Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
St Ann's LTN start date - 22 August
I'm not sure whether this has been shared elsewhere on HOL - can't see it in a search but...
We have recently received a note through our front door that the St Ann's Low Traffic Neighbourhood will be implemented on 22 August.
This is a heads-up for anyone living in or driving through the area between West Green Road and St Ann's Road. There will no longer be a direct route between the two major roads unless you are a bus or have a 'X2' exemption pass.
Woodlands Park Road, Black Boy Lane, Cornwall Road and Avenue Road will all be closed to through traffic.
The restriction points will be monitored by CCTV, so no doubt LBH will be issuing lots of PCNs! Drivers beware!
I attach two documents, one a map of the area showing the traffic cells as they will be after implementation, and the other the supporting document.
Tags for Forum Posts: low traffic neighbourhoods, st anns ltn, traffic
- Attachments:
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LTN map.pdf, 834 KB -
LTN Doc.pdf, 1.1 MB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Here you go, Chris: I just found this. One of Haringey's web pages on LTN's has the following:
The aim is to reduce through traffic, improve air quality and support residents and visitors to walk, cycle, and shop locally.
The following is from the Sustrans website
A low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) is a scheme where motor vehicle traffic in residential streets is greatly reduced.
This is done by minimising the amount of traffic that comes from vehicles using the streets to get to another destination. This is often referred to as ‘through-traffic’ or ‘rat-running’.
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Permalink Reply by Chris on
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Yes, I have seen and heard many of the sales pitches, but I'm asking what's under the hood?
It seems logical for local councillors or charities to tell residents that stopping 'outsiders' using 'their' roads is an unalloyed good. And that a de facto gating of their community is the best way to achieve this. This has been the basis for much of the PR behind LTN implementations. But where is the attempt to establish that first principle? How do LTNs work, for whom, and how to we prove this?
Now, the idea of a wholesale reduction in motor vehicle traffic has a wealth of supporting and uncontroversial evidence to back it. But the rushed and relatively arbitrary roll out of LTNs has next to none. Why are LTNs the tool of choice? Cui bono... or more importantly in this instance, cui malo?
The 5 points above are from the council's Statement of Reasons. This is not a puff-piece or fireside chat, but a required outline of intentions in the legal framework for the St Ann's traffic order (LTN). However, the evidence base for it is at best threadbare and often relies on internal contradiction.
We look around the UK at the moment and see dozens of instances where people's quality of life is being materially diminished by decisions that had insufficient oversight or challenge. Energy, Health, Education, Social Care etc... whims, wheezes and follies have been accommodated over the past decades and now we are about to start paying a significant price.
As with the exemptions topic you are looking at, it would appear that a subjective analysis is currently beating any objective view. This is also the case for LTNs more broadly.
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I don’t disagree with the given reasons. They cone first and sit quite happily mext to the implementation methodology, which is to primarily target through-traffic.
As to your claims of subjective analysis, no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve said quite clearly that im only interested in data based conclusions.
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The evidence shows that there is little or no pollution problem or traffic accident problem in the streets within the LTN. The problem exists on the boundary roads they are looking to make busier. I'm not sure how you can agree with that reasoning.
The point regarding subjectivity is that the council doesn't want to provide exemptions and this is based on a subjective view, rather than one that has been objectively measured... which is your point.
Again, if you read the document establishing the order, through traffic is very much NOT the primary target. It's included, but more weight is given to the behaviour of those resident in the LTN (hence the unwillingness to offer broader exemptions).
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This is how the Centre for London report on LTNs justifies minimal exemptions.
There is a debate on whether these exemptions are desirable. They may increase the acceptability of LTNs among local residents at the time of their introduction, but they also mean it is harder to reallocate road space to other uses – such as pocket parks or play spaces – since there is still a stream of vehicles using the street.
So, the trade-off that they're suggesting is at the heart of the matter is reallocated road space vs resident exemptions. However, if you allow any exemptions whatsoever, then doesn't that trade-off go out of the window anyway? As I understand it, Haringey's scheme already allow some exemptions. So, this can't be the reason locally.
Green Flag explain it as follows:
By making it more difficult for drivers to make short car trips, it’s hoped many will abandon their vehicle in favour of less polluting forms of transport. In turn, this could have a positive impact on people’s health as they take more exercise.
