# The immediate returns of a car-free Oxford Street

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2026-11-08

london, public space, urbanism, car-free street, oxford street, pedestrian-only street, pedestrianization, retail street

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/31bd15f82bc08cb8caa04ee316c19d6a33ee72d445998a289b05301e24857f1e.jpg)

It’s only been about two weeks since London [pedestrianized Oxford Street](https://brandondonnelly.com/london-pedestrianized-oxford-street/). While it’s certainly possible that more people are visiting the street purely because of its novelty, the [initial reports](https://www.ft.com/content/d3d05f60-951d-4135-9342-c62c9f1f5839?syn-25a6b1a6=1) are positive.

In the first six days after it was pedestrianized, the broader West End area saw a 13% increase in transactions on Barclays debit and credit cards.

What’s more, separate figures published by payments company Adyen show that in-store transactions across 40 different businesses on Oxford Street increased by 19% both week-over-week and year-over-year.

While the datasets remain limited, all of this is promising and, in my view, expected. Oxford Street is coming off a [difficult decade](https://www.ft.com/content/d3d05f60-951d-4135-9342-c62c9f1f5839?syn-25a6b1a6=1), during which vacancies rose to 13.7% in 2022 and average retail rents declined from £1,100 per square foot in 2016 to £600 during the pandemic.

London is aiming, as it should, to compete with Fifth Avenue and the Champs-Élysées with this £150 million investment. This is an effective way to do that.

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_Photo by_ [_Bryan Brittos_](https://unsplash.com/@bryanbrittos?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) _on_ [_Unsplash_](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-red-double-decker-bus-driving-down-a-street-DCaSFHMGRuw?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/the-immediate-returns-of-a-car-free-oxford-street)*