Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Harringay transport study - next steps and headline information

In case you didn't get this through your door attached is an update on the transport study.

Main points are

Headline findings
Drop in sessions
Link to the interactive map - below
http://greenlanes.sdg-labs.com

Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, traffic, transport, wightman bridge closure

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Permalink Reply by JoeW on June 22, 2016 at 23:18

I'm much less familiar with the Gardens than the Ladder so don't fully understand their data. For example why there are relatively large differences between similar looking roads like Rosebery and Rutland. Something other than residents must be influencing that. I guess there may be ratrunning motorbikes which can get past the bollards for example? Plus maybe some cars pop up Stanhope in order to come back down Kimberley or vice versa when GL is particularly busy?

One thing that strikes me looking at Andrew's "heat map" is a lot of the Gardens counters were physically placed near the end of the roads. Someone else was commenting on another thread about the volume of cars parked in the Gardens (visiting the restaurants or shops), given the location of the counters a lot of these cars would record two clicks on the Gardens counters.

Whatever the cause, I'm sure that a significant proportion of the 4711 Gardens average is also non-residents - it just isn't plausible that a street with say 200 households and 100 cars, at least half of which are not used anything like daily, could generate that many journeys. Add in a few cab journeys by the non-car owners, plus the milkman, Tescos, Amazon, etc. 300 journeys a day seems very generous - 2100 a week. 2100/9860 =79% so I still think my original 80-90% ratrunging is a defensible estimate.

Incidentally I'm not sure traversing two roads on the one-way system is an issue. I live at the western end of a rung, so if I leave my house and drive up to Wightman I would not pass over my road's traffic counter. If I was heading for Green Lanes I might pass over Pemberton's counter. On my way home I would hit my road's counter but not Pemberton's. So I have made two journeys (leaving home and returning), and there are two clicks on the rung counters (one on my road and one on Pemberton).

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Permalink Reply by Nick on June 22, 2016 at 23:46

I concede your point about the counts due to the one way system, but I think your basis for estimating residential (or legitimate) traffic is based on speculative guesses.

A fairer way is to examine the closed off roads in the survey - which cannot be used for rat runs. I used the Gardens, but if those counts seem influenced by other factors, then look at, for example, Finsbury Park Avenue, or the West part of Eade Road.

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Permalink Reply by JoeW on June 23, 2016 at 22:56

I had a look at Eade Rd - 2353 vehicles per week which is pretty close to my 2100 estimate above. Finsbury Park Avenue is 6,622 but I think the population on that road (and offshoots) is a lot more than the other roads we're comparing (I don't know the road but just had a look on google street view).

Going back to the Gardens, I just noticed this on the interactive map:

If it's true then that would be another reason why the 4711 Gardens average is a significantly inflated indicator of purely residential traffic.

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Permalink Reply by Nick on June 23, 2016 at 23:39

I live on Chesterfield Gardens, which has 6,232 vehicles per week. This is more than or comparable to several of the ladder roads which are supposedly suffering from rat running.

Eade Road (the occupied part) is far shorter than the average ladder road.

Haringey seem to feel that 7,000 vehicles a week is a reasonable figure for a residential road, yet the average Ladder traffic is in the 9,000s, which isn't far off and does not suggest 80-90% rat running.

It's easy enough to spin the figures to suit one's argument but the truth is that other roads in the area are more deserving of attention than the ladder. Salisbury Road, for example, has 33,000 vehicles passing every week - and is a far easier problem to solve -by reconfiguring the St Anns / Green Lanes junction. This would also reduce traffic on Warham Road.

Woodlands Park road has 23,899 vehicles per week, despite the width restriction. Seymour Road's count is 3386.

Haringey will certainly reopen Wightman road once the works are complete. Why go to the trouble of repairing the bridge just so that no traffic can pass over it? What happens to other residential B roads if Wightman is closed - should Endymion road be closed? St Anns road? How many other 'residential' B roads are there?

I support the idea of making rat runs unappealing, but the layout of the ladder makes this difficult, and as I mentioned above, only a few of those roads have a real problem with non-residential traffic. They should be looked at individually.

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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on June 24, 2016 at 0:09

I'd agree that there are bigger priorities than the ladder roads (except maybe Warham), it's more that they're an offshoot of doing something to Wightman.

Salisbury Road is the obvious and Willoughby Rd too

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on June 24, 2016 at 6:22

The problem with dealing with roads individually is displacement. If, say, traffic was prevented from going up Warham to Wightman the chances are that it would simply find another road to go up. The goal of the traffic is not Warham Road but to get on to Wightman and then to Endymion or Turnpike Lane by any route it can
Dealing with the problem of one or two roads is one of the main contributors to the situation we are in at the moment
That's why I think getting comments on the map is so important. All of us understand the nuances of traffic and how it uses out own local area far better than any traffic planner as we live there everyday.

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Permalink Reply by JoeW on June 24, 2016 at 21:27

Nick - Chesterfield's 6,232 is busier than just 2 of the 19 Ladder rungs.

You say that 9,860 "isn't far off a reasonable figure" of 7000 - it is 40% more which I'd say is significant. Also I don't think that 7,000 is "reasonable" - as I said earlier I have a feeling that is some kind of threshold above which measures should be taken.

Or it might be that Haringey are thinking anything less than 7,000 "could handle a few more", in which case if I were you I'd be worried they are thinking about removing the no-through-road-for-non-Gardens-residents bollard system in order to alleviate Green Lanes flow.

I agree the layout of the ladder makes it difficult to make ratrunning unappealing - unless you address it holistically i.e. a one-way system or residents-access-only system across the whole ladder (I have pinned 7 different proposals for this to the interactive map). Anything else just shifts a problem from one rung to another, and does nothing to solve the accumulation of traffic on Wightman (which is busier than the A504 Turnpike Lane).

I also agree there are other individual roads in the area busier than individual rungs on the Ladder, they need solving too, most likely by making them residents-only cul-de-sacs.

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Permalink Reply by JoeW on June 24, 2016 at 22:29

Nick, I looked a bit deeper at the Eade Road figures as the traffic volume looks high if it is just from residents, especially as you say quite a bit of the street is unoccupied.

I could guess that some of the additional volume is Hermitage folk looking for parking when their own road is full, but I don't know the area well enough so that really is speculation.

What is striking is the disproportionately high number of Class 1 vehicles - 22% of Eade's traffic is motorcycles. Compare that to Warham which is less than 2% motorcycles.

I would conclude that at least a fifth of Eade's traffic is therefore not from residents living on that street, but is motorbikes who can get round the gate.

Here are the figures for Eade and Warham and a few other Ladder and Gardens roads for comparison - looks like a lot of Gardens traffic comes from non-residents motorbikes too: