Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Oxford Street to be pedestrianised by 2020 ... so Wightman Rd ...
... can surely be closed to through traffic in the future, as it currently is during the bridge works. If the planners can deal with the re-routing of all those buses and taxi journeys away from Oxford Street for the pedestrianisation plans, it must be possible to do this for Wightman Road as well.
Living Wightman would do well to have a chat with the new Mayor's office.
Tags for Forum Posts: traffic, wightman bridge closure
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
Don, you're not one of the few on HoL from East of Green Lanes. Neither are you one of the few from East of Green Lanes who post. On the traffic topic, I think you'll find at least as many comments speaking our against the closure of Wightman Road as for it.
-
Permalink Reply by Don on
-
Thanks, Hugh; it was Friday evening after a long, hot week and it can sometimes seem on this and the many other Wightman closure threads that the views of those living elsewhere in Harringay don't always register as strongly - though of course it's a big issue for those living on or adjacent to it, which is what this thread's all about. And yes, not all comments are in favour of long-term closure.
I was hoping to (perhaps not lightly enough) suggest that inevitably everyone thinks they're not the problem - it's always "someone else" who causes it. This is human nature, not a criticism of anyone specifically, but it is a factor in the current debate. I wish I had a viable solution to suggest that would help Ladder residents without making things worse elsewhere in the area, but I haven't. Traffic problems are linked in to many other problems: lack of affordable inner-city housing, long commutes, poor and expensive public transport (imagine living anywhere on the Southern rail franchise at present), London's expanding population… They all need long-term solutions but I'm not convinced local tinkering necessarily contributes - hence also my final point about the knock-on effect of the Gardens closure.
-
Permalink Reply by matt on
-
Don, hopefully the consultants will come up with some suggestions that work for the area as a whole. Traffic jams work for no one. Those trams you'd like back were ripped out initially in California in the 50s when car companies bought the tram companies, closed them down and dismantled the networks. The trams were in the way, literally, of expanding their car ownership ambitions.
I had the pleasure of cycling in Beijing in 1990 with 1000s of other local cyclists. There were practically no cars. Now of course they have something like 5 ring roads, traffic gridlock, pollution that causes alerts to stay inside and even local environmental groups. Is that progress? And of course a good slice of each individual's income goes into running and maintaining that car. As you say, there are other ways of getting from A to B.
-
-
Matt - No, of course the Chinese experience isn't a good example and Beijing's pollution is legendarily awful. I'm no die-hard defender of internal combustion engines; give me bikes, electric cars, trams and railways anyday. As I've just said in a response to Hugh, London's problems stem from multiple factors, including lack of affordable inner-city housing, long commutes, poor and expensive public transport and the expanding population. They need an integrated response that persuades people of the greater good, but it's an uphill struggle - look at the anti-tram campaign mounted by Ealing residents when Ken Livingstone proposed a line from Shepherd's Bush - and there are far too many vested interests (your car company example, house-builders, property developers, etc) fighting for their own profits. But, in our area, I don't think a short-term fix for one space will help the overall problem. Maybe the consultants will come up with a holistic solution - we shall see.
-
Permalink Reply by Toni Ramon Gallo on
-
Well well,amazingly ridiculous proposal!if you want more gridlock in surrounding roads,more pollution due to static traffic then carrying on dreaming of this ridiculous idea.seriously selfish.i suppose you think it's ok for surrounding residents to suffer while Wightman road is in splendid isolation.
-
Permalink Reply by JoeW on
-
Why is something that is actually the norm in the surrounding area (and actually most of London), being described as ridiculous? Take a look at this map:
The diagram is from the traffic consultant's interim findings. It describes the roads highlighted in purple as having been made "unattractive to through traffic", while the ones in blue have been made of "no use to through traffic".
The alternate one-way ladder rungs clearly then become almost perfect for through traffic! The result is that the effective traffic volume on Wightman (a 99% residential B road) is actually greater than Turnpike Lane and West Green Road (which are A roads and major orbital routes) and around 75% of Green Lanes (an A road and strategic radial route).
What is ridiculous, is that Wightman is expected to carry this sort of traffic volume. Clearly there need to be area-wide measures to reduce traffic and improve the flow on Green Lanes and Turnpike Lane. But if measures are introduced on Green Lanes and Turnpike Lanes without also making radical changes on the Ladder (such as making the rungs and/or Wightman itself access only), then the traffic volume on Wightman is only likely to increase.
-
-
Not all areas of London choose to close off residential roads like this. In Kensington and Chelsea, with the exception of a couple of garden squares which were built that way, all roads are through roads.
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
Your right but isn't that one of the reasons that some areas of west London are actually unpleasant to be in? The Cromwell Road is a difacto motorway and most of South Ken consists of people's homes surrounded by the constant roar of traffic.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
All roads in K&C are through ways? That's a fascinating piece of information.
And for me at least, counter-intuitive as I've always thought that the better-off everywhere are good at pressing for quieter streets near their homes.
But the K&C website didn't help me. Any suggestions about where to find a map which shows how this works in practice? I assume their are some one-ways and therefore no-entry junctions which discourage rat-running while still enabling through-traffic. Provided of course that people learn to negotiate a 'maze'.
-
-
I had a quick look on google maps and there seem to be hundreds of one-way roads, no through roads, no left- and right-turn junctions in Kensington and Chelsea just like everywhere else in London.
-
-
Worked in that area for a number of years. Yes they utilize the maze concept with a network of one way streets that only the locals get to fathom. Seems to work as it stays fairly quiet off major A roads and they have some nasty ones.
Antoinette gives an excellent example of why the current temporary layout for the ladder area could stay.
-
-
Thanks for that extra information,
I've heard people in Bruce Grove - streets to the west of High Road Tottenham and the station - refer to their one-way system as a 'maze'. It's quite frustrating if you don't know your way through. And it can also take longer than the main routes. But it seems to do the job.
Plainly I'm not speaking for local residents, some of whom may not agree.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
