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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

I'm not sure whether this has been shared elsewhere on HOL - can't see it in a search but...

We have recently received a note through our front door that the St Ann's Low Traffic Neighbourhood will be implemented on 22 August.

This is a heads-up for anyone living in or driving through the area between West Green Road and St Ann's Road.  There will no longer be a direct route between the two major roads unless you are a bus or have a 'X2' exemption pass. 

Woodlands Park Road, Black Boy Lane, Cornwall Road and Avenue Road will all be closed to through traffic. 

The restriction points will be monitored by CCTV, so no doubt LBH will be issuing lots of PCNs!  Drivers beware!

I attach two documents, one a map of the area showing the traffic cells as they will be after implementation, and the other the supporting document.

Tags for Forum Posts: low traffic neighbourhoods, st anns ltn, traffic

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Yep, people on “boundary roads” were… er, thrown under a bus. A tiny but very vocal minority pressure group in St Ann’s helped influence the council into providing a solution that was looking for a problem —and remember, in the publc consultation only about 750 people positively supported the LTN. For the most part, St Ann’s was a quiet, traffic-free area, with low car ownership, but the prospect of “free” money from the GLA (themselves under pressure from a noisy cycling lobby) helped steer the council into an ill-thought scheme that ignores the needs and concerns of residents or pedestrians on Green Lanes, West Green or St Ann’s roads. Haringey has particular geographical and logistical problems (the railway line and GL as an arterial route) which need joined-up, cross-agency solutions, not just expedient road closures which force more traffic onto already at-capacity — and acknowledgedly dangerous — main roads.

I've always wondered why, if the cycling lobby in London is as powerful and influential as some suggest, it's still so unpleasant to cycle in London with such a lack of infrastructure.

Perhaps the budget has been directed/spent on interventions that don't work - eg, LTNs.

West Green Road was almost at a stand still again this morning. I couldn't get on a bus they weren't stopping, just crawling past completely full then apparently terminating early.

Yes, the 67 was being turned at Green lanes and not going into Wood Green. A month has passed now and the West Green Road fiasco for public transport has not withered away. I am told that Councillor Hakata is saying the LTN is  great success so I wonder what world our councillors live in. Clearly they don't use public transport nor live on the choking boundary roads. As a St Anns resident for 30 years I never considered there to be a traffic problem in the area. There is one now and it seems as permanent as the LTN.

JulieB — My understanding is that GLA money was only available for LTNs — no other solutions or interventions were permitted if the cash was to be handed over. Haringey’s not alone in seizing extra funding — there has been similar controversy in Greenwich, which has also blocked many through routes, but did at least have the grace to reopen some roads when chaos ensued. The over-arching problem is that what’s needed is a London-wide plan that looks at overall traffic circulation and needs, and encompasses TfL, local councils, the DfT and the GLA to find ways of reducing carbon emissions while still shifting millions of people in and out of the city every day. Unfortunately for us, it would require investment in expanded and better-integrated public transport (reintroduction of trams, as once proposed by Ken Livingstone, for instance), electrification schemes for council, utility and service vehicles, and major road planning, which, while Sadiq Khan is Mayor and the government prefers to hand money to bankers, is completely unlikely. Instead, financial crumbs are handed out to the boroughs for piecemeal road closures designed to push problems into neighbouring areas or supposedly support the mythical “evaporation” of traffic (ie telling people “it’s OK not to be able to shop or get to appointments — just don’t bother”).

Surely the various cycle “superhighways”, such as the one on Farringdon Road, show vast infrastructure changes? Boroughs including Camden put in miles of cycle lanes early in the pandemic which now seem set to remain. Some members of the Pedestrians Association claim it has now become a cycling lobby rather than advocating for those on foot, while Haringey’s “cycling and walking” strategy has been criticised on HoL and the council’s response pages for prioritising bike space over pedestrian. Obviously, lots of London roads remain unsuitable for bikes, but, locally, the re-jigging of Wightman Road was predicated on making it more bike-friendly. The fact that many cyclists say it’s now more dangerous looks like a practical failure rather than one of intent.

That's what, maybe a couple of hundred miles out of about 10,000 in London. Camden are so under the thrall of the "cycling lobby" that they tore up the cycle lane on Euston Road.

