Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Please comment on GL area traffic study
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/transport/green-lanes-area-transport-study
Takes a bit of time as there's a lot of detail - I've just spent a good hour with the document. It contains many good ideas, many things you might want to comment on, and some glaring omissions (no mention of improving pedestrian safety at the roundabout junction Alroy rd/Endymion road, for example).
I doubt they'll be able to carry out much of it - the document is peppered with caveats that these are just ideas, they all cost a lot of money and do not represent Haringey Council policy... but still, someone has gone to immense trouble to listen to locals and think things through and the least we can do is let them know what we think and would prefer to prioritise.
There's a chance tomorrow evening to go and see the plans and the planners at St Paul's Cavendish Church Hall, Cavendish Road, from 6.30 - 8.30 which I may well do despite already having submitted my comments.
You have until 14th May to comment.
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Thanks Hugh. For me the crucial sentence you've written is 'I would also comment that the solutions seems rather piecemeal rather than area-wide. Whilst knock-on effects of new initiatives are considered, the solutions seem to have been thought through on a sub-area basis rather than on a holistic one'
What I, and probably a number of other people, expected after a study that has been happening for over a year were a number of options that were fleshed out, with the impacts clearly spelled out and the mitigations that could be put in place to lessen or remove them. So if it was for the Wightman filtering option I was hoping that I would also see that in order to make that work on an area wide basis what else was being put in place both inside and outside the study area.
During one of the drop ins before the bridge closure I talked to one of the traffic engineering team about getting warning signage way outside the area to discourage traffic from entering the area if there was a suitable alternative route, for instance signs on the exit roads from the north circular that carry traffic towards Green Lanes.
I was hoping for at least that level of detail in the options, so that for each package what would be put in place more widely to make it work. What we have instead is a shopping list of stuff with so little detail on the big impact ones that it's done nothing to address the genuine concerns people had during the bridge closure and also the worries people have now that some of the actions identified (for instance the one-way Wightman) will end up just making the situation on that road even more miserable than it is now.
So what we have after a year is a list of stuff that still divides the area on the positive and negative benefits to them personally rather than how it could make life better for the area as a whole.
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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Thank you Hugh and Frederick, both your assessments are really helpful, considered and well reasoned.
I agree with Hugh, and Michael, about the disappointing piecemeal and sub-area basis of these options.
All these options still seem to be based on ideas that the community suggested in the first round of engagement, each of us with a bias of what we think will work for our corner of the study area. Yes the consultants have worked them into options, provided some example drawings, done some limited modelling and identified potential negative impacts. But this wasn't what I was expecting from this study, I was expecting planning experts to look at the study area as a whole and provide properly worked up potential solutions with benefits, drawbacks and mitigating measures needed.
I did ask the consultants and council representatives about this at one of the workshops and they both said something like they don't want to do anything that the community doesn't want, this didn't really make much sense to me.
The other thing that I took away from the workshop was the staggering level of cost needed to make changes that seem small, quick and easy to me, nothing is quick or easy and everything is very expensive.
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I think what else strikes me is that the consultants have seemed to squandered a unique opportunity. For most traffic studies I would imagine that theoretical models have to be used. In this one they had a real situation, the closure of the bridge. Why haven't they looked at the experience of that and then worked out what could happen if X or Y was put in place? Also, there is the qualitative information they could have collected by interviewing people about what they were doing and why they were doing it? Sadly the really important stuff, where you dig down to go beyond the numbers, seems to have gone by the wayside. The only people who seem to have really talked to people are those who did so in their own time and without receiving a consultant fee, like Living Wightman.
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Permalink Reply by Antoinette on
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Well the closure of Wightman Road was by far and away the least popular option (62 were against and only 39 in favour of permanent closure) at the first consultation so let's hope they stick to that idea of not imposing anything the community doesn't want. The majority according to them do not want Wightman Road closed.....and yes, John D, I will continue to use the word "closure" and not "filtering"......filtering is (as I think you already know) when motorcycles overtake slow moving traffic, or what happens to my coffee in the morning
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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The chart showed 39 responses supporting Wightman filtering and 25 responses supporting bollards on all the rungs - that is already more than the 62 supposedly against permanent closure. Another 17 were hopeful of finding some other way to limit Wightman to just local traffic. There were 3 in favour of one-way southbound - I think that was the least popular.
