Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
St Ann's LTN AKA Pedestrian ONLY Nightmare
Just gone through in detail the consultation associated with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. The word Low seems to be a euphemism, no traffic neighbourhood seems to be the order of the day.
I do not understand where the council officers get their data. They state that the majority of residents do not own or use a car. So why is it so difficult to park even if you have a parking permit for the CPZ?
I have a disabled daughter and a wife with ME/Chronic fatigue and there will be no allowances for disabled access in either option. Roads are being shut to traffic, the surrounding area will be grid locked at times impacting the buses. With many of the roads having almost only one way in, how do they get deliveries and the refuse lorries in and around the area. The roads are too narrow for even a 7.5 tonne truck to turn around in. It will be difficult for cars to do three point turns.
I have lived in London since 1979, and in the borough since 1988 and in the St Ann's area since 1997. We have loved it. We raised both our children in the area and our disabled daughter (an adult now) has a support system in place.
We have asked for simple measures to make the roads safer without serious disruption to traffic flow. simple speed and weight limit enforcement would make a huge difference, but the council solution is an LTN which will drive a local garage out of business and make driving around the area almost impossible.
I am not in a minority of one, just come round the area and count the number of parked cars.
If this proposal goes through, I will have to take the early retirement I cannot afford and move away from the city I love.
Tags for Forum Posts: low traffic neighbourhoods, st anns ltn, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sarah on
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I encourage you to read the Equality Impact Assessment included in the consultation documentation https://www.haringey.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-travel/travel/transpo....
It has more detail on the considerations taken into account and the data it draws on.
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Permalink Reply by L Baker on
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I totally sympathise and agree. I am Disabled and have a Blue Badge - driving in London is the only way I can work, and lead as normal a life as I can. I can't manage buses, I can't walk very far, and I live with chronic pain - and there are so many other people like me. And yet many of these posts reveal the ignorance many people have about disabled people - 'empathising with our plight' without showing understanding, solidarity and support won't make any difference. You lot try battling, alone, for 'reasonable adjustments' to be made with a disinterested Council department, their traffic cameras and fines, like I had to when I was working in Walthamstow for a while...
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Permalink Reply by rosie yarrow on
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It IS when you are disabled and can’t spend too long in a car !!!
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Permalink Reply by Martin B on
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Andrew, I am not a "pro-car" person, but take a visit up to the LTN bounded by Bourne Hill and Aldermans Hill near Palmers Grn. This is an area where people are strongly wedded to their cars, and traffic levels certainly HAVENT dropped off. People just spend twice as long in their car and grumble about it more.
I think a big shame is that there werent any bus prioritisation measures put in place, so all the traffic forced on to the main roads slows the busses down as well. Naturally, given the choice between being stuck in traffic in your clean, comfy, covid isolated car, or stuck in the same traffic in a bus, people will chose their car.
I dont know what the solution is, but I think a bit more 'carrot' in tandem with the 'stick' would have helped people move away from car usage. But this is also a generational thing. If little children are getting driven 1.5 miles to primary school in their mums large SUV, they grow up thinking this is the norm. (maybe thats just a winchmore hill thing ;) )
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Palmers Green is obviously a different kind of area to St Ann's. Car ownership there is double what it is in St Ann's and it has more of a suburban feel.
I fully agree about the public transport thing. There are a few bus prioritisation measures such as Black Boy Lane being shut to most through traffic other than buses but it would have been a good opportunity to improve things such as extended hours/two way bus lane on Green Lanes, etc
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It's not a binary choice between car and bus. I don't use either and I still get around just fine!
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The ULEZ also comes in at the end of October. Less cars will be driving through Haringey/coming into central London anyway. And that's great!
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I’ve been in correspondence with Cllr Hakata and, regrettably, he hasn’t offered any specific reasons for creating a St Ann’s LTN, though plenty for a borough-wide aporoach to traffic and pollution. I remain convinced that the St Ann’s LTN is a tokenistic solution in search of a problem: in over 30 years’ residence, I’ve never known such a quiet, traffic-free area, so much so that it’s more often used by driving instructors and pupils practising three-point turns and reversing. Putting in bollards and planters is a cheap way of appearing to do something when the major un-tackled problem in Harringay is Green Lanes and its role as conduit between the North Circular and Seven Sisters Roads.
