Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wightman Empty & Getting Peopled
On a quick trot down to Turnpike Lane I thought again how pleasant it is to see people out on the street. Click each picture for a clearer version.
Tags for Forum Posts: traffic, wightman bridge, wightman bridge closure
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks Don. For the avoidance of doubt, my 'suggestions' were notions grabbed out of thin air in the moment purely as examples of what would be possible in principle. I neither vouch for their viability nor do I support the idea of them. So what you say is, I'm sure, fair comment.
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Permalink Reply by andy h on
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Just cos you lot live on one way streets ( and presumably chose to) doesnt mean we all want to. I like living on a two way street it means I don't have to get caught up on the rubbishy harringay heights.
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Permalink Reply by Penny A on
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A lot of us didn't choose to Andy, one way traffic revisions have been introduced piece meal and sometimes with little reference to residents. When I moved to the area 22 years ago the Ladder was two way with no traffic calming. This meant traffic charging in both directions at 30 mph plus down narrow residentail streets between GL and WR often clouting parked cars on route! What I would like to see is a fair balance of traffic over the Harringay area rather than certain residential roads becoming default routes for excessive traffic. I don't see it as as a question of 'you lot' there and 'us here' but all of us in the few square miles of Harringay dealing with excessive through traffic and seeking a fairer balance and better quality of air, roads and life!!
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The through traffic issue will never be solved in this area. It's a much wider problem of rising car ownership across Britain. If you want to reduce through traffic here, a two tier congestion charge - one for everything inside the M25 ( let's say £10 a day to cross the line in either direction) and a further charge line for anything inside the north and south circular ( £20 a day to cross) - that might just do the job.
But only until car ownership within those areas rises to unsustainable levels, and trust me, they will.
I moved to the area at the same time as you and before that I was a regular user of both Wightman and green lanes for years
In my view everything that has been done to calm/redirect traffic in this whole area has largely failed and has created 'us lot' and 'them lot' divides within the area. If you live in the gardens your not going to want to give up Your no through enclave, for years there has been moves at the north end of the ladder to create the same there and now Wightman road wants to create a defacto 'private' residents only road. You have just written about 'US in the few square miles of Harringay' - HOW is any of that not 'us an them' in evry possible way. What about those who live in High Cross? north side of Bruce Castle, Muswell Hill, north of Wood Green? Do they count or are they all gonna get screwed over by some small minded tinkering round here.
The cheek of it all is that everyone expects me and every other council tax payer to cough up for these petty, small minded schemes rather than looking and campaigning for Things that actually might have the smallest of chances of working.
Wait for the traffic survey and campaign for London wide congestion charging.
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You are right, Andy. But the clue here is in the website name. This isn't a London forum. Or a traffic forum (although it does rather feel like one at the moment). It's a forum about the issues facing the Ladder. And I'm going to say it. I don't give a flying stuff about the 75% of drivers who find it convenient to drive down my street to get to their destination outside of the borough. I care about the traffic, congestion and pollution happening outside my window. And if I can put a stop the that, I will. One of the main reasons there's so much congestion is because the roads around us have been closed and that's a gang I'd happily join. The Ladder roads were never meant to carry as much traffic as they do, and I have no issue with making what was intended to be a residential road a residential road again. And I'm not going to apologise for it.
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Oh, didn't realize it had change to 'The Ladder on line'.
Oooh well! I tried.
As I said (half joking) on another thread - 'block wars are only a hairs breath way!'
What miserable folk we are - William Morris will be spinning in his grave. Mind you, he wouldn't approve of much of the modern world.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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So, Andy, please tell us what you see as problems for High Cross, north side of Bruce Castle, north of Wood Green? Or perhaps where we live, not far from Tottenham Police station. Or what are your views on Bruce Grove which has a one-way scheme in place to deter it being mainly short cut roads to somewhere else?
Residents of each area would, I imagine, tell you about their own traffic, parking, and access problems. And in several I know about, where "petty, small minded schemes" have tried and sometimes succeeded in making it possible for many residents to have quieter roads and not be used as rat-runs, or truck routes, or free carparks for football clubs and rail commuters.
Does one size fit all? Or do the difficulties inherent in having an agreed grand plan mean that local schemes and solutions must always be rejected - and perhaps scrapped?
