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)
Tags for Forum Posts: cycling
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don
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Inevitably, at some point in this kind of thread, somebody mentions Walthamstow, often as the epitome of cycle-friendly urban planning.
But it would be as well to remember that that scheme was part of a huge £27 million project for a "Little Holland", over four LTNs, of which around £1 million was spent directly in central Walthamstow. It included road closures, bus re-routing, pavement-widening, new lamp-posts, cycle stands and street furniture, plus other environmental improvements – in short, a huge, complete and ambitious makeover to pedestrianise a tiny, compact area, made possible only by one-off TfL funding and the existence of Lea Bridge Road (where further millions were also spent on a road rebuild) and two other trunk routes that could take all the displaced traffic.
It may have been a success for a few people in that borough, but it's not replicable in Harringay – and probably now nowhere else in London, given the amount of money it cost. As I said above, limited and manageable improvements to Green Lanes would do a huge amount to reduce congestion and improve public transport, two absolute prerequisites for persuading people out of their cars and making streets much better for pedestrians, bus users – and cyclists. I'm with you on the Council's failure to improve the environment, but it's always going to be cheaper for them to put flower pots and CCTV on side roads to force traffic onto main roads that are already crammed than it is to deal with the major trunk route that bisects our part of the borough.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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WALTHAM Forest is furthest ahead and one of the leaders in London.
But are not all the next door Boroughs ahead?
It would be as well to remember that go-ahead Waltham Forest competed for a one third share of the £100m made available to north London Boroughs by then London Mayor and LTN-advocate Boris Johnson.
On paper, Haringey Council also put in a bid for a one third share.
Their action showed willing. And the show was the point.
However, my understanding is that Haringey's proposal was so poor, so unserious, that it did not have any chance of succeeding. Was it not some form of ski-tow affair up Muswell Hill? Modelled on such a thing in Norway and repeated nowhere else?
Those of cynical mind might suspect that the Highwaymen's joke-bid was intended to fail.
We need a new, fresher breed of Highway engineer.
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Permalink Reply by Pugface
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Perhaps the real Highwayman is the Streetscene/Roads Team. The income from parking fees that the Council realise from Green Lanes (that would be worth an FOI) is probably significant - no doubt there would be stiff internal resistance to the loss of this income - even if some of this parking shifts to the side streets.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Williams
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Yes, funding (lack of) is really the heart of the issue. London and Haringey lag behind because so little is spent on active travel. It's not just local political will. The Waltham Forest model is not unique and it can be repeated, but it needs proper investment, as you say. I think TfL's plan was always to test in three boroughs (Waltham Forest, Enfield, Kingston) and then scale up.
When single road schemes like the Black Cat roundabout (£1.4bn) or Silvertown Tunnel (£2.2bn) get funded, it's clear the money exists if the government makes it a priority. Active travel just isn't very high up on the priority list.
If I remember correctly, even the recent LTNs in Haringey were in part funded by central government, with small pots of money that were made available during COVID.
Sad to see we are faffing around doing consultations to see if we will maybe remove footway parking, if budgets permit. Meanwhile, cities like Paris have been completely transformed with serious investment.
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Paris may have gone full-blast down the cycling route, but it’s a tiny city in comparison with London — around two million people compared with almost ten million here. London’s global scale gives it far larger numbers of visitors, commuters and businesses, in an economy bigger than that of some countries, and transport in a conurbation has to be a question of priorities or the whole place will grind to a halt. London needs street access for commercial vehicles — everything from local builders through utility companies, Veolia, DPD, Ocado and Royal Mail up to artics from Jewson or Tesco and beyond — to make it run at all, so balancing those needs with buses, cycles, taxis and people who still need to use private cars is key. Paris is not only more compact, but has also managed to keep locally self-sufficient neighbourhoods with a far better balance of residential to commercial premises than London, so diverting traffic and closing roads for bike use has less drastic impact.
