Wightman Road closes but opens a new road to cyclists to the city

Has anyone noticed just how many cyclists are now using the closed Wightman Road to commute to the city?  I've been watching from my bedroom window (on Wightman Road) for the last few mornings and am staggered by the number of cyclists (and also a fairly large increase in pedestrians). I am sure it's not just my imagination but the amount of cyclists riding along my route into St Pauls seemed to have jumped dramatically over the past two weeks.  Could it be that the most terrifyingly dangerous part of the route has now been removed and there is now great joy to both new and old cyclists in journeying along Wightman Road, through Finsbury Park up to Manor House and then beyond into the city? I am convinced that people who would never have considered cycling because of Wightman have now made the switch and would continue if the road was made safer.

Endymion Road in both directions at 8.15am for the last couple of mornings has been pretty much as clear as it always is, certainly no huge build up of traffic.  Of course I don't know what the current picture is at the northern Turnpike Lane/Hornsey end but I hope it is an improving situation.

I appreciate drivers have been inconvenienced and that some of the businesses on Wightman are suffering.  It says a huge amount about the wonderful community here on the Ladder that there is already talk about how we can help them through this period.

The council took a bold decision to close the road while the bridge works advance but it has given us the unique opportunity to see what a wonderful place Wightman Road could be. It is a narrow, winding, hilly, wholly residential road which was never intended to take the 120,000 vehicles a week it is currently carrying. And before people tell us how it was our choice to live on a busy road and we knew what we were getting let me just say that when we bought our house in 1996 the road was nowhere near as busy and what it has become is neither what we and other residents expected or deserved.  In time traffic will find another way and is a slightly longer journey really such a hardship when there are so many long term benefits.

The benefits of a long term closure are huge (though it may not seem so to drivers using it as a cut through) in terms of a healthier environment for Wightman Road residents and by default Ladder road residents too, a safe cycle way to the city, a much better environment for people to walk, reduction in vehicle traffic – the list goes on.

The Green Lanes Traffic Survey continues – I am confident that it will show that the key to the traffic issues on the Ladder start with Wightman Road, address that and the rest will follow. One thing is for certain – we can't allow things to go back to how they were before!