Harringay online

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

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I saw this. It was seriously frightening. The van was reversing at a very unsafe speed in the attempt to get you. I didn't realise that when he took off after you on Cavendish he was going the wrong way: that could have resulted in a horrendous accident. I hope you do report him. I'll be a witness to say how incredibly dangerous his driving was.

Thanks, I've emailed the SNT asking if it's worth reporting now that I have a witness.

A Royal Mail motorcyclist ??

Do these exist ?

Glad you escaped John. I've been threatened with death under similar circumstances.

Threats I can handle, someone trying to run you over at high speed was a bit of a crap start to my day.

IMHO everyone is missing the point.

You can keep Wightman closed and where does the traffic go ? Green Lanes. You can close Green Lanes and where does the traffic go ? Crouch End or Tottenham.

You can introduce a Ladder Congestion Charge. If it's effective where does the traffic go ? See above.

You can install bollards which will be effective ( when they're working ) Well, good luck Endymion and Turnpike Lane.

All these are tinkering with the problem and permanently shutting Wightman is appeasement, which didn't work for Chamberlain and was disastrous for Poland ( Tottenham ) and Czechoslovakia ( Crouch End ) .

The real problem is that there are too many car movements. Even if public transport were free and stopped outside every house, people would still prefer to use their own cars.

The real solution is to find a way of making car ownership throughout London so unattractive that nobody would want to own one. Remove all on-street parking spaces. Ban for life any driver who breaks the speed limit, gets caught in a box junction, speeds through a red light or uses a hand-held mobile phone.

Brutal ? Maybe, but we have to find a way to cut down car journeys other than closing off roads thereby dumping the traffic onto neighbouring areas.

John, car ownership has already been reducing over time. Number of car journeys have reduced over time as more people have switched to public transport. Currently I know plenty of people who have changed their local journey habits since the Wightman closure to walking or bike or bus. So there's your answer; some car journeys change into other modes.

So why is there a problem ?

Congestion on Wightman and Green Lanes has been increasing over time since I moved here in 1998. But my post was about the whole of London, not just Harringay. Take a look at the North Circular, the Blackwall Tunnel, Knightsbridge.

Over the last few decades the working population of London has been priced out of living here. You can see that from the growth in population in what once were small towns and cities that orbit the M25. Unfortunately the growth in these populations wasn't matched by an increase in transport options or even capacity. I was at Moorgate at 8pm this morning and the number of us who disgorged from the sardine tin quaintly known as a train was astonishing. We shuffled along the platform only to meet another herd of poor souls coming from the Northern line. I honestly believe this is where the real increase in traffic is from..all the data shows that car ownership amongst Londoners is decreasing while those needing to travel into the city just keeps on climbing.

I agree Michael.

Key workers can no longer afford to live locally (not just here either)

And I assume the traffic is more than just cars - vans, lorries, skip trucks etc as well as the rise and rise of online shopping as well as 'takeaways'.

Local Zip car type schemes could be increased as well bike hire.

But at the end of the day, you still own a car yourself....what would it take for you to give up yours?  I can say hand on heart that I tried to give up owning my own car, then I was allocated a school place 1.5 miles away.  I still stick to my contention that there are enough journeys that I would simply not undertake at all if I didn't have my own car.  The horseball competitions in a field in the middle of nowhere; the getting home from my friends in Chelmsford at 1am; getting my son and his bike to the velodrome; or my arthritic mother out to a National Trust property on a Sunday afternoon. Why should I be forced to give those things up when I'm not commuting in my car?  The problem isn't the occasional weekend car users like myself.

I will give up my car when I'm forced to - which is the solution I'm putting forward.

I'm not sufficiently altruistic to lead the way.

We can complain about the traffic until we are blue in the face - and then come to realise that WE are the traffic.

Antoinette, I understand where you're coming from as I do you John and yourself FP-r-u-a-dad-yet-R. I'm in the middle of seeing what it's like not having a car since I got rid of it in March. Good in most respects as I'm doing a lot more walking, cycling and the occasional bus use. I don't have to think about a car, its maintenance or taxes which it wonderful. Having no car to pop into may have stopped a few spontaneous trips east or west but nothing significant.

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