Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Woodstock Road mystery (and Florence Road)
Looking at a map recently I noticed that Woodstock Road appears to be a B-road - the (southern end of the) B150.
Here it is on the Ordnance Survey online:
And on Bing
Openstreetmaps has both Woodstock Road and the bottom of Upper Tollington Park both designated as B150:
Google maps doesn't label either of them:
The mystery to me is why Woodstock Road was a B-road in the first place. I found this 1884 map of water board districts which seems to suggest that Woodstock Road (or part of it - and that part leading into Victoria Road rather than Florence Road as at present) existed before Upper Tollington Park was built, but it's not obvious why it would have been a B-road then either (and I think this that was some time before roads were classified anyway):
Tags for Forum Posts: b150, florence road, traffic, upper tollington park, wightman road, woodstock road
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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Haringey Council themselves seem confused - in this 2015 FOI response Florence Road (presumably just the one-way bit of it between Woodstock Road and Upper Tollington Park) is listed as a B-road, but Woodstock Road itself is not on the list:
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Perhaps they had plans to make more of it at one point, they've certainly had plans to make even MOAR of Wightman Rd, but they just didn't finish them. It's traffic calmed, a cycle route and one-way the wrong way now. It's too nice an area to destroy with excessive traffic levels, even our MP lives there.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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...and I guess it does make a nonsense of the B road argument about the need for protecting Wightman for traffic. Whilst there may be other arguments the B road one was clearly deemed meaningless by Haringey at some point, only be taken out and dusted off when needed.
THere's a very disappointing pattern to Haringey's decision making. They have clear polices and they choose to stick to them, not stick to them, dissemble around them as they see fit. The Hampden Road Tower decision was another recent case.
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I think Lammy moved to Stroud Green in 2009? The rat-running protection measures were already in place by then so we can't attribute that to him.
I think former MP Douglas Alexander used to live there too though?
I guess it makes sense for cyclists to be segregated from the ministerial charabancs...
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Permalink Reply by Madeline on
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Woodstock Rd was declassified as a B road some (20+?) years ago when The Woodstock Rd Association was quite active. We were worried about the high volume of traffic using this road which is basically a side road off Stroud Green Rd, A1201, but being marked as a B road was well used especially in the evenings when children would be out and about playing. At that time there was no right turn heading north from SGR into Upper Tollington Park and you can't enter the road from UPT to head south. As such we would get a lot of lorries and arctics attempting to use the road which is quite unsuitable for large vehicles with it's corners and narrowness. There was no CPZ then either and the road could become quite horrendous at times. There is a weight limit but that would often be missed and large vehicles would become stuck on the corners and bends and require some sort of assistance to help them get out of the situation . The proximity of Stroud Green school on the road also posed a problem and it was agreed that for health and safety reasons the road should become a normal residential street and, believe it or not, is a lot quieter now than it was then.
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Thanks for this info Madeleine, mystery almost solved! I seem to remember a lot of double parking back in those pre-CPZ days too - always wondered how the residents resolved this if they blocked each other in?
Still a bit of a puzzle why so many maps still show it as a B-road though, I wonder if the council somehow only half-did the declassification?
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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on
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Road classification in Britain started about 1913 I think (Hugh?) and it was also about the priority attached to a road for maintenance purposes. It still is and given the age of austerity out in the sticks de-classification is being used (and denied) as a way of virtually abandoning a lot of minor roads.
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Wikipedia has the following:
Work on classification began in 1913 by the government's Roads Board to determine the quality and usage of British roads. This work was interrupted by the First World War and did not resume until the Ministry of Transport was formed in 1919, given authority to classify highways, and to allocate funding for road maintenance - authority for which was granted by section 17 (2) of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919. It created a classification system for the important routes connecting large population centres or for through traffic, which were designated as Class I, and roads of lesser importance, which were designated as Class II. The definitive list of these roads was published on 1 April 1923 following consultations with local authorities.Government funding towards the repairs of these roads were set at 60% for the former and 50% for the latter.
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This would explain the massive expenditure on the B138 then, there's almost always something being repaired along this road.
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The B138 has historically actually received very little maintenance funding by virtue of its "B" classification, but ironically it has required a massive amount of repairs as a consequence of carrying far more traffic than it is capable of supporting. See this other current thread for a current example.
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