Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay Traffic: Thoughts, Problems, Solutions
I have been on HoL for many years but I have been stunned recently by how many posts there have been on traffic and traffic related issues in the last 3-6 months. In terms of issues of the day for our community this is clearly huge!
I was just posting on a different thread and it occurred to me that we need to try to draw together some of our collective knowledge and experience in order to try to do more than collectively shout into the internet to vent our spleens.
As you may be aware the council have taken a pretty brave step in recognising the collective mismanament of our roads in the last 20 years. The sustainability of piecemeal closing or alteration of the road traffic network so that traffic is concentrated on an ever diminishing number of roads to the detriment of those communities and the political myopia (indeed active intervention) that has allowed Wightman Road to become a defacto trunk road has been highlighted by the closure over such a long term of the railway bridge on Wightman.
This is the issue the Green Lanes Traffic Study will aim to address. Its first Stakeholder Group meeting is to be help on Thursday 9th June. This is one of the forums through which residents will be able to feedback their views. There are several organisations that will be part of the Steering Group (see the Terms of Reference doc for the membership as of May, this may change). If you care about what is happening, you should feed your views in through the various members that may best represent your area, Gardens, Hermitage, Woodlands Park, Ladder, HoL, Wightman Rd, etc, or your councillor.
In the mean time I wanted try to do three things. I want to draw together people's experiences in order to:
1- Hear the anecdotal thoughts occurring to you.
- I have head people say they are now happier sending their kids from the northern part of the Ladder to South Harringay for swimming lessons
- People have remarked that there is less fly tipping
- It seems the traffic that is moving up and down the Ladder (rung roads and Wightman) is moving in a far more considerate way- its less aggressive
- Traffic on GL and Turnpike is more aggressive, blocking crossings
2- Try to frame the myriad of problems, before and after the closure.
- 120k vehicles a week on Wightman (pre closure)
- Houses being shaken to pieces by HGVs (pre closure)
- Inability of traffic to turn out of Turnpike Lane in the GL leading to congestion (post closure)
- Busses not moving on GL (post closure)
- Increased congestion on GL and the time taken to get from A to B (post closure)
3- Identify solutions and ideas (however nutty)
- Close Wightman completely
- Introducing a pricing mechanisms for vehicle using local roads
- Better traffic management interventions to get folks out of cars in going to their places of worship or taking their kids to school
- Improved or altered road infrastructure to allow traffic to run more freely and not be held at pinch points
- Clear parking out of the bus route on GL
In the ideas one or more of you will throw out will be part of the solution, and while the Stakeholder Group is not a decision making body, at least this is a forum where these ideas can be heard!
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Boliver on
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Agree with all of this.
The rat-running through Hermitage Road is so bad, an ostensibly residential road is turned into a racing track during peak hours. The 20mph signs have done absolutely nothing to slow the traffic speed and it's not a safe road to cycle on.
I have seen so many near misses on the intersection of Eade Road and Seven Sisters Road where the rat run comes out as drivers have to edge out into traffic to stand any chance of pulling out. While we're on the subject, the Amhurst Park / Seven sisters road junction needs a rethink, i've seen three crashes in the last six months.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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A cyclist was killed there last year. Standard article.
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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I haven't driven to Morrisons for a while but how does their system work? - does it allow automatic fines to be sent to owners of cars that park too long, or just provide a parking attendant with the means to verify which cars have overstayed?
Also note that although the Morrisons car park is fairly small, they have about 500 stores across the UK so whoever provides the system probably has significant economies of scale.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Yes, fines are levied automatically. On the economies of scale issue, yes that's precisely my point. Morrisons subcontract to an outfit who already have the economies of scale available to them. Those economies can be made available to us.
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I didn't realise that - it does sound like it would be worth exploring further. Not sure I'd like the idea of so much CCTV. Also the Morrisons solution (something like, send a £50 fine where the carpark exit time is more than 2 hours after the entry time) still seems a bit different economically from what we might want here (e.g. deduct some micropayment from every vehicle entering particular areas).
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Yes, there are all sorts of unknowns and downsides. As I think you wrote somewhere else - choices, choices!
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Permalink Reply by Richard Hulbert on
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...If you sub-contract to an operator...
Using a private contractor doesn't address the cost. At best it simply amortises the capital outlay into a running cost and at worst it ties the council into substandard and costly long term contracts. The dangers of PFI are now well understood.
... The only additional cost would be installing the cameras...
Those contractors will employ (broadly speaking) the correct number of staff to administer their current work and infrastructure. There is no getting away from the fact that any provider would have to scale up both in terms of infrastructure and manpower and that is expensive.
What you seem to be proposing (at least initially) is controlling the traffic in a very localised area, where you live. Are you proposing an additional tax on the people who live in this area - after all they are the only people who will benefit.
I am not sure why anyone else should foot the bill for something they will pay for twice - once via their council tax and again every time they enter the controlled zone.
The problem of 'too much traffic going past my house' is actually the problem of too much traffic full stop. Some problems can only be tackled at scale and this is one of them IMHO.