TfL’s report (mentioned above) that buses are getting slower and slower and more and more unreliable because of congestion implies that existing measures, such as road-narrowing for cycle lanes in central areas and LTNs that also squeeze more traffic onto major roads, aren’t working, because they cause so much congestion that they don’t provide viable incentives to stop car use and just make it far harder for people to travel for work or leisure. Cycling in a city this big simply isn’t a universal panacea and investment has to take that into account.
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Great points. The whole borough is in desperate need and is long overdue the delivery of strategic cycling routes. It's so strange to accuse those who move around by bike as being 'entitled'. It's a prejudice that gets repeated over and over. To move around a city on a bike is clean, cheap, empowering, healthy - it's good for the economy - it's a good thing to do and should be applauded not despised or vilified. It's a humble not an entitled thing to do. The actual real harm on the road comes from motorised vehicles - we know that. So calling people 'entitled' is gaslighting people who are merely asking for fair positive and doable interventions (commonplace in the rest of Europe). They are merely asking for the council to put human safety above parking spots directly outside shops (with so many side roads providing parking space). Is it entitled to not want to die or have a broken bone or lose a limb? It's why so many here are asking what is the root cause of the inertia in Haringey. Don't we want to be the greenest borough? 'Supporting greener choices' is Call to Action no 6 I do believe. And reducing road deaths and injuries (towards zero) is a GLA requirement of all councils.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson
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The problem of Green Lanes is perfectly illustrated by the photograph used in the original post. A perfectly good cycle/bus lane, rather than allowing a faster bus journey and safer cycle ride, is being used as a car park.
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I'm in agreement with you and others on this feed.
Removing all the parking 24/7 along Green Lanes between the Arena and Ducketts Common would allow for free moving combined bus/cycle/taxi lanes north and south to encourage active and public transport use.
It may also discourage people from outside the area from driving to Green Lanes, adding to congestion, and encourage them to catch public transport instead.
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"It may also discourage people from outside the area from driving to Green Lanes, adding to congestion, and encourage them to catch public transport instead. "
Green Lanes like Seven Sisters Road like Turnpike Lane like any A road is major transport highway for business, school children, workers,carers,mother's with push chairs, shoppers and work people mending and building stuff in the Ladder and Garden roads including St Anne's. You can't take your tools of the trade on public transport unless you are only carrying a small tool box! What about materials? Deliveries... Arranging transport for the elderly who can't get on a bus safely..and the disabled.... Not everyone can ride a bike or even those that could just don't want to! Not everyone can do the Norman Tebbit calling .."On your bike"!!! It's ridiculous to promote this as the only way forward.
The whole point about Green Lanes is that it's a shopping centre...it's a restaurant area...a very successful one too...it's always going to attract drivers given the parking regs there. The business lobby is all powerful. However it's also a major TFL artery for inner London housing and services so there will always be a need for through travel ways.
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Perhaps you misunderstood but I'm not advocating removing the non-bus lane traffic lanes. There would still be the north and south bound lanes for normal traffic, as there is now, so all those people you mention can still use the road just as they do now.
It is a major north-south artery and always will be, but this section is one of the most congested points.
There could also be out-of-peak time loading bays for shops, but some have access from the rear and this should probably be used instead for deliveries where possible. There is also "shoppers parking" in the adjoining Ladder and Garden roads. For work people, there's the visitor permits from the residents they are working for...
I'm not saying this is a solution, but a suggestion and my support for betterment for all.
As a mother with a school kids that walk up Green Lanes every day, and a shopper, a worker, a cyclist and a bus user, I would love Green Lanes to be less congested and polluted than it is as I travel up and down it. As a prior car driver I would do my best to avoid it as it was always too congested. So I'd say in it's current state, I don't think it works in a great way for anyone.
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Agree. However traders believe the current state works for them. And within the council Majority Group, their views have always overruled any other consideration. Local Authority Transport policy & practice sits deep in the pocket of local businesses.
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