Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
End through traffic on Wightman and on Ladder rungs!
John McMullan has made this proposal in various places. Maybe there’s an extended discussion of it in this forum somewhere, but what I’ve seen is scattered around the threads. In any case, I think it’s time to try to move this in the direction of concerted action, so here are my 2p.
We should begin a campaign to close Wightman Road to through traffic, along with complementary traffic controls at certain points on the rungs of the Harringay Ladder (exactly what and where these additional controls are would depend on the particular points at which Wightman is cut). This would eliminate through traffic from the Ladder, except on Green Lanes itself.
These roads are residential. The area has a combined population of over 10,000 (the population of Harringay Ward, most of which is the Ladder, is estimated at 13,700). We need to take this action in order to make the streets safe for children; to make the street a place of neighbourly interaction; and to make the air cleaner and healthier. Children should be able to walk to school and to parks; cyclists should have a safe north-south route through Harringay (Wightman would become that route).
Some further points:
· Road traffic reduction – don’t see this as a NIMBY proposal to chase traffic elsewhere: one of the aims should be to reduce road traffic overall. Roads accommodate traffic. There is ample scientific evidence that an increase in road capacity simply increases traffic, until at some point congestion chokes off the increase - at which point, highway planners call for more roads, leading to a spiral of ever-increasing traffic. What we see in the Ladder today is part of that spiral: several years ago, the Haringey council took two steps to reduce traffic congestion on the Ladder by making it flow more easily: it made all the rungs of the Ladder one-way, and it allowed pavement parking on Wightman to effectively widen the Wightman roadway. Both of these increases in road capacity have led simply to more traffic and faster traffic – the streets that are less safe for children, the air that is more polluted.
· The reverse is also true: a reduction in road capacity reduces traffic, overall. Somebody will rightly complain of increased traffic congestion, somewhere, as a result of cutting off traffic through the Ladder. But a reduction in road capacity will mean that overall traffic in north London will be reduced, and that will good for air quality, for child safety, for the safety of pedestrians and cyclists generally, and for the reduction of greenhouse gasses. Some may say that it would be better for the government address these problems in a comprehensive way, but such comprehensive treatment of the problem is, at best, slow in coming. By taking this local action, we can make a small contribution to the overall reduction of the problems caused by road traffic, and at the same time show public support for more comprehensive action.
· Half-way measures don’t do the job. Speed bumps slow traffic a bit, but are not sufficient to make the road safe. 20mph limits are nice, but there are no resources to enforce them.
· Whole Ladder: if you cut traffic on any one of the Ladder’s rungs, you just push it to another. For that reason, the Ladder needs to act together as one community.
· Other neighborhoods: for reasons discussed below, cutting off Ladder traffic might well reduce traffic in adjoining neighborhoods. More importantly, cutting off Ladder traffic should be seen as one step towards making the borough of Haringey a continuous quilt of safe, healthy, traffic-calmed neighborhoods. It builds on the work done by residents of the Gardens and other neighborhoods in recent years, and we should hope that it is followed by similar actions in other neighborhoods.
· We cannot know exactly what the effect on traffic in other neighborhoods will be – traffic engineering studies of the question would be helpful, although even there we note that such studies are far from an exact science: it may be necessary to experiment!
· Cutting routes through the Ladder will probably increase traffic on Green Lanes, but it will also help that traffic flow better. Most of the traffic to and from Wightman on the rungs of the Ladder crosses one or both lanes of traffic in Green Lanes. The constant merging in of traffic at several points along Green Lanes and the turns across Green Lanes traffic slow the north-south flow, including the buses. While Green Lanes would certainly continue to be congested after cutting off Ladder traffic, the near elimination of cross-traffic should improve the flow.
· Much of the cross traffic is coming to and from St Ann’s Rd and the various roads feeding through St Ann’s (Woodlands Park, Black Boy Lane, etc.). It also passes through a handful of short, heavily traveled residential streets on the east side of Green Lanes: Salisbury Road, part of Harringay Road, and Alfoxton Avenue. Similarly, to the north of the Ladder, much of the traffic on the Hornsey Park Road/Mayes Road is to or from Wightman; to the south, the same goes for much of the traffic on Endymion. By eliminating the Ladder routes, many of these trips that now cut through the adjoining neighborhoods would probably not take place.
Tags for Forum Posts: traffic
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by David OS on
-
"there are many residents on Wightman Rd who moved there when it was a sleepy little residential street " When was that? I've lived on the ladder for 10 years and cycled on Wightman most days during that time. It has been pretty busy the whole time.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
Ten years!!! Ha ha ha, that's nothing. I'm sorry to laugh but it try thirty years, even forty.
