Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Liveable Crouch End possible impact on Wightman Road
I am not sure how aware you are of recent developments in relation to Liveable Crouch End so thought I would post a message as there is a consultation taking place which may impact on Wightman Road and the Harringay Ward generally.A new questionnaire has been launched by Haringey Council and one of the questions relates to the possibility of closing major roads such as The Broadway in Crouch End.If the Broadway closure were chosen as an option then the diverted traffic clearly would have a major impact on Wightman RoadYou may want to look at the questionnaire and the Liveable Crouch End website.From an FOI that I submitted to TFL I received the attached very basic traffic modelling information (with many assumptions) which you may also find of interest.This also shows the advantages and disadvantages of the different options. Prior to the questionnaire being issued I had thought that these more radical options were not being considered, but as they are now being included and as Cllr Hearn (Haringey Cabinet Member leading on the scheme) is saying that TFL (the funder) will likely chose the option put to them that is the most transformational then I think the option of Haringey closing major roads can’t be dismissed.
Tags for Forum Posts: liveable crouch end, liveable neighbourhoods, traffic
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by JoeW on
-
Closing the Broadway would be amazing, the main problem would be some displacement from the A-roads to B-roads - mainly Wightman Road I think? That's easily solved by closing Wightman to through-traffic too.
-
Permalink Reply by Rory on
-
Here we go again. The reason we have such bad traffic on Wightman and the Ladder roads is because Hermitage Road, the Gardens and the roads north of Turnpike Lane were all closed to traffic, one-by-one, with no investigation into the impact that they would have. It forced all east/west and west/east traffic through these roads and is the cause of so much pain for Ladder residents currently. Unfortunately, Liveable Crouch End is a pressure group only concerned with the impact of traffic in Crouch End. I agree with JoeW. Closing the Broadway would be amazing. As would closing Wightman to through traffic, but surely we've learnt by now that these closures need to be looked at holistically, alongside a joined up policy throughout the borough. Single interest groups closing random roads is a repetition of these short-sighted policies, even if they are being proposed for all the right reasons: less, traffic, less polution, safer streets. I absolutely think traffic should be reduced. But let's do it properly. (PS I have zero faith in our current council doing this properly.)
-
Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
-
Hi Peter
Thanks for posting this and for contacting me. I am chasing it up since any changes to Crouch End are likely to impact on Harringay ward. What might improve things for one area, can easily result in making things worse down the road. So we must be vigilant.
Zena
Zena BrabazonDeputy Leader of the Council
Cabinet Member for Children and Families
Cllr, Harringay ward
-
-
Firm evidence? Let’s count cars eh? The number of cars driving through the Ladder roads vs the number of cars driving down Hermitage Road and the gardens. To suggest that the rat running and cutting through and access across the borough isn’t impacted by every residential road north, south and east of the ladder being closed to through traffic is frankly silly. If there is no impact, presumably you would have no objection to them being opened up again? Hmm...
-
-
There is no empirical evidence because no research was done before or after. Which is lovely for the people who live on the roads that were closed because those roads wouldn't have been closed if there was any sort of investigation or holistic estimation of traffic carried out. Come on, you know that, and I know that, Tris. Car counting on a closed road after its clousure is pointless, as you well know. And I say again, the average number of cars, I think, across the Ladder roads is 2,500 per day, as opposed to tens on the closed roads. We're surely past the idea that closing these roads increased traffic to the Ladder? It's clearly a truisim. I ask again. If there would be no impact, why would you oppose reopening them? If you think there would be more cross borough traffic using the roads to rat run, then you cannot logically oppose the idea that there has been an increase in traffic rat-running on the Ladder.
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
I don’ t have the numbers Tris but I certainly have the experience.
I moved to Warham Road in 1984. At that time there were no restrictions in the Gardens. Traffic coming along St Ann’s Road cut through the Gardens to make it on to Green Lanes in the mornings and through the Gardens to St Ann’s Road in the evenings. After the Gardens closure the morning route was signposted via Salisbury Road and Warham on to Wightman.
