Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay Ladder traffic 'project' timelines
Last Thursday, there was a video meeting between Mike Hakata, Haringey's traffic boss, and local people. Sadly, I was on a flight back from a short break and was unable to attend. I've asked for the slides they used and will share those when I get them. In the meantime, Jim Leedham of Harringay Ladder Healthy Streets (HLHS), has sent out a copy of the timeline slide. I share that below. If anyone else attended the virtual meeting and can offer some comment, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how it went.
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Tags for Forum Posts: hlhs, low traffic neighbourhoods, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Harringay Ladder Healthy Streets on
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Hi hugh - yes. Generally a lot of this seems to come down to cost (cameras are pretty expensive) but benefits are they can avoid potential issues with emergency services getting blocked, and have also been enabled for blue badge holders in some LTNs.
Definitely a discussion we'll have with the council if/when the consultation moves forward!
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Could you say more about the ongoing costs. How much? What gives rise to them? (Do you have experience of this, either as a user or administrator of such a system?)
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Permalink Reply by andy h on
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Most of Hackneys new LTNs seem to rely on cameras. I've been wondering whether the revenue raised has covered the costs of running them.
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They seem to me to be the way to go. There's simply no need to block the streets with physical measures.
If the revenue raised by recent traffic schemes locally is anything to go by, the fines revenue earned in the first year would pay for installing and administering the cameras for many times their lifespan.
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Only from comments made at the various consultations.
A camera system obviously needs to be maintained, systems kept updated, if there are exemptions then that database needs to be collated and kept up to date, costs of sending out fines, dealing with appeals, etc.
I guess some of it will be offset by fines but I don't know where the balance falls.
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I do hope this plan, which involves blocking Wightman Road (again), allows for the hugely-increased traffic wanting access through the Ladder that will result from the closure of all side roads on the eastern side of Green Lanes by the LTN barricade from Hermitage to Wood Green (cf constant complaints about the knock-on effect on the Ladder of the Gardens closure 20 years ago) and the failure to do anything about GL traffic itself.
No, traffic doesn’t “evaporate” when you put in flowerpots, barriers and ANPR cameras that are more designed to raise money than control traffic flow — it goes somewhere else. Boundary roads — especially West Green and “destination road” GL — are already many, many times more dangerous than side roads in St Ann’s and no plan yet publicised shows any willingness or ability to tackle them or cope with the extra traffic that will be displaced there by LTN road closures.
We know what happens when Wightman is closed and it’s a nightmare for everyone else in the area. If the Ladder is also closed as this map suggests, then one might as well forget ever trying to take a bus up or down GL, as nothing will be moving at all.
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There certainly does need to be some mitigation for Green Lanes. There has been a vagueness about what is going to be done with boundary roads and I expect part of the reason is that they just don't know what the traffic is going to do.
I think expecting these to be fully formed plans covering every contingency is a bit optimistic. For the first eighteen months they are going to be a work in progress with updates to reflect what is happening on the ground.
As an example, the last time Wightman was shut the traffic on Wightman obviously dropped by about 90%. The traffic on Green Lanes only increased by about 10% though.
Saying that, I'd certainly hope there will be some thought going into the buses flowing smoothly up and down there.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Traffic evaporation definitely does exist. There have been multiple studies. Nice article with links to studies here.
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John — This article, like so many, relies heavily on the Waltham Forest LTN for its major conclusions. My understanding is that the specific geography of that area and the availability of boundary roads all around it that could take the extra traffic made it successful for those within the LTN. But Harringay’s geography is completely different, with GL as the one major conduit, hemmed in by the railway and giving access to the only two railway crossing routes, and acting as a major trunk road from north to south. Traffic is relentlessly funnelled into a road that is already at or over capacity, and it’s this that causes the problem — “through traffic” is simply trying to get through and while GL is unreformed it means vehicles look to use side roads.
Even Mike Hakata accepts that boundary road traffic increases in some circumstances (he gave the example of a 16% increase in Islington after Clerkenwell was closed off) and for an example of “evaporation” look no further than Enfield’s Bowes LTN: their traffic has just ended up on the other side of the borough boundary in Haringey instead — “evaporation” in one place equals major congestion in another. I don’t live on the Ladder, but on HoL Ladder residents still complain about the continuing problems caused to them by the Gardens closure — and that was twenty years ago!
Until and unless GL (and maybe West Green) is sorted out, piecemeal road closures aren’t going to solve the problem.
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