-
Permalink Reply by Vernon on
-
Are you referring to the time when I could drive through Finsbury Park to get to the Manor House? I think life has changed a great deal since then. maybe not all for the better, but on balance I would say it has improved. If you really want to get rid of motor powered vehicles you need to start at the beginning and ban the manufacture of them. I don't know where you would get your food and other needs from though.
-
-
I don't think you need to ban production, just stop the subsidies that motor vehicle manufacturing receives. Well not even that, just stop providing places for people to park them and stop building roads for people to drive them on. Hackney are already doing this, no need to wait for Westminster.
-
-
I'm not sure which subsidies you are referring too, but increasing cost of manufacture would not get rid of them, just restrict them to the rich and powerful. It would be like Bolshevism all over again. I guess you would approve of that. Where can I put my horse and cart btw?
-
Permalink Reply by Ruben on
-
precisely my point. The garden's move is completely against what I believe it.
However I don't think a wrong will undo another wrong.
Personally I would love to see a green lanes where:
- three lanes of traffic. One each way, the third one with loading bays and bus stops only, obviously offset from each other.
- no parking 6 am - 8 pm. To cater for this, the 5 first bays on every side street to become pay-display. Parking spots only on the loading/unloading bays.
- Designated cycle lanes on either direction, properly separated from motor traffic.
- no junk in the street (i.e. traders not allowed to invade the pavement where that would leave less than 2m of pedestrian space)
- traffic lights for pedestrians in Falkland Road and Allison Road (or thereabouts), where there are already lights and bus stops but no easy crossing. So people cross pretty kamikaze style
-
Permalink Reply by Frederick Guy on
-
Personally, I think what the Gardens did was terrific. It was rat run hell before, it's a pleasant place to live (or walk or cycle through) now. The right to drive should not trump everything else.
I think what you're suggesting for Green Lanes is great.
-
-
Personally I think the lack of consultation with their neighbours was intentioned and selfish.
-
-
The Gardens closure may have been in response to the closure of Hermitage, but if memory serves there were plenty of people cutting through the Gardens even before Hermitage closed. And, prior to the Hermitage closure, that road was a highway. Both closures have benefited people in those neighbourhoods.
Of course there is no magical disappearance of traffic every time you close one road. For instance, closing or re-directing a single rung on the ladder would just push traffic to other rungs. But a well designed set of closures can lead a lot of drivers to reconsider the necessity of the car trip. I don't know if anybody has figures, but I would be very surprised if the combined effect of the Hermitage & Gardens closures had not been exactly that. As Andrew notes elsewhere in this thread, the buses now run much faster on Green Lanes.
-
-
Stan - Thanks for the link to the traffic reduction study. I find a more recent one, by two of the same authors and with the graphics intact, here. Table 1 and Figure 1 are especially work a look: comparing 51 cases of road closures, most of them result in overall traffic reductions (i.e., some of the traffic is diverted to other routes, but much of it - on average, 22% - disappears).
Hancox's letter is a curiously defensive one. I don't know the petition she's responding to, but she doesn't seem to want to be drawn on any specifics about what might be done to further reduce traffic. Her claims for the benefits of the one-way system in the Ladder surprise me - having observed the transition, it certainly seemed to me that through-Ladder traffic was increased, and that speeds have been mitigated only through speed bumps. Furthermore, in light of the obvious problems created by traffic in the neighborhood, the Council's target of 0% increase in traffic is a disappointingly modest one.
-
-
-
I think what you're suggesting for Green Lanes is great.
On second thought, Ruben, I see that you've left out the bus lane. That would slow buses on Green Lanes down to the speed of cars. Not a good idea. Perhaps this was an oversight on your part, but it seems consistent with the cars rule logic of your comments.
-
-
Not really.
Bus lane only exists southbound, part time, on a lane that is permanently invaded by delivery vans and shopper's cars parking illegally.
I guess I am one of the few agreeing with haringey council on the suppression of the bus lane, which I consider rather pointless as it is.
It would make it rather similar to the wood green section of green lanes. So either that is wrong, or the south part is. What I am trying to say all the time is that the road is only so wide.
If you want to accomodate:
Shoppers
Deliveries to stores
Nice walking area with safe crossings
Bus lane
Cycle lane
And all motor traffic (because we disencourage this on surrounding residential streets with traffic calming measures)
Well... can't have the cake and eat it.
My logic is not cars rule. It is, if you only allow cars in one road and disallow on the other 95% of public roads. They ought to rule on that 5%.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