Jan Gehl the Danish urbanist suggests that our city planners have become very good at making cars happy and not especially interested in making people happy.
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Hi Alan , sorry about the late reply, and the ire that this post will bring down on me. I had some stuff to do.
So , ok let's blow out the grand plans and go hyper local. I'm quite willing to be convinced. I'm no great lover or indeed user of cars.
But, don't you foresee any problems with allowing everyone to increasingly protect their immediate locale? I'm sure I could get really angry (if I let myself) about people form out of my area 'Ratrunning' but what is my area? How small is it? Should I be allowed to gate my street at either end? And would that upset folk from outside ( the laddetts or gardeners) when I've managed to keep them out. And what if the next street did the same and gated me out, then the one beyond that because they don't want strangers using their street either.
I always hated all the 'Gated Comunities' that sprang up in the 90s - Oh! we want live in this vibrant community but Only if we can keep them at arms length - just don't want them outside my house.
I'm not saying that restrictions are bad and don't wish traffic hell on anyone, but I don't want to live somewhere I don't feel welcome and at the moment that's what I'm beginning to feel. I haven't set foot on the ladder since all this started and never walk though 'the gardens' ( far to scary)
But maybe your right, let everyone gate up whereever a group can be formed and sod the rest. then maybe we'll all feel happier and our communities increasingly small, ever decreasing circles anyone?
Still, let's face it, it could have huge benefits for the beleaguered steel industry.
Now I just have to wait for the sky to fall on my head.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I hope you're pleased that this didn't bring loads of ire down on you, yet.
I do see a problem with everyone ELSE protecting their residential rat runs to our cost. I have always believed that the closing of Wightman Rd was the only thing that would fairly end the rat-running on the ladder and never envisaged a situation where this might actually happen so objected to things like the Hewitt Rd no-right-turn as I believed that nothing was better than a little tinkering. As you can see if you look around the borough, residential cut throughs in Crouch End and South Tottenham have been closed to through traffic. Wightman Road had become a famous north-south access point into and out of London and facilitated the heavy traffic the ladder's east-west streets have seen.
I think you don't understand what a gated community is. Go and have a look at Woodberry Down's new private apartments. What is being done in Wightman Rd, for just five months whilst a bridge is replaced, is just traffic management. People are free to come and go as they please, just not to drive through in motor vehicles. In fact I find the rest of your paragraph talking about keeping people at arms length a little offensive.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Andy. You've made some good points, especially about the equity of who is protected and who is not. Many people would accept that there will be a certain amount of traffic using our roads to transit through to and from elsewhere. However, unless you live on the Ladder it is difficult to grasp John's point that the increasing tinkering and 'traffic management' over the years has concentrated an increasing volume of road traffic onto an ever diminishing number of roads. The folks making these decision see lines on maps, and numbers in tables, not communities being affected noise, vibration, pollution and the loss of amenity. This is what is driving the reaction of many here to call for and extension of the Wightman closure- can you really blame them?
Pemberton takes nigh on 12,000 vehicles per week. Kimberly Gardens on the other side of GL takes what, a thousand at best (someone correct me here). The difference is there is a privilege on one side of GL that is not equally reflected on the other side to the detriment of the non privileged road. Where is the equity in that?
Now, I and many others may be envious of the Garden's status, but I hope we do not begrudge it! As Hugh has said in other posts elsewhere what is needed here is a relative amount of mutual understanding. None of this, my journey is 30 mins longer now because of you/ you do not live here so sod off, or, you've got gates, if we cannot have them yours must be taken away, etc. If we are going to get to a point where everyone feels they get something from the GL Traffic Study we need to be able to see it from the other side otherwise nothing will change, nothing will improve.
I would say though in reference to your comment about loving a vibrant community. People traveling through a community by car do not add to its vibrancy. People walking and interacting with others in their community do!
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Permalink Reply by Paulie on
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For the umpteemth time: I don't want to cycle on Wightman Road which is no use to me - I want to cycle on Green Lanes.
I do agree about St Ann's Road / GL and how it should be two-way. However the council's silly vision of a "piazza" so people could pay homage to the Earl of Salisbury won out over common sense...
Yes, that piazza really doesn't work apart from being a glorified summer smoking zone for the pub (and I'm not knocking smokers, I was one until recently)! Who makes those decisions!!
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