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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

As usual nothing to google. Plans are to propose parking on one side only, and get rid of the pedestrian islands, creating an environment for greater traffic flow. I would demand speed control cameras, not many vehicles passing through obey the 20MPH speed restriction.

Stoke Newington have installed one on Green Lanes north of Manor House.

What about our children crossing to get trains from Hornsey & Harringay Stations, or those getting to South Harringay, North Harringay, Hornsey School for girls, Heartlands, or Highgate Wood.

I believe there is a  meeting tonight at:

Cyprus Kitchen
Turkish Cypriot Community Association,628-630 Green Lanes

@ 7PM, (please correct me if this is wrong.)

(Title slightly edited by Site Admin to allow this thread to serve as the general thread for the Wightman Parking consultation)

Tags for Forum Posts: harringay traffic study, ladder parking changes, traffic, wightman road improvements

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I replied and asked the council the following:

In an email exchange with Gary Smith of the Engineering team some time ago, I was informed that sinusoidal profiled speed humps would be used when introducing them to a carriageway. Why is this not the case for the proposal in Endymion Road?

"The speed humps on Tollington park are of a sinusoidal profile and are designed to be more cycle friendly; this type of hump will be introduced to replace existing humps when carriageway resurfacing is carried out in a road and also when humps are introduced as part of new schemes."

Yes there seems to be a new zebra crossing on Alroy Rd controlled by belisha beacons. The two existing uncontrolled/"informal" red paint crossings are being raised along with the roundabout itself.

Nick G-T re sinusoidal humps - it's a bus route (W5) so, like Oakfield Rd, it has to be tables not humps for the safety of passengers, I believe.

I started off fairly open-minded about this but the more I think about it the more alarming it seems. Are there any precedents for successfully installing "informal crossings" on similarly busy roads?

There are informal crossings by the Wood Green shopping mall, but (a) there is a median strip so pedestrians only need to wait for a gap in one lane of traffic before starting to cross (b) there are signal-controlled crossings fairly nearby in both directions which slows down and creates natural gaps in the traffic and (c) it's obvious that the area has high pedestrian flows so motorists should generally be on guard (and it's not uncommon in my experience for motorists to stop to let pedestrians cross even though it's not obligatory). None of that will be the case on Wightman Road.  

There's also just one 20 mph camera in the borough, installed after the 20mph consultation I think. On Philip Lane at a complex junction with Clonmell Road, a zebra crossing intervening and then another immediate side road.

Hackney has three 20mph cameras on Green Lanes towards Clissold Park within 1 km. Others in the Leyton area I think. Surprises me that a 1 km stretch of wide road with good sightlines has had at least 12 serious accidents in 3 years to meet the criteria that Haringey cites.

The Council have now sent out the papers from Monday night's meeting detailing the Wightman Road / Ladder parking proposals. I am attaching them to this thread.

1. 3 year Implementation Plan Short Term Options - all options that came out of the Harringay Traffic Study

2. Parking Beat Survey - Haringey's suspect Ladder parking usage data (see my comment above)

3. Then zipped in the final attachment WR.zip - a. Presentation - Monday night's presentation b. Five maps showing the Wightman proposals

Attachments:

Frobisher and Lausanne are completely full at midday on a Sunday, so not what that survey says.

Here are the parking capacities for each road in order (copied from the Parking Beat Survey.PDF which Hugh just attached):

Road Parking Capacity
Mattison Road 223
Wightman Road 214
Seymour Road 158
Hewitt Road 150
Warham road 147
Beresford Road 146
Sydney Road 141
Allison Road 140
Fairfax Road 140
Effingham Road 139
Raleigh Road 131
Pemberton Road 129
Falkland Road 128
Hamdon Road 124
Duckett Road 123
Green Lanes 123
Lausanne Road 121
Cavandish Road 118
Frobisher Road 116
Burgoyne Road 115
Umfreville Road 115
Lothiar Road S 62
Lothiar Road N 53
Willouhby Road 42
Endymion Road 40
Turnpike Lane 33
Woollaston Road 33
Venetia Road 25
Atterbury Road 23
Coningsby Road 23
Tancred Road 20
Alroy Road 15
Denmark Road 0
Denmark Road (47-62) 0
TOTAL 3310

Apparently Mattison has more parking than Wightman or perhaps that is a typo.