I say supposedly as it wasn't a particularly scientific survey - it was easy for the same person to add multiple responses to the interactive map for example - but I'm pretty sure there is massive opposition to the noise, pollution, safety issues and what the consultants call "loss of amenity" caused by ratrunning. The Living Wightman data showed around 80% support for a drastic reduction in traffic - of the options currently on the table, Filtering is the only one that will achieve that. That has always been the case, but even more obvious given the Wood Green plans and other developments.
Filtering and closure are different by the way. If Wightman was closed then residents would not get their bins collected or shopping delivered. Filtering means eliminating the traffic that is undesirable (much like the unwanted gritty bits you filter out of your coffee in the morning in fact).
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I've been a loose leaf for a long time.... Mad hatter n Alice!.
But I'm not adverse to an Italian expresso tho.
I have to say, I'm not really looking forward to being shut out of the ladder.
And "mitigating measures"don't feel very comforting down on the harringay levels.
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Permalink Reply by Frederick Guy on
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Good stuff, Hugh.
In light of the cost considerations you raise, I would switch to 'oppose' on the Hermitage Road junction improvements. The Williamson Road junction is complicated, and needs study: maybe an extension of the yellow box would do the job, so you're right that's worth trying first.
A lot of things like this do simply need to be tried, and at places in your response there is what looks to me like undue faith in traffic modelling (Green Lanes U-turns, extended bus lane hours, Park Road traffic reduction) that I do not think is generally warranted. There are things these models can't do, or can't do well.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Fair comment on the possibility of undue faith, Frederick. I'm nowhere close to being a traffic expert, but I've seen Haringey implement traffic measures in Harringay with little or no apparent attempt to model the effects, or possibly even give them any thought. In view of that experience I'm seeking some reassurance that the possible impacts have been diligently thought through and evaluated.
In addition to this general sense of malaise, I have specific questions about the changes you mention. For example, with regards to the U-turns on Green Lanes, I was wondering how much additional 'turning traffic' it would create up and down the Ladder rung and Gardens roads. No doubt, much of it will also be high speed traffic with people eager to make the fastest direction changes possible.
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"with regards to the U-turns on Green Lanes, I was wondering how much additional 'turning traffic' it would create up and down the Ladder rung and Gardens roads"
I think probably not much. Say there are 30 U-turns an hour at the moment. In a space where there are 6 rungs on one side and 6 gardens on the other. Ban u-turns then could generate an average 5 additional "turning traffic" journeys per hour for each pair of rung or garden roads.
I don't know what the incidence of U-turns is, it may not even be as high as 30/hour. The problem with GL between the Salisbury and the Arena is generally lots of relatively small issues which in isolation may not be noticed, but collectively have a large impact. U-turns, right turns and parking manoeuvres, junctions, crossings and busstops in suboptimal positions. Whenever there a queue starts to on GL it's usually caused by two or three of these issues coinciding e.g. you're at a red light, the light goes green but you can't move forward because the car on the other side of the yellow box is waiting for the van in front to complete a reverse parking manoeuvre. So you're stuck at the lights for two phases. At peak periods this means the queue at the lights never fully clears on green, and starts to grow longer, eventually snarling up the previous junction. Etc., etc.
Since the problem is generally caused by the cumulative effect of several individually minor issues (plus a certain volume of traffic), the solution must be to introduce as many mitigation measures (which individually may appear quite minor) as possible. Ban u-turns, relocate bus stops, review bus lane hours, review parking and loading hours, ensure traffic light phases are optimised for the volumes of traffic in each direction at each junction, extend yellow boxes where needed, etc.
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So I'd support GL U-turn bans as one of many practical mitigation measures for Wightman filtering, but oppose it as a measure on its own - Wightman residents already suffer over 16,000 vehicles per day so sending another 5 per hour up there would just add insult to injury.
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