Haringey’s streets and associated parking provide an important role in enabling travel around the borough but this infrastructure takes up a large share of the borough’s space and requires considerable funding from Haringey ratepayers to build and maintain.
Our city’s road infrastructure is dominated by car users both in terms of road users and the space taken up by parked cars, with Haringey being one of the London boroughs were on-street parking dominates.
This would be less problematic if all Haringey residents used our roads in the same way, but only 40% of Haringey households have a car. It problem comes as no surprise that poorer households are more likely to rely on public transport with car ownership strongly associated with higher incomes (need for reference).
Whilst parking controls cover much of Haringey, permits for residents’ on street parking typically only partially cover the costs associated of providing the space and the associated infrastructure, providing a subsidy to Haringey’s car owners. This subsidy becomes even clearer when you compare the cost of residential parking with the equivalent private car parking. Estimates from the Centre for London suggest motorists would need to pay at least 10 times more if they opted for alternatives to on street parking face. Given the underfunding of many local council resources
Aside from subsidising car ownership, on street car parking takes up precious space which could be used in a way that helps a broader cross section of local residents and provide a borough designed for residents rather than cars.
If you would like to see better use of Haringey’s streets, send a message to your councillor asking for on street parking for cycle lanes, on street bike storage, space for bike share schemes and school streets, sustainable drainage systems and parklets- we’ll have more information on these in the coming weeks.
