Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Proposed Safety and Accessibility Improvements for Wightman Road and Alroy Road Public Consultation
The changes to Wightman following the Harringay Traffic study have been revived out of the blue.
The main benefits of this should be slightly slowed traffic and less cluttered pavements.
The downsides will be:
- the loss of real pedestriancrossing points - gthe replacement of traffic islands with "informal pedestrian crossings", which many fear will be laregely ignored
- probably significant increase on parking pressure through the loss of parking places on Wightman road with the expectation that additional cars can be accommodated on the Ladder rung roads. This is set against the backdrop of wildly inaccurate parking space usage calculations. For example the Council calculate that my road has an overnight spare parking space capacity of 30%. Ask anyone who ives here and they'll tell you it's more like 0%.
The thread about these particular changes from the start of the year can be read here. (The full set of threads around the traffic study can be accessed by clicking the tag at the bottom of this discussion).
Please answer the consultation and give your views. Once it's done. it'l be too late to change for many years. Full set of documents attached.
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, ladder parking changes, wightman road improvements
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 28ogtudbe7sc1 on
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-I would agree with your point about "informal pedestrian crossings." The only place I have ever seen what I think are akin to these are on Drayton Park Road just east of the A1/ Holloway Road.
That crossing always confuses me as to what I'm supposed to do--do I stop and let someone cross or make them wait? I am always afraid to stop on my bicycle and let someone cross as there are a lot of cyclists there and I always worry one will hit my rear if I stop in an unexpected spot. Meanwhile, people clearly know what is expected at a zebra crossing or flashing stoplights.
-The Council states the there are currently 229 parking/loading spaces on Wightman and Alroy Roads, further stating that 163 of them would be retained. That is a loss of 66 spaces in a span of 22 streets (the Ladder plus those two south of Umfreville Road) which averages out to 3 more cars per each of the 22 streets.
I appreciate 3 cars per road is not exactly how it will work out in practice, but I do think it's reasonable to presume that the vehicles pushed from the loss of these 66 spaces would not all only move to a few streets only on the Ladder.
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I use Drayton Park regularly but can't think what you're referring to. There are a couple of zebra crossings where you definitely should give precedence to pedestrians, and a few central islands where you shouldn't unless someone's in the road already.
My guess is that these things are more of what's at the roundabout where Alroy meets Endymion Road - strips of red paint across the road. I have no idea how they're supposed to be used, and suspect no one else does either.
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-"I use Drayton Park regularly but can't think what you're referring to. "
I'm trying to describe that green coloured strip crossing Drayton Park about 100 yards east of Holloway Road.
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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That's correct Ian the "informal crossings" are "anti-skid" red paint as seen (and largely ignored) on Endymion:
As I understand it the purpose of the red paint is to indicate a place to cross provided there are no cars. Although if there are no cars then it's usually safe to cross anywhere.
I am pleased to see a new zebra crossing proposed at the top of Pemberton:
There also seem to be quite a few more chicanes proposed on these drawings than the last ones I saw in January, which is good news.
I'd like to see the proposed new trees replaced with nice planted areas but in the current climate I think that would depend on local residents being prepared to water them.
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Permalink Reply by Gabriel on
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Agree on parking - on Seymour the Wightman end is generally fine; it's the Green Lanes end which gets full (I suspect from people visiting restaurants), and causes people to have to park further up towards Wightman.
Would it be a solutions to propose extending residents only parking restrictions to reduce pressure all round?
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Permalink Reply by Rich on
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I wonder if changing how parking is done on the ladder roads could actually assist with this. Currently the cars park parallel to the pavement, which makes it easy for space between cars to become wasted, the worst case been just under a car length between two cars. I wonder if changing these to park on a single side diagonal to the pavement would improve the efficiency. If so this would certainly help with the additional cars.
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Not sure that diagonal parking would help. In about 60ft of road you might get 3 cars on either side. If there was just one side parked diagonally that might reduce to 4 or 5:
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I wonder (i'm doing that a lot) how much the angle changes things. From example if you went with say 60 degrees, I think you would be getting around the same of two cars per 20ft of space.
However, if everyone drove small cars, like those Fiat's I see around, you would greatly reduce the curb length needed per car.
Thanks for grabbing some data btw.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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That’s a really good point about extension of the CPZ hours Gabriel and one I shall nick as part of my response to the consultation..
On the whole I’m in favour of what is being proposed but as is normal it’s going to be about thinking about any unintended consequences for individual roads. Those who live on Ladder roads will have the best feel for what might happen to their own street if the plan goes ahead so I urge you to get back to Haringey about any necessary mitigations.
I was also thinking that alternating parking on Wightman (west side and then east side) is in effect creating a series of chicanes as Islington has done on streets around Queens Drive in Finsbury Park. I was wandering around their taking photos of the parking arrangements during the Wightman Road bridge work and spoke to a couple of residents who said it had reduced traffic speeds on their roads so it looks promising.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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What is an " informal pedestrian crossing " ? Do drivers and cyclists HAVE to give way to pedestrians ?
If not, what is the point ?
I think there is an " informal " crossing at the junction of Endymion and Alroy roads which has no signposting, nothing to tell an approaching driver that it is there. The removal of the pedestrian refuges will be lethal, particularly for parents with young children and for the slow-moving elderly.
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Echoing point about informal crossings. These will be useless in rush hour, especially without the islands, and so we'll be down to a single zebra crossing by pemberton and the existing traffic lights.
I am going to strongly suggest retaining islands and adding zebra crossings on my response - be good if others could make the same point.
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"-I am going to strongly suggest retaining islands and adding zebra crossings on my response - be good if others could make the same point."
I will support zebra crossings or lights instead of "informal crossings". But those islands create mortal terror for cyclists as vehicles race to overtake cycles before them then dangerously squeeze in front of the cycles when the vehicles go through the island. WIghtman Road is probably the worst cycling experience in London as it currently is.
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