Forum Topic

Number of cars owned in a Grove Park

Is there anyway to get a rough figure of number of vehicles owned in Grove Park.?The new proposed traffic scheme aims to reduce volume of cars passing through the area.  It seems to be at the expense of residents who will be forced to make massive detours. I believe there are figures available showing number of vehicles using the area each day but wondered what percentage of those were owned by Grove Park Residents.

Krysia Gdaniec ● 2335d35 Comments

Amazing how a scheme to improve a neighbourhood is met with so much angst.In the 1970's, the Dutch city of Groningen restricted cars from being able to cross the city therefore forcing cars to loop around the city to get from 1 corner to another as opposed to directly through.  This encouraged behavioural change, the rest is history and Groningen is now a cycling city with bustling businesses etc. I think challenging certain aspects of a scheme of highlighting problems is absolutely fine however people should try and think longterm too.  Grove Park used to be far quieter neighbourhood now it is a bit of rat run and so we should weight up the opportunities too.

Matthew Swain ● 2335d

Of the 8300 cars using Grove Park Bridge daily to get to Sutton Court Road more than 2000 are local residents. So on that basis 1 in 4 cars on the Grove Park roads are local residents. That's too many to make our streets safe, which is what the majority of respondents in the consultation requested.

Paul Campbell ● 2335d

"residents who will be forced to make massive detours."There you go with hyperbole again...Massive: huge, enormous, vast, immense, large, big, mighty, great, colossal, tremendous, prodigious, gigantic, gargantuan, mammoth, monstrous, monumental, giant, towering, elephantine, mountainous, titanic; epic, Herculean, Brobdingnagian; informal monster, jumbo, mega, whopping, humongous, hulking, honking, bumper, astronomical, ginormous.A few hundred yard extra to drive is hardly massive.

Ken Munn ● 2335d

Ken, if you drive a massive SUV even a minor detour is a massive waste of fossil fuel, a massive source of CO2, a massive contribution to traffic and a massive cause of damage to the road surface.

Will Watson ● 2335d

Much as I hate to agree with a group of people who are smug and convinced of their own moral superiority, there does seem to be a lot going for these proposals.As far as I can tell many of the cut through routes in the area will no longer be viable which should substantially reduce the number of cars.However, inevitably if you reduce access there will be winners and losers. I don't know the traffic flows in the area well enough but I suspect these changes won't be great news for Fauconberg Road and Elmwood Road. Nobody likes more traffic on their road and to characterise the people unhappy about this as SUV drivers with no concern for the environment is just asinine. It undermines the argument for these measures because it suggests they are being introduced by one group of people to punish another rather than for the overall public benefit.

Paul Corcoran ● 2335d

The closure of Harvard Hill's exit will massively reduce traffic volumes on Fauconberg Road during peak hours.

Paul Campbell ● 2335d

That's not what my friend who lives on that road thinks.

Paul Corcoran ● 2335d

He needs to get the data. 1500 cars a day are driving out of Harvard Hill using Fauconberg Road & Burnaby Gardens to get there. 90% of them are though-traffic drivers. Less than 10% are local residents. Cut the through-traffic and add the local traffic to Fauconberg and you get a massive net reduction. The maths is clear.

Paul Campbell ● 2335d

"Of the 8300 cars using Grove Park Bridge daily to get to Sutton Court Road more than 2000 are local residents."Paul, at first glance 8,300 seems a bit high. That's nearly one every ten seconds throughout the day and night. Who provided you with that figure? Do you think they are correct?

James Petri ● 2335d

"Of the 8300 cars using Grove Park Bridge daily to get to Sutton Court Road more than 2000 are local residents."Paul, at first glance 8,300 seems a bit high. That's nearly one every ten seconds throughout the day and night. Who provided you with that figure? Do you think they could be correct?

James Petri ● 2335d

It is in the consultation report. It seems mad but remember that will be both directions. Three quarters northbound. Which means one very 15 seconds. That is why this is such a major issue. If you are trying to cross Sutton Court Road into Staveley from Fauconberg between 7 and 9 am then it is one very two seconds from personal experience. Then same in the evening peak.

Paul Campbell ● 2335d

"Of the 8300 cars using Grove Park Bridge daily to get to Sutton Court Road ....." That is only in one direction. You then have to add all the traffic in the other direction: how many would that be?

James Petri ● 2335d

There is an overview of traffic figures here https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/commonplace-customer-assets/southchiswicklnmap/South%20Chiswick%20Traffic%20Counts%20Map.pdfThe 8000+ vehicles per day on SCR is both ways. The majority, around two thirds to three quarters is northbound. The area is basically just a big bypass for the Hogarth roundabout.It’s a shame that so many historic Chiswick streets were demolished in the 50s and 60s to build 6 lane A4 and so many drivers refuse to use it.

