Fox Lane Quieter Neighbourhood proposals published

Now we know, for detail of the Fox Lane area Quieter Neighbourhood proposal is available ( www.cycleenfield.co.uk/have-your-say ). There is also a large area map being door dropped. At first glance it would appear that the proposal is essentially in line with the themes of the two workshops held for residents to surface issues and then work together to develop a common solution. Perhaps this final step is not 100% ideal for some, me included, for I can still envisage the risk of unpleasant volumes of traffic and high speed characters on the area’s streets, but no amount of engineering outside of the total banning of traffic will stop that all too common habit.
More green would be good to help break long vistas of tarmac; perhaps trees in the planter boxes and the opportunity for even more planters, and perhaps pocket parks, in street areas where working experience of the plan shows volumes and velocity of through traffic remain at inappropriate levels.
But after 30 years or so of waiting, to finally see a Council tabling positive steps to redress the balance between residents of a street and through traffic is extremely heartening. And of course if the impact unfortunately turns out to be pretty negligible in practice, with large wagons and speeding cars continuing, resulting in residents then pushing hard for very significant through-traffic restrictions, then such drivers would only have themselves to blame.

To emphasise the problems from speeding cars in Fox Lane, there was an accident yesterday outside my house. I didn't see it, but it isn't hard to reconstruct what happened: someone coming down the hill overtaking - doubtless at speed - where he shouldn't, forcing another car coming up the hill to swerve onto the pavement, onto the paved-over 'garden' and through the low wall separating the property from my neightbours. I wonder whether he may not have been going too fast too, given how far he got before he stopped - 7 or 8 feet through the wall, carrying a substantial lump of masonry into the bushes.

Happily no-one was hurt except for some minor injuries to the driver of the swerving car, but the wall was demolished and the car had to be ferried away on a lorry looking very sorry for itself. If there had been anyone on the pavement at the time they'd have been toast (and this was only a couple of hours before there were gangs of trick-or-treaters roaming the streets). A friend was hit in a similar swerve-onto-the-pavement-to-avoid-the-oncoming-maniac incident a few years ago, broke 3 limbs and was lucky to survive; afterwards she looked 10 years older. (That wasn't on the Lakes Estate).

Needless to say the other driver made himself scarce, though he did stop for a minute before driving off. That gave a witness time to get his number.

Wrote on whole response earlier but it got lost when the page was updated! Thanks for all the extra info though.

In short:

Neighbourhood zones I'm struggling to visualise. If that picture were the bottom of Ulleswater Road, per se, how the heck does a car turn off Alderman's Hill safely?! Also increased inconvenience & danger for cyclists to try navigate when turning off the same - eastbound will require breaking almost to a halt to turn off, at a point cars already drive to fast and close-pass. I could genuinely see a fatality.

Similar on road narrowing. Terrible for cyclsits as Wightman Road on the Haringay Ladder is testament to. Cyclists get squeezed by motor traffic which has no interest in being 'calmed' unless something bigger is heading the other direction.

Like the 3D though - love the ped xing example in Iceland recently.

School street - not sure the point. It's a dead end and most of the congestion is suffered on Conway Road and Cannon Hill - which will now suffer even more as a result.

Picking up Bill Linton’s horror example and adding to my post of the proposals fitting with the earlier residents’ workshop theme, it’s also worth remembering the very large Fox Lane residents meeting where a unanimous vote agreed that traffic in our area simply went “too fast”. The (Fox Lane) proposals are in line with that too. Roughly a decade since that vote, little has changed regarding traffic speed issues as the Fox Lane garden wall Bill highlights will confirm.

Unfortunately none of the proposals reduce traffic speeds on Aldermans Hill or on a number of the roads between Fox Lane and Aldermans Hill. It may be that Enfield can’t impose controls along Aldermans Hill, but they can surely do more on other roads.

