Forum topic: What a street in a Quieter Neighbourhood might look like

Interesting. Is that Karl's idea? Funnily enough, when the whole mini- Holland malarkey was in its infancy, I had a similar idea for Palmers Green Town Centre, except with cars parking perpendicular to the traffic flow.

But, I ask:
1. Will there be a clear space next to allow people needing assistance, or who can manage themselves but have mobility issues, to get in and out of their cars safely?
2. Encourages children to run into the road, when they are being loaded unloaded into/from cars
3. What happens if you want to drive out the other way. You'll end up having a longer journey and will increase traffic on other nearby roads?
4. How do you prevent the micro-parks being used late at night by alcoholics and drug users? They will be too small for active children's play during the say.

Who wants to sit on a bench in the middle of the road....???

Also, unless I'm missing something, surely this will cause congestion issues elsewhere (particularly ends of the road) as drivers won't be able to turn across the road to access their drives i.e. a two way road has been effectively replaced by two one-way roads.

Not Karl as floated for some reason, why should it be?
But more generally, and looking at early reaction, is what is oh so common in this locality, ie NO, followed by problem 1, problem 2, ..problem N. That's easy as I've said in respect of several other initiatives, projects and whatever. The difficult is being creative and progressive and building on ideas to make a positive difference. NO gets tedious and really does stop people bothering - think of Proms, Scream 2016, potentially Festival and what could have been Starfish as good for the area examples. Perhaps others could try and develop ideas for their own streets or the wider area rather than simply knocking-copy. That's all too easy. Personally, I'm well bored with it.

An good start for division however I have a further point.
If the recreational / tree zones were staggered on either side of the road say 75 metres apart, the carriage way would then meander from side to side around them. It is this sideways movement that reduces a cars speed ( I had the pleasure of a presentation by anti terrorist bods on this subject)
This as well as slowing traffic reduces everyone having to cross the road to access a play zone etc.
The splitting of the road as shown above also creates a multitude of blind spots to prevent drivers seeing kids stepping out and with only one carriage way there is no where for the driver to turn to avoid a collision

Peter's suggestion is much more sensible. But, there is still the problem of dealing with crossovers. There are a lot on Old Park Road. And introducing these play aras will worsen an already stressed parking situation. For goodness say the park is only a few minutes away.

I don't have anything to say about the the designs offered on this thread, but in the light of the getting the kids into the car example I feel it is important to stress that purely residential streets are for ......residents. The needs of vehicles will/should be taking second place to pedestrians/kids for designed convenience, and in the easiest streets to modify nobody will be at risk from fast-moving cars - in many cases 10kph would be an appropriate speed limit. If Mum or Dad is getting the kids into their car, moving cars will take second place (subject to the normal courtesies).

Somebody's bound to scream that this is not The Netherlands, and no one will go that far, but that's not the point. The point is to look at proposed plans from the point of view of pedestrian and kids, not primarily for cars, which I'm afraid is usually the case now . And I haven't forgotten the needs of emergency vehicles: arrangements can be made for them.

This has always been a question of quality of life and the freedoms of children, but now we are faced with health problem of an under-exercised society. Governments will be getting behind these sort of moves; even today ours was pointing out that it is spending millions on cycling. Not least the 100 million it spent to fund Mini-Holland.

In future space, as in Mini-Holland, will taken from cars and given to pedestrians and cyclists because, you've guessed it, pedestrians and cyclists take so much space less space than cars, and London is short of space and has a growing population. The pressure for Quieter Streets is growing by the day.

Where is the shortage of space for pedestrians on the streets of Palmers Green? We are blessed with wide pavements and lots of green space. The only problem is that many of the pavements on residential are in a decrepit condition. That is the real issue. We are not far off the day when most of the cars on the road will be zero emission and will be driverless and equipped with all sorts of tools to make them virtually collision proof. I would also suggest that car ownership is not a function of obesity and you will probably find that there is in fact an inverse relationship between car ownership and poverty. Mainly because obesity is closely correlated with poverty and car ownership is closely correlated with prosperity. In developed countries you may even find that populations who drive more, also exercise far including walking and cycling . Population that are more more prosperous. You will also find that poverty is associated with poor diet, leading to obesity. Not because of the affordability of wholesome nutritious food, but because of a lack of knowledge and motivation to do something good with it. Basically, we have the good old Liberal Elite campaigning for changes to benefit them, not the population as a whole