The only block is to through traffic, intended to prevent residential streets being used as rat runs. Yes, some shorter car trips might take longer – but that is part of the point, to nudge people towards different modes of travel.
So, from what I've found out thus far, the minimisation of exemptions is the behaviour-change part of an LTN initiative. I haven't yet found anyone taking the position that minimisations are necessary to achieve the air-quality or safety goals. But I'm in listening mode.
I wonder what the data look like for a high-exemption vs a low-exemption zone?
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Hugh - There are so many things to question in all this and various previous comments (not only yours)...
Through traffic: The biggest generator of through traffic in the area is Green Lanes, a major north-south conduit. Despite Mike Hakata's promise, the council has done nothing at all to tackle that, such as concentrating on the source (the Nth Circular/Green Lanes junction, for example) or making local improvements, such as a northbound bus lane and parking/loading restrictions. There is no greater plan other than blocking side roads and hoping traffic will somehow "evaporate" - ie, go elsewhere and become somebody else's problem. As we know, that worked out really well in Bounds Green when Enfield created an LTN just the other side of the boundary.
Less polluting transport: Fine, make everyone walk inside St Ann's if you want, but where is the council's contribution? Where are the electric council vehicles and Veolia trucks, the requirement for all local service vehicles and council contractors to use electric fleets, as UPS and Amazon already increasingly do? Lecturing residents while doing nothing themselves seems to be the council's default position.
Quiet streets: St Ann's already has low car-ownership by borough standards and even the council admits only three roads in the ward were seriously affected by traffic driving through. Someone above has already said more traffic came down their previously empty road on Monday than in all the time they've lived here; roads in the western part of the ward have been some of the quietest and safest in the area (possibly in London) in the 30 years I've lived here, while the "boundary" roads are already some of the most dangerous. So this wonderful scheme is about making GL, St Ann's and West Green even more dangerous, polluted and congested? Bravo!
You said you don't use your car for local journeys but do for longer trips or when you need to go to the recycling centre, for instance. Yep, good policy. So now, someone living in, say, Rowley Road or the southern end of Cornwall Road has a wonderful new choice when going to recycle: they can drive via St Ann's, Seven Sisters, Tottenham and West Green Road, or via St Ann's and GL, adding mileage, petrol consumption and pollution in a bid to reach Wood Green, instead of the most direct route though quiet side streets in St Ann's. How is that an improvement?
Ultimately, nobody wants hordes of vehicles in their road - but they all want the right to drive along somebody else's. I know it's boring to repeat this, but if a resident of, say, Umfreville needs to cross the railway (by one of the only two crossings) at Upper Tollington Park and then swing right into, say, Lancaster Road, do you think the residents of the latter see this as "local traffic" or somebody "rat-running"? There's already a long-established LTN in the Gardens; do I notice Ladder resident still cheering because it made life much better and reduced traffic? No, I read constant complaints from them that all the traffic moved onto the Ladder instead - which is what happens when an LTN's created. They may not be hypocrites, but, as I said, I'm still waiting for evidence that altruistic Ladder residents (some of the most vocal in support of road closure and forcing traffic onto GL instead) are all giving up their own cars and struggling instead with an already stretched public transport network that's about to get far worse.
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Permalink Reply by greenfingers on
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I'm still a bit confused. So residents in these roads who have an expensive parking permit are not allowed to drive in their own road ? And so all the parking spaces outside the closed roads going to be full up ?
And when schools go back, West Green Road and Green Lanes are going to get even worse traffic and pollution ? Not great for West Green Primary school surely.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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The roads are not 'closed', the access from particular directions are closed. You may of course have to sit in stinking traffic on Green Lanes etc on the way. The whole area has no 'free' parking, it's all covered by permit parking AFAIK.
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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You can drive in all the roads, but not all the way along some roads. There is no way through from West Green Road to St Ann's Road except for via Green Lanes or Seven Sister's Road.
In Woodlands Park Road you can drive either half way down, or half way up but not all the way from West Green to St Ann's.Which has actually made me wonder how people on the north side of the Woodlands Park Road barrier can get out when the school street is operational again. Exemptions for school streets are only available to residents within the actual school street area, this doesn't (or at least didn't) include everyone from the school to the new LTN barrier.
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Permalink Reply by Geoff Amabilino on
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Access during the school street times will be via Terront Road, as it has been since the school street was introduced.
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Me too. It's not easy to work it all out when you're out driving though, but got there in the end.
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