I don’t think that signs or limits to access at the ends of these roads will prevent cars accelerating along them, particularly where there is a clear end to end view. Why don’t Lakeside, Grovelands and Old Park Roads warrant traffic calming measures other than at their end? Ulleswater has three road narrowings and Derwent one; are speeds so much worse there? It may be that the way ahead is with planters at various points which can be adjusted as experience is gained.

There seems likely be a problem for eastbound traffic on Aldermans Hill wanting to turn left and negotiating the newly narrowed junctions. The plans don’t make clear, at least to me, the physical relationship between continuous footways (which narrow junctions) and “neighbourhood zone” furniture (which also narrow the roads) at the south ends of Lakeside, Grovelands and Old Park Roads. I wonder how these will interact and affect traffic?

The traffic island at the junction with Lakeside already makes a left turn problematic; it’s common to have to wait in Aldermans Hill when vehicles are exiting Lakeside and the need to negotiate the narrowed junctions will make it riskier given the speed of Aldermans Hill traffic. It might help if there was less parking near the road junction.

As a matter of interest, the traffic monitoring device on Lakeside Road had it sensors cut through soon after it was installed. I wonder whether this was the only sabotage and whether it affected the outcomes?

More later, but in relation to traffic speed on Aldermans Hill (Colin Younger November 1) a speed table was constructed there just east of Ulleswater Road, but an incoming Conservative Council removed it.

More on the FLQN soon.

Karl B. makes a strong point in highlighting that these proposals represent a very welcome watershed, but on the patch that I know well I'm a little doubtful about Conway and Harlech Roads because they are wide, have long sight lines and, on Conway at least, very high speeds are being reached now. I'm also a bit doubtful about whether the changes to Ulleswater Road will stop rat-running from Cranley Road, St. Georges Road, and other roads to the north of Fox Lane to Aldermans Hill. And, picking up on Colin Younger's point, I think something should be done to slow traffic speed on Alderman's Hill especially at the shop end, but also to enable use of the park by kids.

I'm fascinated by the difficulty of finding positions for 'build-outs' which is largely a problem of too many cars/too many concreted front gardens to make personal parking space. It would be a major task to reverse this situation, but people might like to try owning smaller cars (very many journeys are driver-only anyway), and hiring a larger/faster car for long journeys. That would probably be cheaper anyway, and make parking elsewhere easier.

And here's a thought: the widespread use of cars in cities and towns is under pressure worldwide. Perhaps we only have to wait.

I agree its good to see a holistic approach being taken to to the Lakes Estate's traffic problems which are twofold: excessive speed and sheer volume of 'rat-running'. Colin is right, these proposals will do little to reduce speeds on the link roads between Aldermans Hill and Fox Lane - many drivers see a 'straight' and cannot resist putting their foot down. I am frequently woken in the middle of the night by loud vehicles in Lakeside Road.
The recent huge increase in rat-running (now about 90% of traffic) predates the current road works on Green Lanes and I suspect is more to do with sat-navs. However the changes to Green Lanes will undoubtedly make this problem worse. I cannot see how the proposals will reduce the volume of traffic.
Lakeside, Grovelands and Old Park Roads, the preferred rat-runs, will get welcome pavement extensions yet Ulleswater with less rat-running gets 3 constrictions which seem far more likely to divert drivers into other roads. Why the imbalance? Am I missing something?
All roads have excellent planters at each end except Lakeside which, despite heavy traffic, has only one. Why? What is the rationale? It was suggested it would make it awkward for drivers but that, surely, is the point. It would be great to have an explanation for these plans.
I really do welcome these proposals but I fear the noise and fumes that now pervade my once quiet residential street will persist.

