Oxford Circus pedestrian "scramble"

[Prince George]

Via Tom Vanderbilt's How We Drive blog, here's an interesting video about the recently completed changes to Oxford Circus, one of the busiest intersections in London. The changes that they made here are interesting to see; the obvious one is the diagonal crossings (aka pedestrian scramble), but notice also that they removed railings and barriers on the footpaths, which they describe as "clutter". Presumably the rails had been put there for safety, but they have the effect to diverting people so far out of the path that they want to take that you notice people crossing the intersection on the street itself by going outside the railings.



(worth watching the HD version to get a clearer view of the changes)

[monotonehell]

Prince, since your egress of Adelaide, we have now several scramble like crossings in Adelaide. For example, the intersections of, Pulteney and Rundle, King William and Rundle, King William and Pirie(?) and some other of the inner CBD intersections along the tram route.

I think that generally they are a good thing and would like to see them in other pedestrian busy intersections. I have never understood why turning traffic should conflict with pedestrians.