(Short answer: no.) Hoisted from comments – in an earlier post I complained that TFL and Haringey Council were making “improvements” at Bruce Grove (that’s in Tottenham, north London) that make things worse for both buses and cycling. But some say London has too many buses. Continue reading
Hoisted from comments:
In my post on the Wood Green regeneration plan, I said: “There should be no private motor vehicles on Green Lanes between Wood Green and Turnpike Lane… Traffic along Hornsey Park Road and other N-S routes should be filtered, to eliminate through traffic”. In reply, Joe asks: Continue reading
The Haringey Council has published a set of ‘preferred options’ for Wood Green redevelopment (I’ll call it the Wood Green Plan, or “the plan”). It contains some good ideas but it stumbles badly in two key areas, and is largely silent on a third. The two areas on which it stumbles are open and green space, and road traffic. The area in which it is silent is any for of guarantee for the re-housing of people who would be removed Continue reading
Sadiq Khan promised during his campaign to pedestrianize Oxford Street. That would mean no buses or taxis (black cabs, which is to say traditional London taxis, not mini-cabs or Uber), which are the vehicles allowed there now.
I’ve been ambivalent about this plan because there are a lot of buses on Oxford Street and it’s not clear how they could be re-routed, yet a pedestrianized Oxford Street would be a terrific improvement for central London.
In November, the first installment of the plan was unveiled in a Transport for London (TFL) consultation. TFL proposed changes to 17 of the bus routes that now use Oxford Street, perhaps this year. They calculate that these changes will require, every weekday, 17,200 riders who now ride through would need to change buses – that is if, with that added inconvenience and delay, those people keep riding buses at all. That represents a serious deterioration in bus service, but it’s not close to taking all the vehicles off Oxford Street, and actual pedestrianization remains a few years off.
One might say, well, baby steps. Yes, you’ve got to start somewhere, but why here? The fact is that a large share of the motor vehicles on Oxford Street are black cabs. Many of these taxis are dead-heading, no passenger, to the City or a train station. As buses thin out on Oxford Street, they are simply replaced by taxis – the road becomes a magnet for ever more taxis, a grand rat run through the West End. And the November consultation is all about reducing the number of buses, saying nothing about taxis. Continue reading
I am careful not to be too optimistic about the future of cycling on London’s roads, but I did have faith that with Khan as mayor, bus service at least was in safe hands. Now I’m not so sure.
(Mostly of local interest in a small part of north London)
Until September, there will be no through traffic on Wightman Road.
Many of those who live on Wightman, or on the Ladder roads which normally act as rat-runs between Wightman and Green Lanes, are very happy with the reduction in traffic:
It’s because of a bridge repair, but it raises this question: should it be a temporary measure on just one road, or should Haringey take it as an opportunity to begin seriously to cut through traffic and pollution by private motor vehicles, and a shift to more foot, bicycle and bus travel?
Continue reading
Frederick Guy 