Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
"LTNs are popular, effective and here to stay"
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/15/ignore-myths-low-traf...
"The myths of freedom for the motorist – painted vividly in advertisements that show Land Rovers cruising through completely empty city centres – must make room for the real-life and realisable freedom of kids to breathe cleaner air in their playgrounds, people to walk and cycle with less risk, and for all of us to get to where we need to go without being stuck in congestion."
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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THANKS for posting this Dan77.
As obvious as it sounds, the root cause of congestion is that there are simply too many cars on the road.
This is the basic truth that some rabid car-owners cannot or will not acknowledge. And, a simple truth that Haringey Council is unwilling to address with sufficient political will.
Likely, out of fear of hysterical anti-LTN zealots who are a tiny noisy minority, themselves a sub-set of the minority of Haringey car-owners. Any roll-out of LTNs has stalled in Haringey and the council has no plans for any more.
The council talks about promoting walking & cycling, but there has been overpromising and under-delivery. Their endless chat, PR and publications lacks credibility and their "strategy" is effectively dead in the water.
In this context it is also worth noting that before the election, Keir Starmer said that his Labour Government would be on the side of drivers. That was doubtless intended to neutralise Conservative claims to be on the side of drivers. That he continued to say this after the election as PM, suggests it was to meet the challenge of the Reform Party (same motivation as the Prime Minister's Island of Strangers speech). It seems that Mr Starmer is ready to say anything that seems expedient at the moment.
Opposing a single LTN may or may not be about a "culture war".
Opposing all LTNs in London is likely to be the real agenda of the Reform and Conservative Parties, and it may indeed be about a culture war.
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Permalink Reply by Amit on
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To be fair to the current council, they spent a huge amount of political capital putting in the St Ann's LTN yet in the recent by-election there were ousted by the Greens. What's their incentive?
More widely it's worth recognising that LTNs essentially just transfer utility from one group (motorists) to others. Irrespective of whether you agree with them or not, it's important to recognise that some people are worse off because of them.
That said, we've been here before. I somehow doubt that many people are clamouring to go back to the days of smoking in restaurants.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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In the context of Haringey, tell this all to Ladder residents and you'll get a resounding guffaw, a shrug or a sigh.
After 20 years of receiving excitable freshly-minted borough traffic supremos at local meetings promising to finally deal with the cut-through traffic on the Ladder; after 20 years of seeing them slink off into the undergrowth when they find the issue too tough; after 20 years of thunks as the Ladder traffic file lands yet again on the too-difficult-to-handle pile, most Ladder residents have an extremely low expectation of a traffic boss who can actually deliver; most Ladder residents don't expect a resolution to the Ladder traffic issue any time soon.
What would the Greens promise?
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Permalink Reply by Dan77 on
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It is dispiriting - and many of us outside the Ladder would support action to reduce the burden of traffic on Ladder roads. Is it time to invite the Greens to a Ladder community meeting, to see what they would, in fact, promise?
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Hugh, I don't speak for the Greens and am not a member of any Party. I recognise the points you make and would make these observations:
- Lack of Leadership
- Intense bureaucratic sclerosis
- A Highways Department hidebound, conservative
- Aging Councillors who only understand a need for more car parking
- There is not a single example of world-class cycling infrastructure anywhere in the Borough.
- The tree planting scheme could be called the pedestrian Pavement Width Reduction Programme;
Following the Declaration of a Climate Crisis by the council six years ago, Transport has probably been the biggest single failure.
With others, I have been invited to yet another council Transport Forum (in September). Haringey's Transport Forums have been going on for years. The talking goes on and on and goes around in circles. Residents' time is wasted with the endless hand-wringing.
On the present trajectory, the rest of this decade may well be filled with more Transport Forums; more Strategies, more press releases, more claims to "Greener" and more Action Plans. But no action.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Fowler
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The Harringay Ladder - Green Lanes, Wightman Road, the Ladder roads - is a traffic problem that cannot be solved in the current state of car ownership, public transport, and society generally. The road pattern was established in an earlier era, before the motor car and increased prosperity allowing greater vehicle ownership. Looking at it geographically, there simply is no solution, short of razing the whole area, widening Green Lanes in the process, and starting over. There are many areas in London and other British cities with problems which are unsolvable in the current state of society. We have to tinker around the edges, and live with it.
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Funny you should mention the establishment of the road pattern of the Ladder. I recently discovered and wrote about just how the basis of the Alroy-Wightman highway was created (see penultimate section, "Reshaping of Lothair Road and the creation of the Harringay Highway"). That was 'pattern establishment' in an earlier era that could not possibly have foreseen the rise of the motor vehicle but was done to suit the profit and convenience of corporates. As I say in the piece I've linked to, the job was finished "... by a gung-ho mid-twentieth century local council as part of a badly botched attempt to make Wood Green a late twentieth century Westfield" when they aligned Wightman and Hornsey Park Roads.This was much more recent episode when the rise of the motor vehicle was already well under way.
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there simply is no solution,
There are simply too many cars in urban area.
There is a simple solution, but in Haringey it is simply politically impossible.
Car ownership in built-up, urban areas could be discouraged by a combination of national and local policy. In the last Budget, the conservative (New Labour) Chancellor missed an opportunity to increase Fuel Duty, while the local council is frozen to inaction by the fear of self-serving protest from the car-owning minority.
Other Boroughs are ahead of Haringey, where policy is dominated by the über-conservative Highways Department. Currently, there is no limit to the number of cars on the roads and "our" council act as though it is powerless to do anything about it.
This needs to change, but progress in Haringey is a long way off.
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Some LTNs are being reversed ...
A relief for women walking alone in dreary winter nights. Please think about that too but it always has to be pointed out again and again. With these empty LTN streets women are not safe in these conditions.
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THIS implies that there is a link between the existence of LTNs and assaults on women.
In possibly the worst such case in recent memory, I'm not aware that an LTN was involved, but a car was involved.
"Dreary winter nights" occur alongside all kinds of carriageways and not just in the vicinity of low traffic neighbourhoods. LTNs can still have cars in them and non-LTN roads can still be empty.
I'm sure you don't just imagine the correlation that you indicate, so please direct us to your data and evidence.
I'd be surprised if there were a causal relationship between LTNs and crime. Many criminals escape by car, rather than on foot or bicycle.
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As part of the reports on the St Ann's and other LTNs (they're on the council website somewhere, no idea where) crime rates were reviewed for an increase and nothing was found. I think there may have been a bit of a decrease (not 100% on that) but not enough for any real correlation.
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Data and evidence huh?...
Well I've been to public meetings where women have said they don't feel comfortable walking up very quiet streets when LTNs are being raised. Sure we can feel that even, say, on Wightman Road that's semi busy outside of the rush hour but it's magnified in LTN quiet streets - especially in winter. Don't you understand.
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