Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Imagining Possible Futures for Wightman Road
With all the attention on the benefits and disbenefits of the current closure of Wightman Road , we haven’t yet spent much time thinking about what the future of Wightman Road might be. With both the current closure and traffic study, now is the ideal time for us to start that process.
I should perhaps begin by saying that I write in full knowledge of the problems caused by the current closure, including the significant impact on some businesses and longer queues at some ‘pinch points’ especially at ‘rush hour’. I’m also very aware that there is more traffic on some roads such as Hornsey High Street, Green Lanes and Turnpike Lane as well as other roads further afield. Alleviating those problems needs to remain uppermost in our minds.
It seems like the most discussed longer-term solution to Wightman Road’s woes locally is permanent closure. Could limiting access, in the current way be the best solution to the danger, pollution and noise caused by the traffic in the block of residential roads made up of Wightman and the ladder roads?
I was one of those who previously thought this was impractical. But now I’m beginning to question this assumption. I’ve been taken aback by seeing and hearing how significant a difference it’s making to people lives; small children cycling to school, cyclists calling out to each about how lovely it is, Wightman Roaders being able to open their windows for the first time, kids skateboarding, hearing birdsong, walking to the station actually being pleasant.
The dangerous pollution levels along Wightman Rd which breach EU limits presumably have been eliminated, taking significant numbers of people including children out of real danger. As others have said this option could also create a pleasant and safe cycling, jogging and walking route, not just for residents of the immediate area, but for a wider group of people across Haringey and beyond.
The other reason for my change of heart is that as time goes on, the level of negative impact gives cause for hope that it may be possible to find good mitigating solutions for the traffic and pollution dispacement. Does anyone have any ideas about what could be done in the surrounding area to help buses flow or/and avoid traffic queues? Can anything be done about the pollution in Turnpike Lane and Green Lanes? What else would we need to think about?
If permanent closure is not the answer, it will be gut-wrenching just to go back to the old status quo and I think the Council will have a fierce fight on its hands if it wants to do that. So what other possible solutions are there that might both allow for an improved quality of life but allow some traffic flow to other Haringey residents? I’ve read elsewhere on HoL about the idea of road-pricing, or limiting access to HGVs. What could we do to drastically reduce cross London traffic rat-running along Wightman and the Ladder roads, yet still permit some access to more local traffic?
Is permanent closure the only option or is there another way?
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, traffic, wightman bridge closure, wightman road
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Grant .. through traffic hasn't been banned.. It's still possible to drive from one end to the other and out, but due to the snaky layout of the roadway and the reduction of the speed limit from 50km/h (31.7mph) to 20km/h (12.4mph) it isn't any longer viable as a rat-run diversionary route. It's faster to remain on the main roads.
I don't think it's a war against the car, but the car shouldn't always have priority. I understand your cynicism, but it takes a while to change attitudes, but it can be done.
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Permalink Reply by Grant on
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Depends on the local context I suppose but a route like Wightman Rd is an obvious through route, and while it's possible to drive through people will. Wightman already has a fairly 'snaky' layout and low speed limit and that doesn't appear to disincentivise the 20k(?) or so people who drive on it every day, how much more snaky and slow would it have to be to incentivise those people to use alternative routes?
A useful exercise might be to look at how Wightman Road could be defined in the context of Dutch Sustainable Safety principles with regards to road function. Is the 'function' of Wightman Rd a through road, distributor road, or an access road? I don't think it's the first one and it would be interesting to consider how street design could best reflect its function as a residential area.
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The question is to what to what extent Google routing algorithms take account of the real speed of traffic down a road?
They apparently use real-time data from people's phones in order to make their assessments of traffic volume (and presumably speed). Therefore as long as a calmed Wightman was slower than a traffic-jammed Green Lanes, then cars would be sent down Green Lanes. However, if the Wightman calming was ineffective it might have little impact on the actual volume of vehicles on Wightman.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Stephen, I've only been to Berlin once and my (admittedly very limited) impression is that the city has (or at least had) lots of land and the roads were wide compared to many parts of London.
But impressions are beside the point and we need measurements. Perhaps you or someone else on HoL can help me, as I can no longer locate the very useful tools on Google Street View which used to let you easily measure distances either along a single line or a "path" of several points along a winding route.
In this instance, I'm curious about comparing the width of the streets you have photographed and those in London. Or several actually widths. Since the distances vary according to whether we take the limits as the building line. Or reduce that by those front additions you show - with balconies, tables etc. Or simply the width of the roadway - the "carriageway".
Plainly, roads can be deliberately narrowed in different ways to slow traffic. Including with parking spaces. This has happened across large parts of Haringey where three or four lane streets have become one or two lane streets with two de facto carparks (i.e. carparking on both sides of the road.)
