Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Cycling along Green Lanes
There is growing impatience and frustration about the Council’s lack of action on improving cycling and pedestrian safety on Green Lanes.* This mounting concern was covered in a recent piece in the Ham and High (see link below) about this and the growing discontent from cyclist about the safety of cycling along Green Lanes – either as a commuter, or just travelling to the local shops and services.
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/25393803.cycling-campaigner-wants-pr...
As Trump would say…. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
* and elsewhere across the borough. All the cycle routes from surrounding boroughs stop abruptly at the Haringey border!
Cycling along Green Lanes has been described as 'hairy' (Image: Carla Francome) (Image: Carla Francome)
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Barbara
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"Please also understand that people are cycling to get to places. So routes must be direct. If you’re trying to get to work, school, or the shops, nobody wants to add extra distance every single trip just for the sake of “fitness". Every day transport should be direct, safe, and convenient." Mark Williams.
Of course you are cycling to get to places! I do not assume you are on a cycling holiday!
You and Clive talk about a perfect world but this is an old city with many demands on it...with old infrastructure in poor economic times. It is not possible to have a perfect route for everyone! Every day transport should be direct, safe, and convenient ... You can't satisfy everybody - it's nonsense.
You and Clive are experienced cyclists - so for those poor souls who need London Transport they have my support. The geography on GL isn't easily negotiated at certain times of the day..school journeys, deliveries, working journeys for people who don't cycle...elderly and disabled people needing to "get to places " like you too! It's not just about one citizen I'm afraid and their desires. Unlike Thatcher I say that we all live in society!
The more vocal people are about cycling the more I see them as entitled.
You rarely get the low paid, disabled and elderly writing about anything on Harringay Online. Meanwhile the Council is always trying to alleviate and elevate the position of these residents which we should all support.
I put up with the overload of traffic on GL at school times early morning and mid afternoon because that's what is needed in our borough and ultimately in our country to make society work. Families and kids are our future. They don't necessarily cycle and they may not have the money to have a bike or even keep one with the cycle theft that goes on.
I know the borough having lived here for many years. The Council does a lot for its priorities. The new flats down St Anne's Road will add pressure transport wise to the area.Watch this space in the coming Autumn when most of those flats are sold/occupied. That's when the real problems begin.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Williams
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Several objections are put forward here, and I completely disagree on every single point.
"Old city / poor times”
London's age and complexity are exactly why we need safer, more efficient transport. Cycling is space-efficient and cheap for councils to support, certainly compared to car infra, road widing etc. Old and dense cities, like Paris, have built safe cycling networks in recent years. It's not about perfection, it's about political will.
"You can’t satisfy everyone / cyclists are entitled"
Asking for direct, safe routes isn't "entitlement". It's the same standard given to other modes of transport. No one suggests telling bus users to “zig-zag on side streets” or telling drivers to “just find creative routes.” Why should cyclists be singled out? Building safe cycle lanes helps everyone by reducing overall congestion and pollution, not just “one citizen.”
“What about the elderly, disabled, low paid?”
Firstly, many people from those groups already cycle. Many more would like to if it were made safer. It's plain wrong to assume elderly or disabled people can't or might not want to use a bicycle if they feel safe to do so.Secondly, pitting groups against each other like this is a false choice: improving active travel makes public transport more reliable and frees up road space for those who must drive.
Car ownership is lowest among low-income groups. These people depend more on walking, cycling, and buses. The majority of people in the less affluent east of the borough do not have access to a car.
“Families and kids don’t cycle / can’t afford bikes”
There have been surveys on this. The main reason families don't cycle is fear of traffic, not lack of interest. Where safe routes are built (e.g. Waltham Forest, Mini-Holland), school-run cycling rises dramatically.
A bike is far cheaper than owning and insuring a car. Theft is a problem, but it's a solvable problem. One solution is installing more secure storage. We can push Haringey council to roll out bike hangars and new developments like Peabody St Ann should include secure bike storage (it does, by the way). Several residents on my street have requested bike hangers be installed (we are still waiting on that...)
"We all live in society / cars at school times are necessary”
Nobody is saying families shouldn't get around. But if more parents felt safe letting kids cycle, school-run traffic would reduce. Right now, car dominance forces everyone, including families without cars, to breathe pollution and risk collisions. That's not fair either.