The congestion on Warham was so horrendous (it was two way at the time) that it was turned into one way going west - despite residents wanting it one way going east to prevent it becoming the de facto route to Hornsey and Finsbury Park.
The Gardens certainly needed work as it was a traffic clogged nightmare but all that happened was to turn Wightman and the Ladder roads that feed Wightman and Green Lanes into the same thing.
The problem lies on Green Lanes. I would imagine that drivers don’t really want to take a wiggly route to wherever they are going but do so because GL isn’t properly managed. But even suggest that GL should have any changes, like the removal of parking and more comprehensive bus/cycle lanes, and the Trader Association claim they will be left penniless in the gutter.
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
Despite your conviction, those of us who lived here at the time know that what happened on Warham happened across the Ladder. I think the central and southern rungs were worst impacted.
-
-
-
There’s no bitter blaming of neighbours from this quarter. As far as I’m concerned, any fault is the Council’s.
The closure of Hermitage coincided with a huge increase of traffic on Warwick Gardens. It was bad enough to convince the Council to close the road. Perhaps the timing of the trafkefic increase was just coincidence. Or perhaps Hermitage traffic was displaced.
When The Gardens we’re closed that flow started passing through the Ladder.
Of course not every road was equally impacted, as I made clear in my last comment. The traffic flow was finding a new northeast-southwest route. Roads on that desire line were badly impacted. Certainly my judgement is influenced by the large increase of traffic on my road, as I’m sure was yours. Which road did you used to live on?
Traffic displacement does happen, I’m afraid. Warham Road has shown that it’s permanent until something is done to change it.
-
-
-
I used to think there were few examples of those journeys Tris but you have to remember that much of the through traffic is not local. Say you're on the Roundway and heading towards Islington of further south/south-west. Ideally that traffic should stick to the A-roads - Westbury Ave, Green Lanes - but Green Lanes is typically stop-start so drivers want to join it as far south as possible. So, they head for Belmont Way and then try to find their way through the back streets. Many (though not all) of those back streets - Harringay Road, Hermitage Road, the Gardens - are filtered so traffic has to join Green Lanes earlier. The Ladder roads then become attractive rat-runs.
-
-
I agree with this. I think a joined-up traffic reduction policy which directly addresses reducing through-traffic in the borough is the only way to do this without painful, unintended, knock-on effects.
I see some really good intent from councillors such as Zena Brabazon and Seema Chandwani but this doesn't seem to be resulting in the bigger, more important decisions. Consultations such as being run for Livable Crouch End will not get us to a bolder set of policies and practical implementations such as we see in Hackney, Waltham Forest, York, Birmingham, Utrecht, Amsterdam... etc.
-
-
Just so true...sigh. Piece meal thinking of this Council.
When the giratory in Seven Sisters was removed a few years ago, the scheme actually stupidly introduced an extra lane of traffic onto the High Road here in Tottenham, between Seven Sisters and Monument Way. So we have 5 lanes in some parts with the feeder rd at 2x2 with bus lanes in Stokey feeding into a 2x2ish north of Monument Way. This scheme also removed our planters that dated from Victorian times
Then they brought in the so-called Super Cycle Highway CS1 and we lost Half of what was a very broad pavement (The Broadway) to an extremely poorly designed stretch of cycle path that walkers ignore but not cyclists. The whole thing is a classical example of Haringey Council allowing piecemeal 'improvement schemes' to ruin our lives and spend resources that could otherwise, with careful LONG TERM strategy and thinking, have resulted in the incremental in provements that we have been crying out for for so long.
But I think those in charge just don't get, are overwhelmed or focussing on their petty ideological struggles that results in people voting for their nemesis in the end...turkeys voting for Xmas like the constuencies in the North if England voting for Tories.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
