There can be no question of allowing anyone to again split our community by pushing ‘solutions’ which impact negatively on others.
An accurate and detailed understanding of where those who are passing through our area come from, where they are going and why they choose the routes they do is necessary before it is possible to devise with precision measures to preclude the choices they are making.
The basics are obvious. First, the routes through our area and Highgate Road running alongside it, particularly Chetwynd Road, represent the first real opportunity for those to the North West (from the North Circular intersection with the A1), North and even some areas of North East London to travel East to West in the morning and West to East in the evening rush-hours. True since the mouth of Chetwynd Road was modified by St Pancras Vestry to line up with Gordon House Road more than a century ago. Much of this traffic is unlikely to choose to go elsewhere even if the now largely unmanaged congestion points, occasionally extreme, elsewhere, eg Tufnell Park, were to be sorted. Second, is the variable pressure caused by the congestion points eg when traffic backs up from Tufnell Park. Finally, since the failure of the grandiose schemes a few decades ago for the A1 and Great North Road there has been a deliberate strategy of distributing traffic down Highgate Road, Dartmouth Park Hill, etc. In a spectacular example of why you can’t ever really deal with traffic on a local basis, this is confirmed by the impact of the decision to reduce the Archway traffic to two lanes etc and drive more traffic our way.
Another point to make is that the residents of Dartmouth Park, including the Newtown, travel both East and West and South for the same reasons as others who pass through the area but also to shop etc.
Much has been done in the past and the main mischief which it is said still needs to be addressed relates to a period of an hour and a bit in the morning and similar period in the evening and possibly limited to school term time. Both the 2009 and current ‘suggestions’, not, to be frank terribly different, impact on the area 24/7 and 53 weeks a year.
On the face of it, the local answers are obvious. In the morning rush-hour traffic must simply be precluded from turning into the area from Dartmouth Park Hill. This can be done either with electronic bollards or electronic no right (and possibly no left) turn signs on all roads from Chester Road to Churchill Road operating during the relevant period in the morning. The latter might need a system of enforcement eg cameras. Emergency vehicles and the C11 would be exempted.
Obviously, you could do something similar in reverse in the evening.
If the required studies show that the preponderant traffic flows result from the convenience of our area as a means of travelling East West in the morning rush-hour and West East in the evening ie getting into or from Gordon House Road, it is very possible that one could leave the no right/left turning signs on Dartmouth Park Hill unenforced and achieve the required behaviours with camera enforced arrangements at the intersection of Chetwynd Road/Highgate Road/Gordon House Road alone.
Thus, for the rush-hour period in the morning, traffic from Chetwynd Road would be required to turn left into Highgate Road (or, an even more extreme deterrent which would catch rat-runners seeking to avoid congestion, forced to turn right up Highgate Road.) Traffic on Highgate Road, except the C11, would be precluded from turning right into Gordon House Road eliminating the benefit of rat-running roads other than Chetwynd. The right turning traffic from Highgate Road into Gordon House Road is anyway a source of congestion and pollution affecting the schools on Highgate Road.
Such arrangements would also have a beneficial impact on rush-hour flows in Gordon House Road, to the benefit of the primary school, and on traffic flows in Dartmouth Park Hill.
In terms of this debate, one of the most extraordinary decisions the Council or whoever made in recent times was the removal of the road layout arrangement which facilitated Gordon House Road traffic from turning right down/south into Highgate Road but, instead, facilitated traffic turning left or crossing into Chetwynd Road.
Control here would be to force all traffic from Gordon House Road south into Highgate Road and along until the fork with Fortess Road during the evening rush-hour. Obviously, you can’t allow traffic to turn left (except the C11) lest you permit rat-running via Woodsome etc. This arrangement should also improve southward traffic on Highgate Road as, at the moment, there is some congestion occasioned by drivers negotiating the width restriction.
The single site Camera enforcement would also cover the existing rush-hour no right turn from Highgate Road into Chetwynd Road. This was an arrangement accepted by the whole community even though it results in a displacement of traffic to Woodsome etc.
In addition, albeit probably less satisfactory, one could allow traffic to turn both left and right in the rush-hour and extend the no right turn rush-hour ban to all the roads up to Swains Lane with the additional enforcement requirement of electronic bollards or enforcement cameras.
Really, it boils down to doing what it takes to stop Google et al recommending routes through Dartmouth Park.
Finally, most of the issue of passing cars doing damage to parked cars would disappear if peak flows are reduced drastically but can if necessary be dealt with additionally by removing a small number of parking spaces. This is an issue for most of the roads at the Dartmouth Park Hill end of the area.