John Philips raises some reasonable questions, specifically the impact of the QN proposals on traffic speed and volume issues.
Having started looking at local traffic issue – probably over 15 years since – at the bequest of local councillors from the then conservative administration, I can say it’s certainly not straightforward. A significant voluntary team, hundreds of hours, surveys, analysis, public meeting, votes and all the rest plus a true working partnership developed with Council officers, couldn’t produce a silver bullet. We did however secure immense funding (many hundreds of thousands) from central sources to implement traffic calming measures. The same administration that encouraged this bottom up solution to this area’s widely acknowledged traffic issues then, at the very last minute, walked away and rejected the funding. Something quite recently described in the local press by one involved politician as highlighting “his credentials”. That said it all.
Wind forward to late 2014 and it all starts again, this time as the Fox Lane Quieter Neighbourhood. Since then we have (again) seen an extraordinary level of hard and soft data capture, perception surveys and in particular 250 locals who volunteered to become engaged in helping find resolution. Two workshops, with say 50 attendees each, worked towards an optimal solution.
This is possibly the most researched and widely consulted residential traffic area in London. What we certainly don’t need is more and longer consultation; now we are on the cusp of very long overdue action. It might not be perfect, at this stage, but it will be better.
Outside of closing off the area to through traffic, everything is a balance: to slow rat running traffic you either exclude it altogether (not fully supported locally) or implement hard measures such as speed humps (not fully supported locally). We also always risk street vs street issues; for instance the 96% of households (including two care homes and a GP surgery) in my own street who sought full closure acknowledge they are part of a wider picture and so work with the wider grain.
I would read the proposals as including 3D roadway marking pilot (might work?) and a road narrowing pilot (might work?). If either are successful then copying them to other streets should be cheap and rapid. I would like to have seen added a pilot planter(s) mid way on a street to see if that made any difference to speed (might work?). Again, if successful, that could be cheaply and easily `replicated.
The proposed end street planters should have a useful function in stopping the largest wagons entering our streets and other drivers doing so at speed. Both would be wins.
So yes, I can see the risk of residual speed issues, but also the possibility of measures being identified with experience to help mitigate them. What I can also see is the real risk of history repeating itself and lobbyists from eg N21 who complained vehemently last time that their right to rat-run was being undermined (I paraphrase) will be repeated, leading us to securing nothing as a holistic whole - for the sake of a shouty few emerging with last minute partisan views, despite the years of build-up work.
It won’t be perfect but it is based on immense levels of data and balancing conflicting interests and certainly will be better than we have been forced to live with. I suggest welcoming it and then let’s see where we go from there. Transport is finally a leading issue and the direction of travel is absolutely clear; we are on a journey and whichever way you look its pace is quickening and traffic volume and speed on residential streets is certainly not amongst its objectives.

Not sure I see much evidence of aforementioned serious speeding in Conway Road. I only use my car at weekends but usually pootle along at 20-25 MPH and don't find myself holding anyone up. When cycling midweek I rarely come across a car let alone a fast moving one - a noticeably tranquil difference to seconds off Conway onto either Fox or Aldermans.

Ref traffic calming measures, does anyone here with much deeper knowledge than me, know whether/why not modal filtering has been considered?

Seems the most obvious solution to rat running AND speeding, whilst not inhibiting cycling, and would only require a single filter every street half way down.

Ref the planters, they are a horrendous idea, clearly thought up by somebody who doesn't cycle. I can't imagine anything more scary than trying to turn off Alderman's, coming down hill, with traffic already roaring and raging behind, and having to slam the breaks almost to stationary to navigate round a lane-hogging planter rather than just swing safely into the street and out of danger.

Modal filters on each street and speed cameras on the boundary roads. Job done. Easy.

Ref' David Eden's comment at 9.56 on 6th November 2017. David you may 'pootle' along Conway Road at 20/25mph, and some others also do so, and it's true that on the whole the street is fairly free of traffic except on school days, but past my house (between Fox Lane & Harlech Road) some are going too fast for a residential area. If I remember correctly when the Council collected some data in a previous campaign figures over 70 were measured. These days I think it's a little better, but I think that most days will find someone doing 50, and after dark higher still; full throttle engine roaring. Streets like these are for living, not for cars; streets like this should be safe for kids at all times.

