From circus to calm

Our city can learn a lesson or two from London’s plan to change Oxford Circus, one of its busiest, most polluted junctions, into a car-free zone 

So, London also has its fair share of pollution woes,’ I made amental note of what I had just experienced, as I walked through the busy OxfordCircus. Somewhere in her head, this Bombaywaali felt a tad relieved that the British capital wasn’t all picture-postcard-like, and the ‘pride of the country’ had its grey side. Since I was on foot throughout my hour-long trail of this shopping district, I was able to experience and see first-hand why itwas one of London’s biggest headaches when it came to pollution and congestion. Located at the intersection of Oxford Street and Regent Street, and with thenearby tube station, the bottlenecks and pedestrian numbers made for the congestedsights I had witnessed until then.

According to recent data, it recorded someof the highest traffic flows across London, contributed by several bus routesthat ran through these parts, and yes, a slew of private cars, courtesy asteady flow of tony shoppers. Last week, the Westminster City Council announced that Oxford Circus will be converted into two pedestrian-free piazzas that will be adopted from a winning design sourced from an international competition that will be overseen by the Royal Institute of British Architect (RIBA).  The junction was originally home to a circus in the 1800s that grew into a busyretail precinct. However, today’s post-pandemic world has forced governments and local bodies to relook at urban spaces vis-à-vis the quality of life. Infact, plans were always afloat to de-congest this area, including prior to the 2012 Olympics, but it often ran into roadblocks due to opposing  views  within civic bodies.

Now, everyone seems to be on the same page for this clean andgreen idea, since Oxford Circus will also be one of the stations on London’s new Cross rail link [it opens in 2022] that connects the city with its eastern and western suburbs. As we read through the development plan shared on the City of Westminster’s official website, we began to think of our dear Bombay’s woes when it came to air quality. Could something like this be replicated here? Imagine if we could pull this off on a small scale, in say one of the business districts in the original city like Fort, Nariman Point or Ballard Estate that are already subject to high traffic during peak hours. Even if this were to be adopted on alternate days, it could be a good experiment to study the pattern and impact of such a decision. While the streets and roads of SoBo might aid such plans, as we move northward, and into the suburbs the bigger nightmares emerge. Take Hill Road in Bandra or Dadar’s TT Circle. Both are pollution hotspots for different reasons. Can the car-free model ever work here? The Oxford Circus plan is as close to home as can possibly be. The disruption and added pollution and environmental damage caused by some of our city’s infrastructure projects are side-effects that need urgent addressing as well. While it might be afootnote in this column, its far-reaching impact on an already-battered city will require reams of newsprint to spell out, forget about the solution-finding part. We will leave that to the civic gods and experts to deliberate anddiscuss its feasibility. And, hopefully, put into action such plans at somepoint in the near future.

The impending, bigger issue here is the need to improve Bombay’s urgent, critical need for pollution-free, green open spaces. In a space-starved city like ours, this remains an omnipresent challenge. Post the pandemic, people [we hope] have gradually begun to understand the need to adopt a healthylifestyle, engage in some form of physical activity and practise eco-friendly means of moving around like walking, or bicycling. This makes it even more practical to aid, support and develop such options in our city. Bombay boasts of some of the best brains in architecture and urban planning, and I am sure they will be able to offer inspired plans that can aid our multi-dimensional woes. But we need to start somewhere, and soon. In our quest to meet mega infrastructure project deadlines, the comparatively smaller, but equally important issues that plague the city cannot be pushed under the carpet. In their attempt to right previous wrongs, busy Oxford Circus looks set to get a makeover. One can only hope that our decision-makers don’t leave our polluted neighbourhoods to become circuses of chaos and congestion in their pursuit to reach bigger, sometimes unreasonable goals. 

mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana

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