes in 2017 removed buses
on five routes from the western
half of the street – the stretch
between Oxford Circus and
Orchard Street, which joins Oxford
Street from the north between
Selfridges and Marks & Spencer’s
flagship Marble Arch store. These
were the 6, 13, 73, 137 and 189.
The first four of these had been
original Routemaster routes
almost up to the type’s final
withdrawal in 2005.In the next, more dramatic
phase set to unfold during
2018, the remaining nine bus
routes will be removed from the
western half of the street. There
are also longer-term plans to
pedestrianise the eastern section,
removing yet more buses from it.East-west, north-south
It should be remembered that in
the tide of buses flowing along
Oxford Street, by no means all
have been running on east-west
routes, despite appearances.
Historically, many arrived from
the north or south, and simply
turned on to Oxford Street to run
part-way or all the way along it,
then turned off again to continue
their journey.
Remember, too, that in the past
London bus routes were much
longer than they are now, and far
more of them were cross-town
routes. Over the years, many
have been cut back to improve
reliability. This means that for
more and more bus routes,
Oxford Street became a starting
point or destination, rather than
part of a longer journey.
An intriguing example is route- Back in the 1980s, when it
was operated by Routemasters, it
started at Acton in west London,
ran directly eastwards along
Oxford Street as far as Oxford
Circus, then turned south down
Regent Street and headed onwards
to Clapham in south London.
In 1990 the western section
Oxford Street
LEFT: June 1989
at Oxford Circus
and Routemasters
again seem to
be everywhere.
London Buses
had just been
restructured into
smaller operating
companies, so
RML2326 on route
6 was allocated
to London Forest
while CentreWest
was running
RML2467 on the 15.BELOW: A
reminder in
December 2017 of
an Oxford Street
era that came and
went within the
lifetime of the
Routemaster. Red
Arrow single-
deckers linked
Victoria and Oxford
Circus from April
1966 until August- Typical of
the type of buses
used in the 1960s
and 1970s are the
two preserved AEC
Merlins taking part
in this recreation
of the service.
RICHARD GODFREY