A couple of years ago I came across an interesting website by David Yoon called Narrow Streets Los Angeles (NS LA). He photoshopped some of their very wide, car dominated streets to suggest would could be achieved by narrowing the spaces and adding in some of the features you illustrate. David Yoon has moved on to other projects and hasn't posted new stuff on the NS:LA website for a couple of years. But people can check him out here.
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Permalink Reply by Frederick Guy on
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Great link, Alan. His examples are not only from LA.
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Now that was a typical 'Alan' comment and to answer it in full, is to go way off on a tangent. So I'll try and be concise. I'm not really sure why you want the widths of the streets. To prove a point of some kind? I wrote that I wasn't advocating a 1:1 take over of the Berlin ideas. I just wanted to illustrate what could be acheived if the will is there.
Have you ever heard of the 'Hobrecht Plan of 1862'? It was the binding plan by which all Berlin streets built after that date were planned and constructed to. In the plan there were three types of streets (and widths)
1. Ring- u. Ausfallstraßen - The Circular Road as well as Radials
2. Hauptstraßen - Main Roads
3. Nebenstraßen - Side Streets (I think there were/are two categories/widths)
All had their designated widths for carriageways, central reserves and pavement areas, which all have to be adhered to. I've been trying to find the actual widths in books, I know I have them somewhere.. but haven't found them yet. There was a also a standard height for buildings, which was to be no more than 20m.. which was the height of the fire brigades ladders and hoses at the time. This height restriction has also been used in the redeveloping of the re-unified Berlin, apart from designated areas, which means Berlin doesn't suffer from willy-nilly skyscraper building.
Hobrecht's Plan is based around a network of 'Kieze', Neighbourhoods, which all had one or two Plätze or squares. Weekly markets were to be held on these squares and many still are to this day. This area surrounded ancient, as well as the 17th, 18th century suburbs.
The Plan, one of the features of which was the use of wider tree lined streets and squares to substitute for the limited park space. It was also possible to construct narrower side streets within these restricted blocks :
The street illustrated in my comment; Maaßenstraße between Nollendorfplatz and Winterfeldtplatz.
It is this planning structure, as well as the efforts of Bomber Harris and his airmen, that are responsible for the 'wide open spaces' feeling that you experienced on your visit.
Lastly a 1862 map of the Hobrecht Plan from wiki: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Neuester_...
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Thanks, Steve. Fascinating and helpful. I shall store it away for further thought. And maybe for if and when we ever return to Berlin.
You wrote: I'm not really sure why you want the widths of the streets. To prove a point of some kind?"
No. And far duller than your contextual explanation. My reason was simply because I've a similar curiosity to other people about using examples from other places to widen my and perhaps other people's thinking about 'what could we have here?'.
And usually a constraint is that knocking down many existing buildings, people's homes, business premises, historic buildings etc is not feasible. (Unless of course you are a rich football club or a major property developer.)
Which means that the width of a street is usually a 'given'. And so I've been using Google Street View both to take a virtual stroll down streets in other places; and as a quick measuring tool to get a rough idea how far a quart layout elsewhere might go into a pint pot of a particular London street.
Hope that's a bit clearer.
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Well, I'll keep searching for that data.
I'm going OT, but wanted to mention that thanks to digitalisation, all sorts of interesting maps are now available.
Connected with Hobrecht, Berlin street names tend to be categorised and grouped, whether it be Trees, Judges, Historians or Names of Battles. A bit like Harringay's 'Disraeli Quarter' and the 'Garden's Liberals'.
Here's a taster.. but here endeth the OT section.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Not quite in the same league as Berlin but I spent my teen years living on a huge council estate, something like 30,000 residents along with neighbouring estates. It was subdivided alphabetically so all the streets local to me started with B and areas on each side were C and K. My bit was consided so rough that legend had it that you were never invited for a job interview if you had a B street address
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Alan, you might also be interested in this scroll aerial comparison 1928>2015 https://1928.tagesspiegel.de/
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Some may be interested in 'Locating London's Past' but are not aware of this link.
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Permalink Reply by Paulie on
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I have only just seen the map and I apologise for being so late with this point but I'm afraid the map is in my view inaccurate because it suggests that Woodlands Park Road is subject to traffic reduction measures. In fact it is not although there is a gate a pinch point half way along which I is clearly I would suggest intended not to deter drivers (which it doesn't) but to slow them down (which of course it does).
This is I'm afraid an important flaw because it suggests, wrongly, that roads to the immediate west of Woodlands Park Road are protected from what posters on here call "rat running" when in fact they are not. I know as I live there.
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