Michael Robinson ● 2335d

Sorry clumsily written. It is 8300 cars in total using Grove Park Bridge daily to and from Sutton Court Road. 75% are northbound. It is a huge number for a single lane residential road however you cut it.

Paul Campbell ● 2335d

Paul I agree with you that this type of scheme has always winners and losers.Such is the high proportion of through traffic in the Harvard Hill area, if you take that out, rerouted local traffic is small in comparison I’m still going through the traffic survey data but of the top 5 vehicle movements captured by cameras for cars using Harvard Hill, 45% is through traffic and only 7% is local traffic (i have still to analyse the remaining less common vehicle movements making up the remaining 48% of traffic but the ratio of through to local should be similar)Certainly on Fauconberg the decrease of through traffic will be very much greater than any rerouted local traffic. Elmwood is also used as a through route to Harvard Hill but to a much lesser extent than Fauconberg but then Elmwood is also used less by locals to access SCR so I wouldn’t expect much difference there following the closure.

Michael Robinson ● 2335d

"It is a huge number for a single lane residential road ...."Except it's not a residential road in the accepted term in that there are no residences in grove park bridge with access to the road. When vehicles arrive at and disperse from each end of the street they disperse in different directions so the numbers in any one residential street direction thereafter are reduced.

James Petri ● 2334d

The same number of cars are on Sutton Court Road which is a single lane residential road to which Grove Park Bridge is the access and egress point. Here is another interesting number for you: 5000 daily cars on Staveley Road.

Paul Campbell ● 2334d

I agree with Krysia about massively increased journey times for residentsHere is my daughters daily journey My daughter lives in grove park GP zone She works in Brentford and needs her car for work. She drops off child at SOTG and continues to work a journey usually of approx 10 to 15 mins. New scheme  means she will drop off child turn around and return via Sutton court A4 and south circ to Brentford. New journey time doubled. In the evening to get home and collect child she can no longer enter SOTG vía Kew so will need to do longer route on already clogged arteries. Again this could easily be half hour journey. Twice a week she has to visit a Kingston hospital. Her normal route is Hartingdon Rd and then onwards. That is unchanged but returning she will no longer be able to return directly via Hartingdon or Staveley if during peak school time as this too closed So she would need to continue to Hogarth roundabout and then back via Sutton court rd. Another significantly increased journey time. Working and with babies and children it is not possible to cycle or walk everywhere. She is not alone. Residents will be effectively causing more pollution and add to clogging of already clogged arteries. I do think the scheme needs rethinking as to how residents are impacted. Agree less traffic passing through GP is good but if residents have significantly increased journey times and are prevented from driving round local roads it’s not a good think. Issues also arrive for delivery vehicles and bin collections etc. Where will the turning points be for these vehicles on the no through roads. Her emission output will be significantly increased, her stress levels too. Previously able to do most of her journey on local roads now forced onto clogged  dangerous arteries. On and if one is closed or blocked then mayhem ensues. Scheme needs tweaking for residents.

Sean Wales ● 2334d

Sean,Policy from government, TfL and borough is clear that reducing traffic through residential areas is a higher priority than the convenience of some people's car journeys.Ot put another way, some things in life are more important than saving some time on a car journey, such as the benefits from reducing overall traffic through the area.It simply isn't possible to have cake and eat it to reduce traffic with no inconvenience for some car journeys for some people.That's good as it will mean many will rethink their travel habits.

Michael Robinson ● 2334d

As I mentioned elsewhere, if your school drop off is within the 'Access Only' section of Thames Road, you might be allowed to drive into it from one end 'for access', and then drive out the other. Whether you'd be penalised would depend on the time allowance they set on the ANPR cameras, though allowing school drop offs is usually discouraged. Using ANPRs seems to be an elaborate and confusing solution, when blocking off the Kew Bridge end of Strand on the Green and the Harvard Road access to and from the A4, could be done cheaply and quickly.

Peter Evans ● 2334d

Blocking off the Kew Bridge End of Strand of the Green would make it much, much worse for all those residents of Thames Road and the roads off Thames Road and increase the amount of traffic in the Grove Park area (compared to the ANPR proposal).If you live there and want to end up going towards Kew/Brentford it will result in a much larger diversion that the Stile Hall/Wellesley Road new restrictions have resulted in.If you are going to limit access, ANPR is by far a better way of doing it while mitigating some of the adverse effects on the residents. Blocking off would be quick and cheap as pointed out, but it's a rather blunt instrument (IMHO!).

