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Permalink Reply by Alan Sitkin on June 27, 2013 at 14:40

It's awful and I worry especially about the kids at Bowes Primary. In the town I grew up in, some days the smog was so bad that student athletes weren't allowed to do their normal afterschool training because it would damage young lungs. It's tragic that with people's increased awareness 40 years on - and the improvements in car emission technology - we still face the same problems.

The root cause is obviously too many cars on the road. On top of this, I have been working hard advocating more stringent European level air quality standards - this was in fact the basis of Bowes Labour's official submission opposing Pinkham Way - but in truth that is attacking the symptom of the problem rather than the root cause.

So how to get fewer vehicles on the NCR? As a daily cyclist I'd advocated that everyone get on their bikes but it ain't gonna happen so move on. Getting kids to walk to school instead of being driven is also our policy but it only accounts for a small proportion of the problem. Investment in mass transportation is always the right answer but infrastructure projects are slow, especially in times of austerity.

Having said that, there is one friend from the anti-Pinkham Way movement who was showing me some advanced sketches for an orbital east-west public transport network. A great idea. Our currently radiocentric, north-south transport network highlights journeys from Enfield into London but the fact is that more and more traffic nowadays is suburb to suburb. I've championed the gentleman's idea at the Council but the fact is that a huge project like this can only be undertaken at a London or national level. Meaning that we should get Joanne McCartney and the MPs on board. It could be done a cross-party basis. Shouldn't be a problem. 

Lastly, there is the need to plan town centres more holistically so that residents can get more of the services they need within walking distance and not feel they have to jump in the car. We've tried to build that into the North Circular Area Action plan, indeed, it is the basis of the future development of Ritz Parade. Which brings us back to another thread recently started on the website

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