But take heart my friend because actually car ownership in London is declining.
London has low levels of car ownership when compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. In 2011, as many as 70% per cent of households in London did not own a car, as opposed to 25 per cent of households in the rest of the country. The London Transport Data website reports that in 2011 there were only 0.76 cars per household in the British capital.
As long as we continue to invest in public transport and keep fares low (they are now amongst the highest of all capital cities) we will see a reduction in car journeys. That along with road pricing will be the right combination of carrot and stick as far as I can see.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Interestingly Richard, the Gardens scheme (the costs of maintaining the bollards and providing fobs/passes to those living in the Gardens) is not charged to the people living there but comes out of the councils general fund. Gardens residents don't pay a separate charge or pay for the fobs.
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Yes Richard, my friend (and I'm delighted to read that we're friends), I agree. If you amplify the quotes you use, you'll see that I carefully and intentionally added some very pointed riders:
"It's been suggested to me that the cost wouldn't work on a such a small scale. Whilst that may ultimately prove to be the case, I'm far from convinced. If you sub-contract to an operator, like those who manage the Morrisons car parks, they already have most of the infrastructure and admin in place. The only additional cost would be installing the cameras (and that need only be the same number as the current number of concrete road blocks) along with any ongoing maintenance. Revenue levels from the Hewitt no-right-turn camera suggest that much, if not all, of the implementation cost could quickly be offset by enforcement fines. In the longer term, this may also prove to be sufficient or it may be expedient to introduce some from of road pricing to make it viable. The Gardens barriers could also be replace with a similar system with cost savings made there too."
Also you'll note that I would foresee this being scaled up, rather than it being kept local. Anything done on a small scale in Harringay would inevitably be scaled up:
If successful, the scheme would no doubt be replicated in other areas of the borough and across London and other cities. This would mean that, whilst Ladder residents might benefit as residents in Harringay, there may well be a downside when in the longer term we're penalised as rat runners in other areas. (Apologies to those who dislike the use of the term rat runner).
And finally, let me make it clear, I'm not proposing anything. I'm flying a kite. We're in a situation where many people are shrugging their shoulders, raising their arms with two uplifted palms and uttering "Pfff!! C'est la vie. Nothing can be done". I'm making a suggestion that there may in fact be other possibilities which are worth considering and costing before giving up.
Let me also pick up on your point about car ownership. In Harringay 62% of households who live in the area don't own a car. That's akin to central London levels and markedly lower than other zone 2/3 border areas. The population in the current Harringay traffic study area is 34,000. Let's assume that's between 12 and 15,000 households call it 13,500. Only 39% (rounded up figure) of those households own a car. 33% own only one car, 6 % own more than one. (All data is from the 2011 census). So that's about 6,210 cars owned in the study area.
As I understand it only 35% of Londoners use their car for daily travel to work. On top of that people may use cars to pop to the supermarket or for social reasons, but then not all car owners will be of working age. So those two elements may balance out. Let's assume however there's a net gain from that sum and add another 5%. That would mean that only 40% of those cars are used in any one day. That would lead to the conclusion that only 2,484 car trips in the study area are generated within it. Double that figure for 'there-and-back' and you end up with a final total of 5,000 car journies.
Begin to compare that with the traffic levels being reported from the study elsewhere on HoL and you'll begin to see just how little of Harringay's traffic is generated by those who live here.
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Hi Hugh
Firstly I would like to think of you as a friend and I am sorry if my post came across as patronising in any way it certainly wasn't meant so. I would also like to stress that I do not shrug my shoulders and naysay any proposal or go round willy nilly cutting the strings of any kites :-)
I believe that problems like traffic management are not isolated problems and because of this treating them them topically is likely to fail. I am strongly in favour of road pricing but it can only work on a much larger area and it needs to be part of a solution that addresses the affordability and availability of public transport. Our problem is that we have a city that daily sucks in people who cannot afford to live near us and yet work in our borough and beyond. Hence the mismatch between local car ownership and the traffic survey figures.
I mentioned the reduction of car ownership only to illustrate a London wide trend but infact much the growth of the traffic is actually commercial vehicles. The rise in private hire and an increasing preference for buying online has fuelled this trend.
I don't hold a deep (or indeed any) resentment for the folk in the gardens and their magic bollard, but you can't get away from the fact that people who live on roads the other side of St Anne's don't benefit and yet pay (indirectly via the general fund).
Perhaps we should have a transport evening at the Salisbury?
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Thanks Richard. I'm sure there's a good deal of sense in what you're saying.
I think what I'm doing is seeking solutions that might apply to the current context. A key factor here is the history of localised traffic management interventions, starting with the realignment of the Turnpike/Wightman junction in the Seventies, through the many road closures around the East of Harringay. We've met anything from an extreme-reluctance-to-consider to a complete refusal to even talk about any change to that situation (including raised palms in the air). If that proves to be the case in the face of this traffic study, the only way of tackling the situation is another set of localised traffic management solutions on this side of the high street.
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I feel like the no right turn into Stroud Green Road doesn't help the situation with Endymion Road.
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