Suburban street reimagined without cars

Ever wondered what your town, or your street would look like without any cars?

A digital mock-up of Capthorne Avenue in Harrow shows just how much public space is given over to private cars, and what that space would look like replaced with a suburban park.

The digital rendering of Capthorne Avenue, with trees and grass replacing asphalt, is how some believe some streets could look if we ditched the private car and only used cars when we really needed them.

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The fly-through on the BBC’s website shows planting, benches, play areas, a footpath and people on bicycles and foot enjoying the street, with a driverless car on a track stopping for a crossing pedestrian.

Interestingly, Harrow, in North West London, falls under London Mayor and Conservative leadership hopeful, Boris Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The local newspaper reported last month Transport for London is in “active discussions” with Google in a bid to trial driverless cars on London Streets. So far trials have been limited to Mountain View, California but London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport, Isabel Dedring, said officials from the Mayor’s office had spoken with Google “at least a dozen times” over the past three years about bringing trials to London.

Dedring said: “It's going to have to work in big cities so why don't we start trialling it now?

"Google have said they are focused on the States, but they're starting to think about going elsewhere so we're in active discussions.”

"We met them a few weeks ago to see whether they would do trials here.

"It is still very early days but we would be keen for trials to happen in London whenever Google are ready to move them into other countries."

In January it was announced Harrow would develop a Low Emission Zone, thanks to government funding aimed at encouraging electric cars, offering traffic and parking priority for those using plug-in vehicles.  

You can see the street's transformation, complete with soothing music, on the BBC’s website, here.

What do you think? Should our streets look more like this? What would you do with the space we currently give over to cars?