‘You can walk in the road!’: Inside Oxford Street’s first day without traffic

The pedestrianisation of Oxford Street felt like the dream that could never come true, but this morning the first phase of the mayor s transformation project began. Anna Moloney rushed to Selfridges to soak up the first day atmosphere It’s only day one of Oxford Street’s pedestrianisation, but its place as a pivotal moment in the history of the street is already being memorialised. In the middle of the newly cordoned-off stretch, I stop to read a series of museum exhibit-style boards, narrating the history of the road from the Romans to today: “Long before Oxford Street became London’s busiest shopping street, and ahead of its transformation into a traffic-free space,” the chronicle begins – harking back, then, to all of yesterday. It’s a confident launch for the long-mooted and highly contested project (possibly rushed through to give Sadiq Khan his legacy project), but if the mood of shoppers on the street is anything to go by, it’s already going down as a success. A cele