Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Green Lanes Transport Study - Final Report
The Green Lanes Area Transport Study has taken two years, and cost about £200,000, to complete, and was intended to address the longstanding problem of excessive traffic in the area, and consequent issues of safety, pollution and (in the consultant's jargon) "loss of amenity" to residents. The final report was published today without much fanfare.
The above photo from the cover of the report shows motorists, cyclists and buggy-pushing pedestrians apparently co-existing in harmony at the tree-lined junction of Burgoyne Road with Green Lanes, with Stanhope Gardens (one of the side streets on the eastern side of Green Lanes which enjoys protection from rat-running) receding quietly into the distance. I assume the subliminal message here is that everything is already hunky-dory, there is little room for improvement and all we can do is tinker around the edges?
I've attached a copy of the report to this post or you can download it and various other documents from the Council's webpage at http://www.haringey.gov.uk/transport/green-lanes-area-transport-study.
I actually think £200K would be good value if the report recommended measures which would significantly improve the quality of life of local residents - measures to reduce traffic and pollution, measures to make walking more attractive, or make cycling safer so that more people would choose those "active transport modes" and have healthier lives. Unfortunately I can't see many measures that will make much difference.
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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Thanks Michael
Your analysis and observations are really helpful and I will be following this up. I have already asked about the air pollution problem and the relationship to Turnpike Lane and Green Lanes and would expect that is an issue which is much more central in the programme. I have also spoken to the officers about traffic speeds and the need for more robust proposals to deal with this. I didn't get any disagreement on that so I hope we can retain community involvement in more focused discussion with them on these plans.
All the best
Zena
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, Harringay Ward
Zena
C
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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on
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The report had a good illustration on just how bad the pollution is along any vaguely busy road. It's amazing how they've just ignored that and are happy to continue on as before.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Where on earth does that Woollaston Rd pollution come from? Is it a wind thing? It seems that the prevailing westerlies in London are blowing all the particulate pollution away from the ladder, so from Wightman Rd and onto Green Lanes.
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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The pollution map is from 2013 and based on a model of traffic and other data possibly much earlier than that. The current road layout of Woollaston means it's protected from rat-running but perhaps that wasn't the case when the model was created?
There are some other anomalies on the map, like (I think) Frobisher is shaded yellow (=illegal pollution level) along the whole length - it certainly has excessive flow for a residential side-street but so do other rungs and it's not the highest.
Be interesting to know when the map will be next updated, and if the authors are aware of the huge amount of data collected during the recent local surveys so they can finesse the model to reflect current reality.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Chalk on
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Could the Woollaston Road pollution be due to the frequent diesel trains passing a few yards away? Or the very busy car garage nearby?
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I wondered but it’s not on Atterbury...
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The methodology for producing that pollution chart is described on https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/london-atmospheric-emissions-inv.... At some length. It seems a phenomenal amount of data is used, of various sources and types of pollutant, but ultimately it's a model. There is a lot of traffic data used but mainly just from major roads, and the most recent is from 2013 with some much older than that. For minor roads it's averaged out - the total miles driven by each vehicle type apportioned into each square kilometre. I have a feeling Frobisher road may have been one that is based on a count, but none of the other rungs. I wouldn't conclude anything at all from Atterbury appearing to be slightly less polluted than Woollaston, it may even be that it's too small a road to be included in the model.
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Traffic humps DO work sadly. Look at the top of Frobisher where there are two mysteriously missing and your eyes will water at the speeds MOST people do down there until the first hump before the ones at the passage.
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Hi Michael
Traffic volumes. Where is it all coming from
When they looked at what was moving through the area they were able to identify journeys that started or ended in the study area. (how?) So that is someone leaving from a place in the area or arriving and ending their journey in the area - local journeys in other words rather than just passing through. Of these only 17% involved the use of a car or van (how?). The remaining journeys were undertaken on foot (over a third), by bus, rail/tube or bike. I would expect the emphasis then to be on what was being put in place for those making 83% of non-car journeys.
I don't understand this. How on earth did they get such objective data? It is completely unfair to make such judgments on surveys (as they suggest). Surveys must not be used to measure behaviour (they can be used for attitudes and opinions, of course). this is basic social science, which the consultants should have been aware of.
My final point is there is no economic evidence I can see. ROI (total and per proposal). Where are the measurable outputs?
And this cost £200k? For me, this does not look like value for money.
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They didn't just survey, they appeared, with judicious placement of vehicle counters, to count every single journey in the borough. There were traffic counters all over. They were sophisticated enough to tell a lorry from a car from a motorbike and they could even judge speed.
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And sophisticated enough to tell whether a % of us were walking or cycling, and our journey start and end points.
There is new tech out there that can do this, but it needs really clever research design to implement and remove bias. They were not using it.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I don’t know the methodology they used Dan
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