Well I've been sat in my front room working since 8am and seen not a single speeding car, hardly any traffic at all in fact. Busier around school opening/closing (which I don't see the QN proposals helping at all, to keep on point) but that's it.

Have always felt blessed to live on a street as quiet and pleasant as Conway Road.

If you are judging traffic issues as they affect Conway, then I very much doubt that it gets through traffic to anything like the extent that Derwent, Lakeside, Grovelands or Old Park roads do because these more directly connect Aldermans Hill and Fox Lane. Grovelands and Old Park are the worst because they offer a direct link through to Bourne Hill.

I had hoped for mid-road measures to slow traffic down in Lakeside Road, where the long views up and down the road are particularly tempting. At the moment traffic volumes are not great; it's the odd speedster that is a potential problem, particularly for vehicles creeping out between lines of parked cars, or for someone sleeping in a front bedroom. I don't understand why Ulleswater is getting so many calming measures. Does anyone know?

I recall discussion in the QN workshops about the problems caused by parents dropping off/picking up children for St Monica's and parking in Conway and even Harlech, and ideas about imposing some sort of time constraint on access. The proposal to close Cannon Road instead seems entirely wrong, it will surely just increase the parking pressure on Conway and Harlech, and possibly Selborne Road.

Part of the disparity between David E. and myself may be due to where we live on Conway Road, but I begin to wonder whether the bigger issue is a different mental picture of the concept of a purely residential street/area. I turned 80 this year, and when I was young there were few cars and deliveries were often made with a horse and cart. We rode round on our bikes, played a version of cricket with a soft ball, and played hide-and-seek after dark. Kids have different priorities now, times have changed, but speed should be slow enough for a child to make mistake and for an advancing car to stop in time nine times out of 10. QNs won't get anyway near that in most streets because the 20mph rule will be regularly flouted, as was in evidence when I stepped our of my car a little after three this afternoon.

What hope that kids could walk (as I did age 5 supervised by older kids) or bike (as I did at about age 10) to school (about a kilometre) as I did. Again things are different now - people often live much further away from their kid's schools - but we should be aiming for kids to walk or bike to school as soon at a relatively young age.

Conway Road carries a lot of traffic at its northern end between Fox Lane and Ulleswater Road by drivers heading for Aldermans Hill. Whether that has brought about the calming measures for Ulleswater I have no idea, or maybe there is simply space among the parking to do it.

Colin - I entirely agree. When you say 'mid-road measures', are they what I mean by modal filtering? I.e. a barrier that would block motor traffic from continuing the length of each road?

Conway is unlikely to have anything like the same rat-running pressures as it's less straight and less direct. And, speaking to David H's point, I can see how it would be different at the very top end of Conway as I've noticed some drivers do whip off Fox Lane but turn straight onto Ulleswater to shoot down to Alderman's Hill the quickest/most direct route possible.

Answering David's question.
I'm pretty agnostic about the detail of mid-road measures. It could be speed humps or cushions or optical tricks which give the impression of humps. It could be a moveable barrier, such as a planter, or even a more permanent road narrowing if a trial of a moveable barrier showed positive effects. The aim would be to discourage drivers having slowed down to enter the road from then accelerating along the full length of the road, which is currently temptingly unobstructed. Given the length of these connecting road I suspect that two such measures would be needed.

The issue would a practical one of doing this without causing problems for existing cross-overs or reducing on-road parking too much, since there would be opposition on these grounds.

Kids are too mollycoddled these days. I'm not quite as old as David (70), but I remember walking home from school on my own at the age of 6 or 7, a distance of maybe half a mile with a major road and another only a bit less major to cross. From 8 I was travelling from Sunderland to Newcastle - with support from my older brother, but he'd also started at 8 with no such support - involving a walk to the station, a train journey, then a bus or tram. I'm not specially adventurous but it didn't phase me and I survived without alarums and excursions.