Hi All,
I hope you are all safe and well!
I've recently requested from the Council that, following relaxation of rules regarding temporary road closures, they consider closing roads to traffic across Haringey to allow more space for walking and cycling.
You can see my letter to the Council here: Letter to Council
This has already happened on my mum's street in Vienna, where it has been a huge success. It’s also been rolled out in Berlin, Bogota, New York, Vancouver and Washington, amongst others cities. Now Brighton is showing it can happen in the UK too.
if you have any suggestions for roads in Alexandra Park Ward then please drop me a line.
best wishes
Nick
Replies
Hi Nick, I'm really concerned that with more coffee shops etc re-opening for takeways it's going to be impossible to keep the 2m required distance on our pavements. There was a group of teenagers on Alexandra Park Parade outside the chip shop earlier which meant it was impossible to safely walk on the pavement. They clearly weren't all part of one family but that is another matter. By coffee shops etc reopening ahead of any government guidelines being relaxed we are are at risk of coming out of lockdown sooner than it is really safe to do so. This was always the experts' concern from the start and it certainly was evident when i was out today. I know it would be impossible to close the Broadway or Alexandra Park Road to cars but perhaps the roads could be narrowed with barriers or something? I'm sure you have better ideas!
Crescent Road is getting busier and much harder to physically distance on - people were walking in the road to distance until recently, this is now becoming impossible due to rising levels of traffic, much of which is driving far too fast. Also bike rides with the kids has got more dangerous with people driving head-on, on narrow roads, at speed.
The whole of Palace Gates is, sadly, completely inappropriate for children or novice cyclists and is a huge barrier to journeys further afield - the busy roads have too much traffic for comfortable sharing and the less busy roads often have speeding vehicles on them, there's no 'safe' route through. Maybe the current crisis will lead Haringey to start valuing the health of residents more than the journeys of people driving through. I sincerely hope so.
It's a good initiative and is happening in Lambeth and I believe Camden are also introducing extra segregated space for pedestrians and cyclists. Last week the SNT send round an email regarding traffic stops in Alexandra Palace. There were some arrests and vehicles confiscated (no tax, no insurance) Also suspended warnings for speeding. Same old problem in Palace Gates. Surely it's time the council did something?
Thank you so much, Nick. I had not heard about these developments in other cities, but it absolutely makes sense. Even though there is very little traffic on our roads, many of the cars are taking the opportunity to race well past the speed limit, so it is no safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
There has been a considerable amount of traffic on our roads, we counted more than 400 vehicles per hour in the rush hour (mornings and evenings) in Crescent Road 20 years ago. In Alexandra Park Road the daily number of vehicles was a horrifying ~1700 per day, pre-COVID. We cannot let this continue - the correlation between pollution and effect on health is well documented.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next