Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay (Green lanes Area) Transport Study
A letter just dropped through y door asking for feedback. Here is mine:
"I hope the council considers the permanent closure of Wightman Road. Gradually commuters and long-distance drivers are realising they need to either use alternative main roads, or switch to public transport or cycling. The study shows that residents overwhelmingly do not own a car (61%), and prefer public transport, walking or cycling for their commute (82%)."
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Peter Chalk on
-
Interesting Guardian article by local resident on issues raised by Wightman without naming it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/07/cars-breathe-...
-
Permalink Reply by John D on
-
Did you actually read it ?
" Wightman Road is a sacrifice zone, an abused vein running through protected territory "
-
Permalink Reply by Ben Adam Sohawon on
-
Reducing other community members with cars to simply the rich, or those from "posher" areas (and I have to say: this is only a development of the last five years or so, because I haven't known this area to be any kind of posh until recently), or those with the money to buy a new car, with a few grudging caveats of "with some justification", is not exactly a way to encourage dialogue with said community.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, my parents are an example: where possible, they use public transport, but there are a lot of occasions, because of their age, when they need to use the car. This car is NOT brand-new - it's a 7 year-old Prius. My family are working class, and we moved here when Endymion Road was gradually grinding to a halt from being the red-light district of north London, with drunken greyhound racing punters from Harringay Stadium ducking with hookers into Finsbury Park. Most of the houses on the street were in an absolute state, accommodating low-rate rent tenants, and needing extensive repairs. My parents were able to afford our house because of this state, something that wouldn't have been possible even 20 years ago.
I and my sisters went to the South Harringay nursery and primary schools, regularly making the trip either along Wightman or Green Lanes, and we grew up with a lot of kids in the area. Quite a lot of them still live there; they also are working class, and do not necessarily own brand-new cars: in fact, one of them's father is a plumber and needs his van, whilst the other is now an electrician who needs his also.
Nobody on here is questioning that commuting habits need to be changed, nor that something must be done about traffic planning around these roads. But declaring that everyone, or even the vast majority, of people using cars in this area "must" be the poshos up the road with their latest reg, gas-guzzling Mercs to ferry just themselves a a few hundred metres to the station is not only downright rude, it displays an ignorance of the history and demographic of this area.
You want people to get on board? Try talking to others in the community, rather than just automatically painting with a wide brush those who have valid and serious concerns as inconsiderate richies obdurately imposing barriers on your attempts to achieve suburban idyll. We want the pollution, the congestion and the danger reduced just as much as you do; we're not idiots, we can see the problems. We just know it's never been as simple as is being made out.
-
Permalink Reply by Pat on
-
One of the main themes of the article is that only rich people have cars in London, which is a ludicrous assertion. The statement that most people living on Wightman Road are not car owners is also difficult to believe, but are willing to be proved wrong if the data is there.
-
-
The study shows 38% of households in the Ladder/Wightman Roads own a car and I suspect it's lower on Wightman as it's harder to park and possibly Wightman has more HMOs which I think might mean fewer car owners. But 38% is in the report - 62% do NOT own a car yet have 120,000 of them polluting our roads every week.
-
-
So the majority of car journeys ( 74,400 ) in the area are not by residents but are through traffic ? Thought so.
-
Permalink Reply by JulieB on
-
That doesn't necessarily follow though - residents could be making several trips a day, some will be deliveries to the area, visitors coming to see to residents or people coming to local businesses.
-
-
True. But some residents only use their cars at the weekends.
Ok, it's simplistic
-
Permalink Reply by V&M on
-
Excuse me if I'm massively oversimplifying, but the crux of this seems to be that Wightman Rd has been overloaded and misused as a result of all the other cut throughs being gradually closed off over the years. Now Wightman's shut the air quality is loads nicer, cyclists are happy and kids can have a bit more freedom. Conversely Green Lanes is rammed, anyone who needs/chooses to drive each day finds it torturous and people who live near the jams are breathing in more fumes than air. I live on Wightman and have a car, and on balance I'd happily sit in the traffic to enjoy the cleaner air once home. But I know it's not fair to achieve that at the expense of other people dealing with twice the fumes. It seems like the priority should be working together to apply pressure to improve the situation on Green Lanes and surrounding roads (e.g. Endymion) immediately because people who live there are actually suffering, right now. If something meaningful could be achieved with that, there would be a lot more support for limited re-opening of Wightman Rd (with measures designed to discourage non-local and oversized traffic). Otherwise we're all shouting into the void, cancelling each other out, Wightman re-opens, we all go back to being equally choked and nearly run over and the council gets to skip off into the sunset having done bugger all.
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
Excellent analysis V&M
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
