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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

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

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I can only go by my own impression of traffic over  the 30 years I've lived in St Anns. West Green Road is since the LTN very congested in the morning rush hour westbound and Harringay Road/Colina Road northbound in the evening rush hour. These streets and public transport on West Green Road suffer  simply because the volume of traffic is now so much larger as there are no alternative routes. Yesterday, after the introduction of the West Green/Bruce Grove LTN I saw at 5.15 pm that now westbound traffic on West Green Road stretched from Green lanes to Blackboy Lane with all the delayed buses in the tailback. The LTN's have simply squashed so much traffic onto roads that can't bear it all. It is the junctions with Green lanes that are now major bottlenecks in the rush hours where the volume of vehicles going north or south simply stop the entrance of vehicles from the east. The LTN's may create nice quiet streets for some but they do it at the expense of others creating zones where it is pleasant to live and zones where it is unpleasant to live. It is social engineering against the poorer residents.

Incident @ top of West green rd, Police taped off top off West Green Rd where it exits on to Green Lanes. Police cars, buses diverted - 41 to Archway turning into Colina Rd.  Buses stopped outside Duke of Cambridge/ new flats, this was about 4.40.  I also saw an air ambulance fly over Haringay rd - big loop then it headed towards Manor House

I also noticed today that the West Green/Bruce Grove LTN is producing more problems for the W4 bus. The junction with West Green Road, once the bus has got there, proves difficult to negotiate due to the volume of vehicles coming down south at that point. Furthermore in the rush hours when there is a large vehicle, van or lorry, coming in the other direction the bus cannot pass them on Belmont Road. There are cars parked on both sides of the road - which is now a main conduit for all traffic- which does not give enough road space for two large vehicles. It's all very well allowing the W4 to sail through the barriers on Downhills Park Road but that was never an issue for public transport. Now the bus is held up for so long elsewhere it matters not a jot that it can pass through the barrier.

As to yesterday's incident on West Green Road, there was a tragedy there resulting in all westbound traffic having to be stopped just before Green Lanes. The ensuing gridlock could have been mitigated had there been secondary north south roads available for traffic to disperse. The LTN's of course prohibit this and so again we saw more pollution and more public transport disruption.

Yes, that’s exactly the problem with LTN road closures: it’s all very well forcing traffic onto main roads, but if there’s an incident there, then there’s no safety valve for traffic to get round the blockage.

Incidentally, on Tuesday (first day of the Bruce Grove LTN), I had to wait an hour for a taxi from St Ann’s that would normally have arrived in 15 mins or so because of all the backed-up traffic in Green Lanes. As it happened, this was annoying and time-wasting rather than critical, but if I’d needed to move urgently (I don’t drive and currently can’t use much public transport) it would have been much more serious. And no, Cllr Hakata and “Living Streets” advocates, I’m not going to go by bike, whatever you say.

The delicious irony, of course, is that as of earlier this year Mr Hakata's real life job was being a minicab dispatcher.  

There are a number of regular posters to this and other LTN threads whose position seems to be don’t do anything until you can solve everything, unfortunately life is not like this. Do what you can and incrementally do more. This will involve change and disruption for everyone. No one has a god given right to drive a car. LTNs by their nature will cause everyone inconvenience at certain times. I am a car owner who mostly uses public transport or walks, used to cycle, but not so much these days. Everywhere is still accessible by vehicle. For the benefit of wider society you may want to consider other factors of where you spend your hard earned cash and not line the pockets of companies that don’t pay their way; convenience comes at a much bigger cost to wider society!

Inkjetpack — I’m probably one of the regular posters, but my position isn’t “don’t do anything…”, it’s “look at the problem and get the right solution”. Harringay has too much traffic, largely for two reasons: Green Lanes is a major trunk road, connecting the N Circular with a main route into central London — as well as carrying local traffic — and the railway on the west is an almost impenetrable barrier that funnels traffic onto GL and has only two crossing points. The council appears never to have considered these fundamental problems in its planning.

Barring a revolution by which everyone would live 5 minutes from their work, schools, leisure activities and shops, it’s unlikely people from outside the borough will stop wanting to drive through it, especially when public transport doesn’t serve every need and is constantly under threat from cuts, fare increases, etc, and not everyone can cycle instead. Haringey should make getting a grip on GL its first and major priority, as well as seriously committing to electrification of vehicles, and London’s councils need a co-ordinated approach to traffic management across the whole Capital.

What’s happening at present is piecemeal road closures (because they’re much cheaper than a co-ordinated approach) from borough to borough which simply disrupt traffic in one place and kick it into another — viz the impact on Bounds Green of Enfield’s LTN. If the Ladder suffered from Gardens closure, for example, what’s going to happen when all of the east side of GL is blocked to traffic that would prefer to use GL if it wasn’t impassable? If the council had concentrated on GL first, the pressure, disruption, time delays and increased pollution on major roads caused by side road closures in the guise of LTNs might not have been necessary.

Completely agree Don,  You've articulated it in a very measured, well argued and intelligent way.  I share the same position in that I don't believe nothing needs to be done, but believe in a much better way of doing it. The problem of too many cars in cities is hugely complex, here's is the Oxford Dictionaries recent addition of the definition of the Low Traffic Neighbourhood :) :) The 

Low Traffic Neighbourhood

A well intentioned but acutely flawed and poorly executed scheme to reduce traffic in residential city streets, where by a comparatively minute amount of streets are closed to motorists. A simplistic, lacking in nuance, blunt, crude, hideously divisive, viscerally controversial, and ill-judged  attempt to reduce car journeys.  In the glib hope that all through traffic will magically evaporate.  Traffic is often demonstrably and unequivocally  increased on the borders of the low traffic neighbourhood zone. Causing misery, severe congestion and pollution to other neighbourhoods, there by failing comprehensively to solve the problem it set out to achieve.

Are you sure? If that's the Oxford Dictionary's definition then I have lost all respect for it. Since when was a dictionary meant to include the editor's highly subjective opinion on the subject matter of the word in question?  

I have to say that I'm very sceptical about that being Oxford. It sounds more like FoxNews Dictionary to me.

Can I ask where you found this quote, Sam?

Dear me, the Oxford Dictionaries would not misspell 'whereby' as 'where by'. Nor 'thereby' as 'there by'.  

Must try harder, 3/10. But thank you for the hint from the two smilies.

Yes, sorry Gordon, you're quite correct, will definitely try harder next time..

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