The City of London Corporation has calculated that 90% of on-street journeys that start or finish in the City are made on foot. This is supported by regular traffic surveys, the last of which, in October 2021, found that pedestrians constituted 75% of the traffic on our streets. Walking is the main way that people get around in the Square Mile.

But it's fair to say that people don't always get their share of the space on City streets that they need. We know that there are historic issues with crowding on pavements that we want to address. A big part of our Transport Strategy is therefore focused on giving more space and priority to pedestrians, and on improving the experience of walking and spending time on our streets.

Giving people priority

That means we’re introducing initiatives largely focusing on changing our streets – widening pavements, restricting traffic to give priority to other modes of transport and improving the quality of the public realm. Improving the experience of walking is a big focus for us: not just in order to give people the space they want but also to make sure they feel safe and comfortable spending time on City streets.

One such initiative is the Pedestrian Priority Programme, which supports both our Transport Strategy and Climate Action Strategy. We’re widening pavements and creating what are known as ‘Pedestrian Priority streets’, where the number of motor vehicles using a street is reduced, so that it's easier to cross and people have more priority. We have a number of experimental traffic orders in place at the moment, to see whether it makes sense to make those temporary changes (first delivered as part of our COVID-19 transport response) permanent.

Another transformative scheme is the ‘All Change at Bank’ initiative. The junction at Bank is one of the busiest locations in the City, so a few years ago we restricted the use of that junction during the day to buses and cycles only. Now, we're really looking at bringing forward a transformational scheme that will create much wider pavements, close a few of the arms of the junction to create new public spaces, and significantly improve the experience of spending time in that space – as well making it safer for people on foot.

Engaging with businesses

The various business improvement districts (BIDs) in the City are key partners for the City Corporation. Before the pandemic we introduced Lunchtime Streets, which closes streets to vehicles at what is our third peak time (after the morning and evening rush hours), allowing people to enjoy the streets when they’re getting lunch. But we’re also working with TfL, developers and accessibility groups, and we also have the Active City Network, to engage with businesses to understand what changes they'd like to see on their streets.

When we were developing our Transport Strategy in early 2018, we conducted a City Street Survey, where we asked people a series of questions that helped us understand their experience of using streets, what they'd like to see change and what their priorities for the use of space might be. We hope to re-run that survey imminently to get an understanding of whether the changes made over the last few years have really started to boost people's on street experience.

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