Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Parking stress on The Ladder and proposals for changes to Wightman Road
In response to Haringey's proposals for Wightman Road a group of local residents have been surveying parking on the Ladder "rung" roads to help make a judgement of the capacity the east/west roads may have to handle the reduced capacity on Wightman if Haringey's proposed scheme goes ahead.
Haringey carried out their own survey into parking stress (the match/mismatch between demand and availability) last year and we surveyed at the end of July this year with the results feeding in to the Ladder Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) response to the Haringey consultation.
As the first resident survey was carried out during the school holidays we decided to carry out a second survey in September as we felt that more residents would be at home, so giving a more realistic picture of what the Ladder looked like when it was at its busiest. This second survey was carried out on 30 September. Both surveys were carried out on a Sunday when the Ladder is busiest with parked vehicles.
For practical reasons (the sun setting!) the second survey was carried out a little earlier than the first so probably doesn't show true full capacity.
I've attached the results in Excel format and as a PDF. Reading across the tables
- Results from the first resident in July 2018
- Results from the second resident survey in September 2018
- The average of the data from the two resident surveys
- London Borough of Haringey survey data from 2017
- Difference in the estimated overall capacity of the Ladder rung roads (average of the resident surveys vs the Haringey survey)
The numbers are suggesting that parking stress was greater in survey 2, which is what was predicted because of the impact of the summer holidays on survey 1.
There are anomalies which you would expect with any on the ground survey, with some roads quieter and others busier when you compare the two resident surveys. To try and smooth out the peaks and troughs I've averaged the data from both surveys to give us a more realistic snapshot of parking stress on Ladder roads.
There are some differences between the potential capacity for each road between surveys 1 and 2. People don't park perfectly, making the most efficient use of available space. All it takes are a couple of cars and a motorbike and a section of road that could reasonably take 10 cars can only take 5. That is, I'm surmising, the difference between our two surveys and Haringey's. We walked the roads and looked at how they are really used. Haringey seemed to have used road measurements and assumed the capacity if everyone parked with a perfect space between each vehicle and then derived the result arithmetically. We all know that reality doesn't match up to that.
The main messages to me are that on Sunday evenings (the busiest time) -
- Overall capacity - Haringey have overestimated this by 237 spaces
- Vacant spaces - Haringey have overestimated this by 270
- Vacant space distribution - Spaces are not evenly distributed. While at the extreme north end of the Ladder this isn't going to pose as much of a problem at the moment, as their are fewer residential properties at the north end of Wightman, elsewhere it will be an issue for displaced Wightman residents. However, with the new 200 odd unit development coming on line at Hampden Road next year this will change. Even though residents in the new development will not be able to get resident parking permits, both they and their visitors will be able to park outside of controlled parking times.
- Vacant space location - the messages coming back from those surveying (with some exceptions) is that vacant spaces are mostly east of Harringay Passage, so located at some distance from Wightman Road residents
All my thanks to the residents who have slogged the streets of Harringay to collect this data.
Michael
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, ladder parking changes, wightman road improvements
- Attachments:
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Survey.pdf, 416 KB -
survey.xlsx, 14 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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"Haringey seemed to have used road measurements and assumed the capacity if everyone parked with a perfect space between each vehicle and then derived the result arithmetically." <- this is exactly how they said they did it when Hugh asked them during the consultation meeting.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Indeed. I thought then then it was a grossly optimistic way to calculate parking capacity - and the residents survey has now shown this to be true. It underlines the point that residents should not sit back and accept what the Council presents to us as fact, no matter how well intentioned the underlying motives might be.
The survey shows that some roads are already at capacity and gives us a bit of a conundrum when considering any changes on Wightman that will shift still more parking on to the Ladder roads.
Suggestions anyone?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I suppose we can start with some real data. Though a bit old now the 2011 census showed low levels of car ownership in Harringay Ward (mid thirty percent). Even if that has grown in the intervening years it still doesn’t account for the number of cars you see on Ladder roads.
When you look at my road (Warham) there are relatively low levels of parking. That may be because it’s of little use to casual visitors arriving from the north as they can’t turn right into Warham. So you could conclude that a lot of the parking stress is from visitor parking. People visiting residents would account for some of that but if that was the case Warham would be just as busy as any other road, so people parking outside of CPZ times in order to use the local shops and restaurants must be a major factor.
That leads to one solution, an extension of CPZ hours to cut down casual parking. That has a downside. Those who wish to visit properties on the Ladder or need to (carers for example) would need visitor parking permits during periods when they can currently park for free. To deal with this perhaps Haringey can look at how this issue is handled in areas with longer CPZ hours, look to discount visitor permits or widen the issuing of free permits for essential carers.
Another push back on extending CPZ hours would be from Harringay traders who would maintain that reducing free parking hours would impact on their profits (despite survey after survey showing that this is not the case).
Not an easy one to solve.
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It may be that some adjustment to the CPZ hours is the only solution, but I don't think the whole problem is people visiting the businesses on Green Lanes.
Some roads are nearly fully parked up at the Wightman end after midnight.To me, this suggests parking unrelated to Green Lanes businesses. If there is a quantity of cars with residents permits that's at odds with the census data, then I'm not quite sure what the explanation could be.
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Look at how much it would cost to park your car around the top of the ladder if you were not allowed to leave it on the street. The pressure here is enormous considering the cost to residents for parking a vehicle in their own street - during CPZ hours. The CPZ hours definitely need extending and I bet you it's impossible to extend them to Sunday, when there's really a problem because those churches have far more power than residents.
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The cost is remarkable. I wonder how many months in a year a typical space is let. From the feedback comments I read on the Hornsey Park Road space, it seemed to be short-term visitors who were the customers.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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It's not impossible. The adjacent Wood Green CPZ operational hours are Monday to Sunday, 8 am to 10 pm.
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Excellent point I’m assuming that the Wood Green hours were introduced in an attempt to dissuade shoppers from parking in the area. As Green Lanes has commercial activity that goes on much later the case for extended hours and days is compelling.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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In Hoxton it's til midnight, although you can park in red route parking bays after 7pm. Go figure!
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Permalink Reply by maggie on
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If I remember right that was the same as the ladder until a few years ago when restrictions were changed to the present level.
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Yup - HoL was born just in time to cover this. The change reduced parking restrictions from Monday – Sunday, 08.00 – 22.00 to a new Monday – Saturday, 08.00 to 18.30.
Seems like there was quite a bit of resistance to the change introduced by the traffic boss Brian Haley.
Apparently, there was an online HoL group set up to help resist the change, but sadly I deleted it years ago. However, this post reproduces some of the content - and this one shares the final result.
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