Place Without Cars
This picture was submitted to a Flickr group I created called Places Without Cars. It is without doubt the picture that I have been most pleased to see in the submissions. Fortunately the user (who goes by the sobriquet “Cheesyfeet” but still requires attribution) has a Creative Commons license on this picture.
He says:
“Bank Junction, right in the middle of the City of London.
This is on my long cycle home and you’ll notice no cars. Bank Junction is buses and cycles only, mon-fri, 7am to 7pm and it’s ace!”
He also uses Strava and provides a link which identifies him and the route he uses. Like me he is an Essex lad!
This picture was taken by Dave A Flett in the 1970’s in roughly the same spot – actually the street to the left in the original picture
(I am just posting a link, not taking a copy of the image)
Of this image the poster, Leonard Bentley, says
An early 1920s scene at the Bank in the City of London, a seemingly bemused elderly lady in a place she should not have been. The Bank junction is still one of the busiest in central London, traffic comes at you from all directions.
By Paul Murray in 2014
By Swire Chin in 2007
From The Telegraph in the 1950s – and how I remember it.
By the way in searching for these images I have learned that the closure is an 18 month experiment. I hope it is made permanent!
Threadneedle Street – in front of the Bank of England – is not labeled on this screencap from Google maps. The top picture was taken from in front of Mansion House looking east.
Stephen Rees's blog 
The other nice thing about London (compared to many major U.S. cities) is its complete lack of urban freeways. Freeway feeder routes stop well before the city center and keep London’s medieval street network intact.
Mark
August 29, 2017 at 7:19 am
There was going to be a motorway network – the M25 was just the outer ring and there would have been more. The Blackwall Tunnel Approach in Tower Hamlets and the Hammersmith Flyover are just remnants of the “box” that was to be built around inner London. It was very strongly opposed by residents. The road network is not just “medieval” routes, but is actually Roman in origin. Most people in Central London during the working day got there by train, and the railway system capacity is still being increased to deal with the rising population. The Congestion Charge was also accompanied by a massive increase in bus service as a well as designated Red Routes – exclusive bus lanes enforced by cameras on the front of buses.
Stephen Rees
August 29, 2017 at 7:42 am