The council has published no plans for traffic management in GL — such as extra bus lanes, reduced parking or, potentially, limiting vehicle access from the N Circular in the first place. There is no plan for lamp-post or other electric charging-points in St Ann’s, for making the council’s vehicles all-electric and requiring contractors such as Veolia to do the same (UPS already run an all-electric fleet for local deliveries, so this is hardly impossible), while complaints about “through traffic” are very difficult to substantiate when no accurate measure of vehicles’ start and end-points is possible without stopping and asking drivers. The Wightman closure and Crouch End experimental closure (which upset so many Ladder residents who had previously wanted Wightman closed permanently) demonstrated very clearly that road closures simply shunt traffic onto adjacent roads, lengthening journeys, increasing pollution, inconveniencing many and — crucially — seriously impacting buses. Ladder residents have long complained that closure of the Gardens sent displaced traffic onto their roads, so why would yet more side road closures in St Ann’s not have the same impact?
I’m a non-driver who relies on public transport and the occasional taxi; with dodgy knees I walk locally but am not going to start cycling, so buses are a crucial means of transport. The proponents of road closures always ignore the fact that forcing traffic onto already over-crowded main roads doesn’t just make life harder for car drivers, it also undermines attempts to increase bus use by making services slower and far less reliable. Without tackling the major problem of Green Lanes — which would involve real money — the council is proposing to spend the least it can on a piecemeal approach in an area that is already a self-regulating low traffic neighbourhood.
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The comment about public transport is well met.
It is not something I like being forced to do in the pouring rain, but getting from Seven Sisters or Turnpike Lane tube stations in the rush hour can be much quicker walking. I have done both innumerable times and found that my walk has beaten the wait for the bus.
This is not an option that is so easily available for someone with ME (my wife) or someone like my daughter who has to be accompanied everywhere and has chronic knee problems. My daughter finds crowded buses very difficult with her learning difficulties and autism. It is as rare as rocking horse droppings that anyone gives up the disabled priority seats to anyone that is in need.
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complaints about “through traffic” are very difficult to substantiate when no accurate measure of vehicles’ start and end-points is possible without stopping and asking drivers
There was some commentary on this somewhere within the documents. Telematics data from insurance providers had been used to quantify the amount of through traffic. Obviously this doesn't represent all drivers so had been extrapolated. I've no idea how representative a driver with telematics is of the overall driver population.
In terms of traffic getting shunted to adjacent roads, the Wightman closure was actually a good illustration of how this doesn't happen as much as people suggest.
Wightman lost ~ 100,000 cars in a week but, in total, expected through routes like Green Lanes, Crouch End and Black Boy Lane only suffered an additional 50,000 cars. It's obviously still a lot of cars and actions should be taken to mitigate that but half of the traffic has either stopped or gone further afield (the A10 I'd guess took some).
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My point about “through traffic” is that accuracy is very difficult and there’s disagreement about even the meaning of “through”. Insurance records or even ANPR don’t tell you where a vehicle is currently housed or a specific journey is headed, only where the vehicle’s registered; and “through” could be Clarendon Road to Tottenham (or to the recycling centre that’s inaccessible by public transport) just as much as, say, Camberwell to Edmonton.
I’d strongly disagree about the Wightman closure: anyone who lived through it knows that Green Lanes was solidly jammed from Endymion to the Salisbury almost all day, while buses at peak times took twice as long as scheduled to make that journey and were turned back at Finsbury Park (29) or the Salisbury (29 and 141) because they couldn’t meet service requirements. The disruption spread along Tollington Park and into Stroud Green for weeks on end. If half the vehicles displaced from Wightman ended up on three other roads, it’s no surprise GL was gridlocked and couldn’t take the remainder; who had to suffer the other 50,000? And the cavalier attitude of some Ladder residents that just shifting traffic elsewhere solved their problem was severely tested when they subsequently realised the implications of Crouch End closure that would put them on the receiving end of extra vehicles instead of the donating end.
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