Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
For clean air, reduce traffic
Can't make it to the Haringey council's meetings, today & tomorrow, about air quality. I'm told by the Haringey Cycle Campaign that what the Council has in mind is getting people to switch to electric cars. That would mean no near-term action on air quality - people don't replace their cars in a hurry - and, even if it were successful, the electric cars would still clog our streets, discouraging both bus use and active transit, using an unsustainable level of energy (call me about electric cars when the electricity supply is fully carbon neutral), and polluting air (and oceans) with particulates from tires and brakes.
Meanwhile, Living Wightman - a group founded on enthusiasm born of the closure of Wightman Road to through traffic while a bridge was being replaced - alerts me to a plan by Haringey Council to funnel more traffic through their road. Words about electric cars, action to increase motor traffic, does that sum up our air quality policy?
The plan Living Wightman objects to is in connection with a plan for new development in Wood Green. There is no excuse for this - Wood Green is a major transit hub, and the new development is occasioned by anticipation of Crossrail 2, which will make it an even greater hub. As it stands, the huge number of bus lines serving the area are slowed by excessive private motor traffic. Diverting some of that traffic onto a parallel road for a short while won't solve the problem - it will just generate more traffic, which will all come back to clog bus routes somewhere else. And, of course, it will pollute the air and discourage active transport (cycling and walking). So this is overall disaster.
Since I can't get to these meetings I've written a case for why we should be focusing on an overall reduction in road traffic. That can be found on my blog here.
Tags for Forum Posts: Council, Haringey, air, buses, congestion, cycling, health, pollution, quality, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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The ladder is completely stuffed. Well done us for being so politically active over the years.
By the way, I think electric bicycles are going to be big before electric cars will. I also think that if local residents had been more equivocal in their support of the Wightman closure then we'd all be less likely to be shafted by the council finally realising their desired Wood Green bypass.
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Permalink Reply by PaulG on
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Or, "if local residents had been more equivocal in their support of the Wightman closure then those not on the ladder would be more likely to be shafted by the pushing of those cars onto other residential roads like Green Lanes..."
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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Green Lanes is an A road which is three and a half lanes wide and able to carry significant volumes of traffic. Wightman Road on the other hand is incapable of carrying two lanes of traffic without pavement parking - which reduces the width of pavements below the minimum 2m recommended widths from Manual for Streets. In fact Wightman Road is not suited to heavy volumes of traffic even with pavement parking - it's very hostile to cyclists for example.
During the Wightman closure traffic on Green Lanes only increased by 8% at one point and actually reduced slightly at the Arena end. After the initial disruption, pollution also declined on Green Lanes during the Wightman Closure:
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It's also back to being closed one way half the time for them to repair the gas lines underneath, this time up the northern end.
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I understand the Green Lanes Area Transport Study will start the second round of public engagement in a few weeks - residents will be able to show their support for protecting Wightman and the rung roads from ratrunning.
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