I think there's a discussion to be had about about prioritising cycling over pedestrians but suggestions that cycling lobbying is more powerful than motor vehicle lobbying is a bit wild.

Andrew, 10,000 in London is right, but the vast majority of roads in London are what I’d describe as safe and very safe cycling streets. Even in central london. Comparing 10,000 against a couple of hundred , in this instance,  is a little misleading.

Yes, it is a bit hyperbolic but it's an illustration that pointing at a couple of schemes and suggesting "vast infrastructure changes" is small fry in the big scheme of things.

Look at this area to the West End for instance (effectively the 29 bus route). Cycle infrastructure is minimal apart from a little bit around Camden Town.

I'm fairly sure that if the "cycling lobby" had so much sway we'd be seeing cycle lanes on Green Lanes before LTNs. It's just one of those ludicrous things that people like to suggest with no evidence.

It was interesting to hear Radio 4's statistical programme, More Or Less, this morning. The Department of Transport now state that between 2010 and 2020 there was no increase at all in traffic on London's minor roads (all non A roads). Previously they had mistakenly said there had been a 60% increase and TfL seem to have taken that as a sign of a problem to be fixed with the LTN schemes. So to fix a non existent problem for half a million quid we now have the rush hours hell on West Green Road and Harringay Road/Colina Road that adds to pollution and severe bus delays that affect the least well off. My experience of the mental health field over the last decades is that people and organisations in the grip of mania (believing something when facts show otherwise) double down when shown their faulty thinking and only change when forced to in some way. So expect more LTN celebratory noise from the Council in the coming weeks.

I have cycled locally for the last 30 years and find that many of the cycle lanes are just expensive greenwash. Wightman Road is too dangerous and Tottenham High Road/Broad Lane schemes are just mad, sometimes on road, sometimes on pavement but simply inconvenient or dangerous. And the bad behaviour of many cyclists just goes unpoliced. On West Green Road two evenings ago I watched a middle aged man cycle down Avenue Road in the dark with no lights and when he met West Green Road he just switched to the pavement so he did not have to stop to join the road. Everyday crime that just seems to be accepted. Perhaps our fear of youth crime would be lessened if the police kept statistics on those who,

cycle on pavements

cycle across pedestrian crossings

cycle through red lights

cycle the wrong way down one way roads

cycle without lights, bells.

I'm sure the list could go on of everyday bad behaviour by cyclists who give cycling a very bad name. Maybe we'd have a different view of criminality in the Borough.......

I always find this stance weird. No-one seems to say that the car drivers who speed, jump red lights, kill people, etc give all car drivers a bad name. Why are cyclists/cycling viewed as a collective but drivers/driving not?

And obviously there's prioritising here. Car drivers kill about 50 people on the pavement a year, cyclists much less than 1. Which is the bigger threat?

I've no issue with cracking down on bad cycling, there are a lot of them out there. There's a lot of bad car drivers too though and any suggestion of cracking down on them is met with howls about the "war on motorists". And ultimately, when you look at the risk, it's the bad car drivers that are killing people. Look at somewhere look Downhills Way for instance where ~ two thirds of drivers are speeding, that's clearly going unpoliced.

I find it weird that anyone could think I support bad behaviour by motor vehicle drivers. They face bans, fines etc etc and have to have insurance but bad cyclists go unpoliced completely and I feel ashamed of them when I am out cycling. Half a million quid could have been better used to introduce some controls over all sorts of anti social and illegal behaviours. Our streets go unpoliced because there is no-one in authority seen on them. Some months back I was cycling in the cycle lane westwards along Philip Lane when another cyclist headed eastwards in my lane, not his on the other side of the road. I have complained to cyclists before about their bad behaviour and gotten some choice language and anger in return so mostly now I grin and bear it as I did then as he seemed to view me as in his privileged way. The point I was trying to make about crime statistics is that they are an artefact based upon what one chooses to record and so as a society we become scared of youths on the pavement but there might be more reason to be afraid of a supposedly upright citizen on his bike. I belong to no bike or other lobby.

This has of course strayed somewhat from the LTN's which continue to punish the less prosperous locally who have to take in the increased boundary road pollution and sit longer on buses trying to get to work or get home. And as I have said before this effect is called environmental racism.

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