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!