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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Tags for Forum Posts: consultation, harringay traffic study, traffic

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Well it didn't seem to work that way when Wightman was closed. I suppose some people may have decided that conditions were too bad and stopped driving but the people on Green Lanes and Turnpike Lane protested vehemently. The traffic may not all have moved but the overflow streets couldn't cope.

Well it did if you looked at the aggregate volume of traffic pre and during closure. Adding up the North-South permutations showed a reduction during the closure. Of course there was one less road to support that traffic movement so the individual road levels of traffic may have increased (but not to a level to cancel out the traffic lost from Wightman).

That's right the consultation documents also confirm this - an overall "evaporation" of 8% of traffic. I'm sure an even larger percentage is achievable is some of the package options are implemented (a few random examples being emissions based parking charges, promotion of car clubs, extending bus lane hours, reviewing parking), but the main benefits come from filtering Wightman.

Absolutely agree with this. You can't view the decision to filter Wightman in isolation, it has to be part of a package that meet some strategic aims. Also, I'd add, measures to promote alternative transport options, namely walking and cycling. The goal ultimately is for people to get around, and currently the barriers to cycling in particular and walking also (think lack of pedestrian crossing, broken pavements, aggressive driving, narrow pavements) locally are extremely large. There seems no recognition of this in the council, and certainly not in either the Wood Green local plan or the Green Lanes traffic study.

When I was a kid they built the Westway to prevent the daily traffic jam in Acton...... It just moved it to Marylebone Rd. So your right. Perfect argument, I'd have thought for penalizing those who drive into London and benefit from the higher wages in town. Congestion charge the arse out of the b..'..'s if they cross the M25 and again if the cross the Noff circ.
The goals of all those who live inside the north and south circular are the same, it seems to me.
Wightman doesn't have to close. It need pressure on the Mayor and councils to restrict entry to London by road.

If anyone wants a reminder of the two sets of traffic counts, they are on this map https://batchgeo.com/map/dffd78475ca0d105236f9860a0555b49

Does anyone know if the survey is available as a PDF?

Living on Wightman, I personally benefitted from the closure ( when did it become " filtering " ? - I suppose that's a more acceptable word than " closure " ) but I'm trying to think of the other residents of the area.

Firstly, one person's experience proves little but my journeys were displaced onto other roads. Instead of using Green Lanes to go regularly to Sainsbury's, I changed to crossing over onto West Green Road and went to Tottenham Tesco instead. During the closure, I would go to Tottenham Hale instead of Muswell Hill. Again, on my weekly trips to Maidstone, I would go via West Green Road instead of Green Lanes/ St Anns. 

There are two ways of assessing the impact on the surrounding roads when Wightman was closed - number of vehicle movements and, alternatively, time taken to get from A to B, which is what travellers are concerned about. As a selfish individual,  I don't care how many vehicles are going the same way as me: I just care about how long it takes me to get there.

It is possible that the figures for the bus delays ( which I have not seen ) were averaged over the day. Were there figures broken down for 8am-10am and 4pm-6pm which is when most people actually want to use the roads ? It is certain that journeys between Priory Road and Turnpike Lane/Green Lanes junction and between Manor House and Turnpike Lane were much longer than normal at these times. Wightman Road to Turnpike Lane Station would take me 15 minutes instead of the current five.

To take two other points - the Westway did move the jams to Marybone Road, but the subsequent " Green Wave" synchronising of the traffic lights makes it possible to maintain a steady 30mph between the Westway and King's Cross, this being a non-mythical measure leading to an amelioration of traffic flow.

How are " emissions-based parking charges " relevant to traffic flow ? An electric vehicle moving at 1-mph and 2- litre BMW moving at 1 mph are equally impeding the traffic flow. 

Synchronising the traffic lights with the new traffic flows would indeed be a key mitigation John. One of many examples you must have seen would be traffic from the direction of Muswell Hill towards Turnpike Lane which meets traffic lights at the Wightman Road junction - these lights did not appear to be altered during the bridgeworks. They still went green for traffic to turn right - of which there was none - for 20-30 seconds every couple of minutes. Traffic continuing along Turnpike Lane - of which there was more than usual, because it couldn't use its usual ratrun down Wightman and a rung - was at a standstill for 20-30 seconds every couple of minutes, so started to form a longer queue than normal. At the busiest times the queue was too long to fully clear when its own light was green again, so the queue gets longer, eventually back beyond the junction of Hornsey High Street and Church Lane. At which point (partly in the absence of yellow boxes at this junction - another minor mitigation) traffic exiting Church Lane (another set of traffic lights likely to need rephasing) starts to get snarled up - can't exit because the High Street traffic is now in the way. (I think there is evidence for this in that bus journey times from Crouch End - using Church Lane - were impacted more during the bridgeworks than the buses from Muswell Hill)

Same thing happened at GL/Turnpike junction - lights not adjusted to account this time for increased traffic filtering right. Same thing at the GL/Endymion lights. Same thing at the GL/Seven Sisters junction. Etc., etc.

All these incorrectly phased lights contributed significantly to unreliable journey times, so fixing them would contribute significantly to making journey times more reliable. Fixing them - perhaps with other mitigations but this is where I'd start - would allow Wightman to be filtered without causing unreliable bus journey times.

Option 4 has no chance of being implemented. Looking at the wording on the leaflet sent out, you can see that even Haringey are embarrassed that it's on there. They are taking into consideration the views of everyone in the study area, not just those on the ladder. In the initial online consultation, the most voted against proposal was... the "filtering" of Wightman Road. 

The problem is obvious - all East / West traffic, following the closure of Wightman, is forced on to two roads - Endymion and Turnpike Lane. Traffic which was spread out fairly evenly across the ladder is piled up onto two roads, one of which is entirely residential. No amount of traffic light reconfiguration is going to fix this. 

Hi Nick - I wondered when you'd emerge!

"all East / West traffic, following the closure of Wightman, is forced on to two roads - Endymion and Turnpike Lane"

That's not true, 8% of it evaporated - switched or stayed on other roads such as Seven Sisters or the North Circ, switched to cycling or walking or public transport, or decided not to make a journey at all.

"the most voted against proposal was... the "filtering" of Wightman Road"

That's also not true as I pointed out earlier here

Joe, you're nitpicking. Okay, so 92% of the traffic is forced onto two roads - still not great is it? Endymion Road is more 'residential' than Wightman - why should those residents suffer?

Also the survey shows 62 against the closure and 39 for. We're talking about the closure, not bollards, which have been discounted as an option anyway.

Any changes surely have to contain some sort of compromise, in order to gain support. Option 4 is a totally one-sided measure which benefits a select few to the detriment of everyone else in the area.

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