Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Cyclists and Wightman Road
Hi all,
Is it just me or has Wightman Road now become an absolute death trap for us cyclists with the jutty out bits that enrage car drivers who swerve into us to avoid oncoming cars...?
Thinking a cycle track on part of pavement could be an answer... We don't take up as much space as a car parking half way across the pavement as it used to be...
Nemone
Tags for Forum Posts: cycling, cycling safety, harringay traffic study, traffic, wightman road improvements
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by George on
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Adding my 2 cents as a Harringay resident and regular cyclist. I'm fortunate enough not to have to contend with cycling down Wightman Road but I have to go up and down Green Lanes daily and the experience is horrendous and frankly often quite scary, and I've been commuting in London by bicycle 5 days a week for 8+ years and have been a keen road cyclist for longer than that. Honestly the cycling infrastructure in Harringay is awful, especially in the east of the borough, when crossing the borough boundaries into Waltham Forest and Hackney it becomes significantly better. It's staggering that cycling is deprioritised here especially as awareness around environmental issues becomes more prevalent, including the negative health impacts on residence caused by poor air quality.
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Permalink Reply by 0l7ft44vlytse on
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Riding in to work every day it's incredible the change from Haringey to Hackney. Not only in cycling but in rubbish collection, traffic calming and general street appearance.
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I live in Pemberton Road and find the stretch of road between Warham and Duckett extremely dangerous, even by car. I don't know who is designed the new layout, but clearly they have not done it very well. It's only a matter of time before someone is going to get hurt.
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I have been saying for weeks to my other half that Wightman road is no longer safe. I travel down it in the mornings some times and there are moments it genuinely seems like people are playing chicken with each other. To avoid cyclists, or even just travel normally, you effectively have to drive head onto someone else and hope no one is going too fast. I cant bear seeing the cyclists in this environment, they are so vulnerable. Today I burst my tyre today when I clipped one of the jutty out bits trying to avoid all the red plastic roadwork stuff they’ve left laying around. Pulled the car to safety and out of traffic as much as I could. Turns out the car I pulled behind had done the same. Wondering how many other cars have been damaged in the weird wacky races design of Wightman Road. If it’s not working for anyone, how do we get it changed? Petition?
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Permalink Reply by Nemone Mercer on
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Yes - I really think we should get a petition going - it is totally crazy now and like someone else said, not safe for either cars or cyclists - let along pedestrians trying to cross the road. I can't understand why no-one thought a couple of zebra crossings was worth doing either...!
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I agree - we def need to do something. Just wondering what the best course of action is really... I am happy to email the councillors/ David Lammy but feel like we need to organise something en masse. Does anyone hear have any experience of this kind of thing?
Hugh maybe?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I was part of the traffic group on the local residents organisation. That still exists. When HoL was new the Council and Lammy were very keen to court us. Now we're just one of many online voices and neither Lammy nor the Council feel the same need to listen.
I realised some years back that, after the threat of HoL's novelty wore off, the best way to get things done with the Council is through building personal relationships and through traditional resident groups. Councils know how to work with these groups and, whether it's true or not see them as democratic.
So I'd say that one good option is to work with our local councillors through the the residents' organisation traffic group.
But people should be under no illusion that there are easy answers. There aren't. The first issue is to establish common ground amongst residents (not as easy as you may think). We need to agree what's broke and how we'd like it fixed. Then there's the long slow process of using existing relationships and building new ones to try and achieve the agreed objectives.
A quick petition or a conversation with Lammy will, I believe, make little difference.
Zena Brabazon is one of our councillors who has a good idea of how the Council works. She's also in the Council cabinet. So she's a good ally.
Anyone who's really keen to help review the changes and work to improve the situation should keep engaging constructively on here, but should also get involved on the ground. There's a residents' meeting tonight at 7:00 in the hall alongside the church at the bottom of Allison. I'd be surprised if this issue doesn't come up. The meetings are rarely entertaining, but you don't go for a laugh: you go to help make a difference to the place where you live.
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Permalink Reply by Rich on
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I only saw this reply today, how often are these resident meetings held? Also was there anything of interest discussed in regards to Wightman?
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This issue is the end of a series of decisions made years ago to close Hermitage Road, the Gardens and the roads above Turnpike Lane to through traffic.
These were just done, one-by-one with no thought to the inevitable consequence: pushing all traffic through this part of the borough along Green Lanes and Wightman. Absolutely delightful for the residents of those roads and of course, a disaster for everyone on Green Lanes, Wightman and the Ladder roads used as cut throughs.
When Wightman was closed for those glorious 6 months a couple of years back the borough didn't grind to a halt, the Earth didn't stop rotating and families returned to the streets, cycled the road and did strange things like talk to each other and listen to the peaceful silence while pollution went from dangerous and insidious to virtually nothing. Proving, once and for all, that Wightman Road can be closed to through traffic, if you genuinely want to do the best thing for the residents in your care, not the tens of thousands of people who pass through the borough in their cars.
Instead, of course, we have a hugely problematic road and a council who insist on treating the symptom, but not the cause. Tiny bite by tiny bite. Now the road is more dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians and road users equally: on the road itself and turning onto and off it.
Maybe we need to start suing the council when our loved ones die of emphesema, asthma and lung diseases related to the illegal level of pollution, as the council only seem to listen to business interests and insurance adjustment executives these days?
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Permalink Reply by Alice Mezzo on
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Completely agree that anyone suffering these disorders should begin to gather evidence against the council. Despite having the information starkly waved in their faces, they have repeatedly chosen to ignore it, with no regard for the risk to public health. Drastic measures are needed at a time when children are literally dying because councils fail to act. Someone is responsible for the quality of air in our borough and that someone is Haringey Council.
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