Andrew Jones ● 2334d

If there is one thing that parents of young children have it's an abundance of time to fritter away.  Good grief.  So, stuff people like Sean's daughter who lives are made much more difficult and probably will result in needing to arrange new work schedules with their employers to start or leave at a different time to account for these measures.I get you like bike rides and you don't like people driving around YOUR neighbourhood and everyone should follow your shining example but you, Paul, and Ken come across in these threads as absolute evangelicals and nimby's.  Everyone else should just suck up their inconveniences so your inconveniences are addressed.

Scott Doyle ● 2334d

Or, just imagine, you could walk or cycle your children to school - so much easier without through traffic using the roads.

Ken Munn ● 2334d

Same old same old Brocken record

Bernard Allen ● 2334d

When the finger points at the moon, the fool sees only the finger.

Ken Munn ● 2334d

Yes ken. Your full of them. When are you ever going to add to the decision  by adding some of your own ideas about the project? or are you just going to put up with what is dished out to the area with out a voice.What about the council turning the promenade in to a coach park with the two coach turning circles being created.So now, we not only have cars and vans to deal with. We now have PSV vehicles Added to the list.That’s a nice large vehicle for a cyclist to doge on what is ment to be a safe place Created for cyclist  and pedestrians .It has been mentioned by another poster that some parking for HGV’s maybe created as well. Amongst the so-called safer roads Hounslow has to cater for the large coaches as they have always done with the old coach park in Staveley Road, so they have to go somewhere, so why not just stick them in a public park, and the overflow in residential streets, which a lot of children use to get to the local schools.Is that a safe enough environment for you?

Bernard Allen ● 2334d

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1WsN31DP9fEJoni Mitchell is on loop at Fortress Lampton.

Adrian Irving ● 2334d

If I’m not mistaken I think, and obviously massive apologies in advance  if I’m wrong here Scott, that I hear the plaintive cries of the rat runner seeing their speedy route to work cut off for good. One of the 6000+ vehicles On Sutton Court Road and maybe one of the 1500 vehicles on Harvard Hill that will no longer be racing though our residential and school streets. There is a very small violin playing somewhere for you when you’re sat in you car on one of the A roads instead Scott. The case of Sean’s daughter is a different one and I agree that it would be good to see what can happen to allow the local residents in GP to continue to move about their area freely by continuing to push on overcoming the technical challenges of ANPR in a large LN. In the meantime the more people can substitute local journeys by car for other means the better for the greater good in the current circumstances especially but also beyond.

Paul Campbell ● 2334d

You are wrong in fact. I don’t drive through Grove Park at all. Your arrogance and know-it-all-ism is a bad look. I think taking advantage of the pandemic to rush through these plans and expecting people to trust Hounslow Council (!!!) is questionable at best.

Scott Doyle ● 2334d

Well in that case you can cash in my advanced massive apologies and maybe try to relax a bit as you are clearly not impacted by this scheme.

Paul Campbell ● 2333d

"I hear the plaintive cries of the rat runner seeing their speedy route to work cut off for good"Hey, Paul, weren't you the one waxing lyrical about your rat running route in another thread? Scott's right. Your advocacy is identical to the nimbyism you use as an argument against others.I see you posted early this AM. Given you like to cite the time in others posts as a means of belittling them, I'm just wondering since you posted before 7am if that disqualifies your point of view?

David Lesniak ● 2333d

6am is not early.

Matthew Swain ● 2333d

As you know well Matt, the early bike rider catches the Surrey Hills. Beautiful out there this morning.

Paul Campbell ● 2333d

Hounslow council say they’ve consulted the residents before implementing this ‘temporary’ scheme. I live in the CS zone of Grove Park and have not received any consultation from the council. I agree that over the years Grove Park has become a rat run, however to penalise the residents who live there with longer, impractical journeys just to satisfy the council’s mandate is ridiculous. Surely the introduction of strategically placed width restrictions would at least solve lorries cutting through. I am also one of the local residents who uses Harvard Hill in the morning to access the A4, as Sutton Court Road traffic is always backed up and the lights seem to change too quickly back to red. By blocking off Harvard Hill to exiting traffic, all the council are doing is causing more congestion in the area. I have read that the Chiswick councillors are unhappy about Hounslow’s plans, yet they seem incapable of stopping them. Surely the councillors should be acting on behalf of the residents.

Samantha Rabin ● 2333d

Top man Paul, not hit the hills in a little while

Matthew Swain ● 2333d