I understand the capacities were calculated by dividing the total length of parking area by 5metres i.e. the average space taken by a parked car. I think the officers said the actual occupancies for each hour of the day were calculated using cameras but I'm not sure how.

Be interesting to know - for those who might be thinking "there's never any space on Sunday night" or whenever - just how many cars actually manage to park there when there are no spaces. And compare that with the council figures for capacity and occupancy for that particular day and hour.

In my experience there is always space on Wightman. And I know several Wightman residents who prefer to park at the top of a rung - parking onto a tight space on a kerb is a tricky manoeuvre, plus there's a high risk of a wing mirror being clipped by one of the 116,000 vehicles per week using Wightman Road. At the other end of the rungs, spaces get used by restaurant and other visitors who can park for free after 6pm and there's a knockon effect for residents all the way up. It might be easy enough to fix that problem by increasing the CPZ hours.

I looked at Hewitt on the night of the meeting. Here's what I wrote in my comment above:

Whilst Haringey's data accurately reflected the number of cars parked on the road late on a Monday night (their 128 vs my 129), it overestimated capacity by 14%. This meant that the "stress' level they calculated at 85% (in other words parking at 85% capacity) was more realistically at 99%.

On the ground this meant there was just one mini-compact parking space free (along with four unused disabled spaces). On Tuesday night there were no spaces and on Wednesday two right at the bottom of the road, which I assume had recently been released by departing customers of one of the place son Green Lanes. Haringey's data points to there being twenty or so. That's a big margin of error which contrasts a miscalculation of there being some spare capacity with the reality that  there is next to none or none at all.. 

The council is indeed doing something very positive for pedestrians, by removing pavement parking and restoring the full width of the pavement for its intended purpose.

The details of exactly how they are doing this (by moving parking to one side of the road) seem designed to maximise the convenience of through traffic and will be at the expense of car-owning residents some of whom would obviously like to park near or on the same side of the street as their home.

The council is doing precisely nothing to reduce the volume of traffic and pollution and that volume of traffic means Wightman will still be pretty hostile to cyclists.

So the council "finally doing something positive" is a bit of a curate's egg description.

In reality, Tris, the Council are doing the least they can get away with after a very expensive study exercise. Neither they, nor you, should expect those of us who live on the Ladder to jump up and down with joy at such a result. I've welcomed the upside of the proposal but I don't feel obliged to view the measure without criticism. What I wrote in my first comment above was:

"All in all, there was a positive response to the new parking arrangements, but there is real cause for concern both about the ease and safety of pedestrian movement on Wightman as well as potential parking issues on the rung roads."

I and most of those at the meeting spent 80% of the time discussing pedestrian issues, but there is also a potential issue around parking and I feel no shame in flagging it up.

There may be people who will just assume that because the Council is doing something it will be good. Perhaps you do. As to years of campaigning on Wightman Road, my concern on traffic has never been focussed on Wightman Road. My concern has been ladder-wide since the Council started "doing something positive" about traffic on the Ladder and in the wider neighbourhood about 15 or so years ago.

Well true, Haringey Council are finally doing something! The fact is that an initial positive plan for Wightman has been whittled down to satisfy nobody except drivers who will now find it much easier to rat run.  

Once this goes out to consultation it will be thrown out by residents who see it for the poor deal it is and the council can breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to address the problem after all.

Status Quo - good for drivers - rubbish for residents.

Harringay needs some strong local councillors who will stop at nothing to deliver for residents on this issue - sadly we don’t at the moment. This is a classic example of where strong local leadership is vital. Lets hope local elections in May change that. 

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