“New flats will add pressure”
Yes, all the more reason to shift trips to space-efficient modes. Packing thousands of new cars onto Green Lanes will gridlock it. If those new residents have safe cycle and bus options, the whole community benefits.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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THE LTNs do feel a lot safer, but from a cyclist's POV, these represent a few isolated islands in a sea of fossil-fuel burners.
It is misleading to characterise these islands as an alternative to to main roads.
If I cycle from Stroud Green to Tottenham, I need to plan the route with care. As far as possible, I do cycle through parks and quiet back roads. It's not about being creative or proactive, nor exercising effort or imagination: its about the necessity of minimising danger. Entitled car-owners don't have to go to this trouble.
Like other risk averse cyclists, I am prepared to dismount and walk my cycle across big busy intersections. Council Highwaymen are likely to be content.
Green Lanes continues as an open running sewer of pollution and congestion.
Haringey Council is unprepared to take any action on this sewer because they are more sensitive to powerful lobbyists than feeling responsibility to wider society or to the public at large.
Haringey's Director of Public Health has been silent or he has been silenced.
However the council are prepared to talk endlessly about a need to deliver and take action.
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Permalink Reply by Charlie
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How do you propose someone in a car would find alternative routes for the jounrey givdn the ltns have narrowed the options down to 1 or 2 routes? As a cyclist you can go any number of ways and google will provide you with lots of options. Once youve found your favoured route then stick to it. I think you should also desist in name cslling as its not really necessary. If you disagree with the council thats one thing but no need to label them as "Highwaymen" whatever that's supposed to imply.
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Not everyone can cycle! You are speaking for the physically able as usual. We need the bus routes too and car drivers are not a homogenous group. How can workmen get to your homes if cars are banned?
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Spot on. There are others apart from commuter cyclists who seem to think the infrastructure should be designed for their benefit. If you want to cycle and it means a little extra zig zagging then embrace the journey and think of the extra fitness you are getting rather than moaning and expecting that all other road users (those who pay for the road incidentally which you are using for free) to accommodate your very specific needs. The commuters as a group actually should be the least represented as they use the road for 2 identical journeys per day probably for less than 1 hr each way. As a general cyclist going about my business in the area I use the roads far more and I'm not complaining.
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Well said! This is the annual London Cycling Campaign announcement for September..a lobby group that is determined to make other residents lives harder. I am a cyclist too but recognise that not all my neighbours are young, fit and healthy. The buses are essential for so many people to get around London. I spoke to a young woman carer yesterday who needs the routes around Green Lanes to cope with her busy day going from one client to another. The job would be impossible without bus routes through Green Lanes. She was badly low paid as it was without extra journeys.
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It is not unreasonable to expect infrastructure to be designed to take into account the safety and needs of cyclists, a growing constituency of road users. Cycling is surely the one form of transport we need to be encouraging, for obvious reasons. Radically cutting down parking on Green Lanes would be a sensible move.
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More people use the bus than cycle. Personally I'd rather more people took the bus than felt the need to drive. If we had better infrastructure for buses so that they weren't jammed up all the time then more people would use them and leave the car at home. This would enable business users ie vans to move around more freely. Cyclists make up only a small percentage of the total but are by far the most vocal and entitled. As usual when the weather is good then the illusion of a cycling heaven appears... come a cold wet mid winters day, when cycle lanes are completely abandoned apart from poor uber eats drivers, then we hear far less from this "interest" group... probably because they are sitting on a nice warm dry bus!
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HARINGEY Council listens more carefully to the borough's car-owning minority than to the non-car-owning majority.
Next-door Boroughs are forging ahead with cycling infra while on present form, Haringey will be among the last handful of local authorities in London to properly accommodate cycling.
The council lag two decades behind Waltham Forest and are lagging possibly three decades behind Paris.
This sorry state of affairs is due to a combination of factors: lack of political support, lobbying by businesses and a leadership focussed on identity politics plus the entrenched opposition from the council's Highwaymen.
DELIVERY: meanwhile, the council is committed to delivering on publications and public relations.
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THE addiction of some car-owners is such that they are not always honest nor able to maintain a sense of perspective.
Disclosure: former car and motorcycle owner; current owner of two bicycles and two legs.
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