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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Stop the rat running on the Ladder

Please click to sign my online petition asking the council to traffic-manage better on the Ladder roads, which are heavily used as cut-throughs so drivers can avoid the main routes.

Following the nasty accident that happened on Sunday on Beresford Road, the council should review the road use urgently. The more of us who sign, the more notice the council will take so please get involved.

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FoHP has a traffic group too doesn't it Alison.

Please don't get discouraged by HoL Libby, you could come here with a solution for world peace and some HoLers would criticise. Someone new like you has as good a chance or perhaps a better one of actually getting something to happen about the Ladder traffic so keep it up and i'll gladly help if you need any.

Please don't be discouraged Libby.

You may remember that the LibDem manifesto for two successive Council elections promised a holistic traffic survey to avoid the piecemeal tinkering we suffer from.

Unfortunately, not enough people voted for them.

TBF John, I think many people realise, from bitter experience, that electing Libdems does not mean they will keep their promises.....

Stephen, a very good piece of advice given to me when I was first elected in 2006 by a great friend (and fellow Cllr in Alexandra ward) was, listen to residents, ask them what they want to see as an outcome but never ever promise something you can't deliver. I never strayed from that advice. The promise for the holistic traffic survey was costed, made in good faith and deliverable. It's regretable we ultimately weren't in a position to deliver something so important to local residents.

The Lib Dem manifesto also promised free car parking ...

I'm not sure of the point of this, Andrew.  Going over last year's who-said-what mini-battles.  Aren't there some far more pressing and urgent tasks - along the lines which Zoe Williams suggests?

If we're only discussing the most "pressing and urgent tasks" then surely that applies to this whole thread (and the vast majority of others on this forum).

I wasn't the one who initially brought up the lib dems' manifesto but, as someone else did, it seemed reasonable to add some balance to the comment; they may well have committed to a traffic survey but, irrespective of the results, they'd also committed to free car parking.

I don't remember that Andrew. Can you quote verbatim ?

John D:  Andrew may be referring to the proposal by Lynne Featherstone - then MP for Hornsey Wood Green.  In January 2013 Lynne advocated 30 minutes free parking.  Other LibDems agreed. Or at least some of them were photographed holding up placards supporting this "policy".

To me this seemed to be a soundbite solution to complex problems. One of which - the domination of city streets by cars and other vehicles - we are discussing in this thread. Another, of course, is the future of High Streets, as retail trading is reshaped by malls and megastores and internet shopping.

At the time Haringey Greens had a more nuanced analysis. Haringey Labour - I was a Labour councillor at the time - didn't have any analysis. But just carried on trying to make as much profit as possible from parking charges.

Andrew: I'm not saying that Karen Alexander shouldn't be challenged. Nor that we shouldn't learn from the past. On the contrary. But who-said-what-in-January-2013 seems irrelevant unless we actually learn something from it which helps us to shape and influence current events.

This is not Party point-scoring, by the way. Haringey KoberTories are equally wedded to empty orchestrated soundbites.

Among the things I've learned on HoL are other people's views, and about their personal experiences. Including from those who strongly challenge my own opinions with evidence and reasoned argument.

Among the latter was a HoL member who wrote about the Danish architect Jan Gehl.  He is another writer and - crucially - a practitioner who shows how we might reclaim cities for people. The fact that I'd never heard of him till then tells you about the depth of my personal ignorance. But also about the apparent barrenness of ideas and knowledge on our local party political scene.

(By the way, people who haven't come across Jan Gehl him don't need to start by forking out thirty quid for one of his books. His talks are online.)

Report today says that all the pay and display machines in the car parks in Cardigan were crowbarred open in a single night and the local council couldn't find the money to repair them.  The enforced free parking has led to an unprecedented boom for the town's small shops with takings rising by up to 50%. The Chairman of Cardigan traders describes how customers who used to drive to out-of town supermarkets ( the Arena ) are now flocking back to the town centre and now find they prefer the far better quality on offer in small independent establishments.

Win win ?

Libby, thank you for all your efforts on this. The more residents who care passionately about doing something about this the more likely we are to be successful. There is a committee set up to address this very issue which is a subgroup of the Ladder Community Safety Partnership (LCSP).

As John D rightly pointed out, the Libdem councillors, myself and David Schmitz (until 2014) promised an holistic survey and did a huge amount of work campaigning to address the traffic issues including getting the 20mph limit on Wightman Road and campaigning for a pedestrian crossing at Endymion/Alroy Road (which unfortunately has still not happened). Had the Libdems taken control of Haringey Council last year this holistic traffic survey would have taken place immediately as we had costed it and made it a manifesto commitment. A survey of this kind is the only way to pick apart the problems and come up with viable workable solutions.

The newly formed group are liaising with the cabinet member at the council but it is a slow process and we need more and more residents to continue to apply pressure on the council to get things done. I continue to be active on this but obvious for now as a resident.

Don't let anyone's negativity put you off :)

Hi Libby, welcome to HOL. I see you have stumbled into the hot button topic of the area- traffic. 

I have much sympathy for your efforts, but feel without London wide change in policy I can't see anything done locally making much difference apart from moving the problem to our neighbour's doorstep rather than our own - or possibly making things worse. 

Here's why I think this -In january 2001- the ladder roads were 2 way and traffic was routinely backed up all the way down my road at peak times every morning and afternoon.

Then, there was a local residents initiative supporting the proposal to make the ladder roads one way(which I didn't agree with incidently as I was worried about cars being faster having a young toddler at the time). I went to a residents' meeting about it and found the majority very concerned about damage to cars caused by people trying to pass on narrow roads, and road rage incidents. Residents appeared to feel that the one way proposal was the best idea and that certainly seemed the majority view at the time.

(we got a shock later when they made the roads one way but then took *ages* putting in the speed bumps. If you think the rat running is fast now...)

When I looked into the one way traffic plan further I found the reason given behind the implementation was actually part of a wider London plan to 'get traffic moving' . The idea was that if cars don't have obstacles like passing on narrow roads, they move more quickly through an area and less traffic gets backed up in areas either side of us. We are a traffic pinch point due to the long stretch of railway with no crossing points. 

Also mentioned in the proposal was the intention to reduce the number of turning points off wightman road, allowing the traffic there to 'move more freely' (ie: quickly). What quickly followed after the initial phase was then the change to Wightman car parking to move cars up onto the pavement, further facilitating faster traffic.

So- finally, I don't know if we residents have a clear idea of what we want. Traffic moving freely is going to go as fast as it can get away with. Or- implement measures to slow it down and go back to traffic backed up down our roads so we can't get in or out (my neighbour is disabled so that's a major issue for him) and the noise and exhaust fumes from the traffic jams...

In my street there are a reasonable proportion of residents who actively rely upon car based services. Within a 10house vicinity of my front door are 3 disabled people, 2 of whom are picked up by accessibility transport regularly. While it would be lovely to reduce car use that is not a reality - car use *is* here to stay for a while at least.  

tricky. 

BTW Ant, who posted earlier- has done a lot of work looking at traffic volume and can give you facts about traffic counts etc. 

Having been all doomy about it though  - i must say, just because it's difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't keep talking about it so thanks for raising it again..

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