Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
HCG's air pollution monitoring with Wightman open and closed
Following on from the 2015 study, here are the results from this year's study comparing the NO2 levels around Harringay last year when Wightman Rd was open to the same period this year while it is closed.
Tags for Forum Posts: traffic, wightman bridge closure
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Charlotte A on
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Not really a surprise surely, since all those roads are benefiting from the closure. Has a similar study been done on all the roads that are taking on all the excess traffic?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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This study does include Turnpike Lane and Green Lanes which were those apparently mostly impacted.
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It includes two places on Green Lanes. One at the 3rd floor, so hardly street level comparison, and one on the corner with Allison. I'm not surprised the corners of Ladder roads are lower because obviously fewer vehicles are using those corners. It would be interesting to see the stats for Grand Parade, near the Arena etc.
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I'm no expert on this, Charlotte, and I'm not taking sides, but I'd have thought that the Allison Road measurement one is a fair one. We've all witnessed apparently higher traffic levels on all parts of Green Lanes, including by Allison (though the new stats may yet confound us).
As to the third floor measurement, whilst I'm aware of recent research showing that the worst pollution is at child-height levels, we're also all familiar with how pollutants rise to create coloured clouds over cities. So, I'm assuming a proportion of pollution does rise. Pollution may not be at its worst at the third floor level, but isn't the issue here the comparison between 2015 and 2016?
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Yes, and that 3rd floor one doesn't have a 2015 comparator so can't tell us anything. Green Lanes up by Allison isn't as busy as it is further south - that bit of GL is normally reasonably ok in my opinion. My daily foot-commute takes me from Manor House to Allison, so I think I have a reasonably good experience of the air quality at various points! It's normally far, far worse between Manor House and first set of lights after the railway bridge (heading north) than it is anywhere else. School hols have made a huge change to that though.
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Right, ok. So that 3rd floor one is of no use for current purposes then. I seem to have overlooked that.
I'd argue that the Allison one is though. Whilst I agree that this section of Green Lanes always has lighter traffic, we're interested in comparative data here. It doesn't tell the whole story. We need a point south of the Warham / Salisbury junction to get closer to that. But it is an important part of the story. I haven't noticed any increase in traffic on Salisbury. So most of any additional traffic would have had to have travelled the length of Green Lanes from Turnpike down. For me, Allison Road is a valid measurement point.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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There's no 'after' data for Green Lanes at Umfreville, which shows one of the highest levels 'before'. Hard to imagine, with the near-constant traffic jam there in the past months, that pollution would be down - it certainly doesn't feel like the air is cleaner.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Could it be that the most polluting vehicles - HGVs for example - have found alternative routes?
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Well plenty of them seem to be using my street to access Jewsons - I've counted up to four in one hour.
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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Hi Maddy - the "after" data for Green Lanes at the Arena - the next junction along from Umfreville - actually shows a slight reduction in traffic volume of -2%.
This suggests that the Green Lanes congestion isn't fundamentally about volume (volume only increased by 12% at Duckett) but about obstructions to flow. For example - and as stated on many other threads -
- poor design of Arena junction
- poor positioning of bustops at both Salisbury and Arena
- too many traffic lights in close succession at both Salisbury and Arena
- phasing of traffic lights - these were not adjusted during the Wightman bridgeworks
- insufficient restrictions on parking/loading
- ability to make right turns out of rungs/gardens, or U-turn from parked position (in both cases holds up traffic in both directions until the manoeuvre is complete).
Before the Wightman bridgeworks these multiple issues were masked (though still with regular flare-ups) because as soon as Green Lanes traffic starts to queue, vehicles can ratrun up the next rung.
Unfortunately I'm not seeing any evidence that the Council understands this (e.g. Peray Ahmet's statement that "Wightman Road is vital to ensuring the smooth flow of traffic throu...").
What is really vital (literally, in terms of reducing early deaths from pollution, road accidents, obesity) is a permanent low-traffic solution for Wightman, and some radical changes on Green Lanes itself.
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Permalink Reply by The Harringay Community Group on
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This does include some places which would have been expected to take on excess traffic, for example, the Turnpike Lane one which before was 66 but now has reduced to 49, or the Green Lanes one by the bottom of Allison Rd which has reduced from 43 to 32. Evidence of traffic evaporation perhaps? It will be interesting to see what the traffic counts for those locations done while Wightman has been closed show.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Chalk on
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I am surprised - that the reduction isn't greater. It shows how much background pollution there must be everywhere in London.
As well as aggressive traffic reduction, improved public transport and cycle ways, we also need an electric vehicle policy.
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