Here’s a date to put in your diary, March 5th. LCC, Londra Bisiklet Kubülü and Joy Riders are organising a Women’s Wonder Ride in London and we, together with LBK, will be organising a feeder ride from Enfield. We are calling for London to be a city where everyone can cycle. The ride is open to all who identify as women or non-binary, plus allies, i.e. everyone. The route in London will be on protected routes and safe for all ages and abilities. For more information about the feeder ride look out on social media or email us at info@betterstreets.co.uk

Want to book? All the details can be found here on the Eventbrite link

The cost of living crisis has forced many to review their household spending. For some that will include looking at whether they wish to own a car.

The issues are not limited to finances. Less than half of London’s households have off street parking spaces and, across the country, cars are parked 96% of the time. Almost three quarters of the parking is at home rather than work or elsewhere. This figure is increasing given the trend to work from home. On top of that are issues around health, pollution, addressing climate change, the proposed ULEZ expansion to outer London in 2023 and so on.

Going car free is a big step and many people still need occasional use of the vehicle. The good news is there’s a growing number of alternatives to owning a car – and plenty of real world examples. This blog outlines some of those in Enfield.

Options tend to fall into one of three models, car hire, car sharing and lift sharing. The latter not only includes the long-standing model of sharing the driving to work (which can also be sourced via liftshare) but also taxis in all their forms. This blog focuses on the first two models.

Car hire is also a long-standing model although the way the market operates is changing. Enterprise has branches in Brimsdown and Palmers Green and Hertz in Arnos Grove and Southbury. Previously hiring a car meant having to travel to a branch, but increasingly car hire companies will deliver to and collect from a customer, usually for an additional charge. Prestige and Europcar do not have an office within the borough, but the delivery/collection model opens them up to Enfield residents too.

The most significant developments are in car sharing, often along the lines of ‘AirBnB for cars’ (also known as ‘peer to peer’ sharing). Residents can hire each other’s cars from a little as 30 minutes to many days in a row. The technology is keyless which means you can pick up a vehicle with your phone.

At face value it makes cars available for those unexpected emergencies, which is a key barrier for many relinquishing their car. It also provides an opportunity to generate income from your car.

Some schemes have more cars available than others; beyond choice the key advantage of peer-to-peer sharing is that it means a shorter walk or journey by public transport to pick the car up. Finding a vehicle within a mile is definitely possible, and more so with advanced notice. Hiyacar now has almost 1000 cars listed under ‘Enfield’, Getaround, Karshare and Turo are alternatives but with fewer options at present.

In addition to these options, Zipcar is a well-known scheme with no central location – cars are located in allocated spots. Only a handful are in Enfield at the moment, but with potential to expand presumably if there is sufficient demand. Co-wheels is a community car club model, in its infancy in north London at present (and not in Enfield). Their success in Oxford is worth noting.

In addition there is Enterprise CarClub, an interesting development with a traditional car hire provider getting involved in a new model. Perhaps paradoxically an increase in active travel is good news for companies like this; the fewer people who have their own car the bigger the market. Enterprise’s own website states that ‘today our streets have in the most part been planned around the private car. This has led to an ever-increasing escalation in congestion, poor air quality and dangers posed to other road/pavement users. All of which have made walking and cycling more and more unattractive. We know however that such active modes of travel improve health, quality of life and the environment, and local productivity, while at the same time reducing costs to the public purse’.

At face value car hire can present as expensive. Car sharing options are much cheaper and increasingly convenient (although monthly subscriptions for car share schemes are common). When compared to the cost of buying, insuring and running a car the alternatives are far cheaper, with the obvious rider that it depends how often you hire, share or take a taxi.

Evidence indicates that those who share rather than own are making savings and have found other ways of traveling. The London report from this link states that membership of car clubs is growing very quickly, each vehicle in a car club has replaced 24 in private ownership and members are leading a more active life.

Giving up car ownership may not remove all car costs for those who wish to hire for a holiday or weekend away, but it can reduce them very significantly. In addition to this those who have a gym membership to ensure they get some exercise may find they no longer need it.

Are you thinking about going car free?

If so, what are the main barriers?

Have you already done it and have a story to tell?

What experience do you have of these schemes?

Let us know via social media.

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Dear Enfield Council,

Let’s face it – many of us in Enfield are addicted to our cars. We use them for all journeys, long and short, even trips we could have walked in five minutes. Are we just lazy? Or have we got into the habit because for many journeys, driving is not only the easiest way to travel, but actually the only viable option?

But now that we have blue bins right outside our front doors – and limited space in our black bins – most of us recycle. It’s been made convenient to do the right thing, so we do it.

The same applies to transport. We need the transport equivalent of the blue bin right outside our front doors. (We also need the black bin equivalent, because not every trip will work without a car.)

What is the blue bin equivalent? Healthy streets. Streets where you instinctively feel safe to walk, cycle, or wheel, no matter how young, old or disabled you are. You might get that feeling from a street that is so low in traffic, you find yourself strolling in the middle of the road. Or a street with plenty of traffic, but with safe crossings, wide pavements, and protected space for cycling. One or two of these streets don’t work in isolation. But when you have a network of low-traffic streets and safe main roads linked up across the borough, with every train station and bus stop easily reached by walking, cycling or wheeling, that’s your blue bin equivalent. Most local journeys won’t need a car.

Here’s an example. I live in a bit of Enfield where a patchwork of healthy streets has begun. Through traffic is removed from my neighbourhood, so on a street where thousands of drivers used to take a short cut, today I saw an elderly couple walking slowly along the middle of the road, and a father and young son riding home from the local primary school. I have lived in this neighbourhood for twenty years and I can tell you that before the council intervened, neither sight was even thinkable. No one would have walked in the middle of that road, of course, but even walking on the pavement was unpleasant, and there were many junctions with busy side roads to cross. Would that elderly couple have opted to go for a stroll in the area when traffic was rife? Or would they have driven to a park? And the father and young son coming from school on bikes – before, this was simply not an option. There was just too much traffic.

So the council has provided options that previously did not exist for many people. Driving is still possible, just as the black bins are still there, but now there are alternatives – for all ages and abilities.

We need this provision across Enfield. The statistics in the pockets of the borough that have healthy streets show a drop in car use and an increase in active travel. For those who haven’t got access to a car, or can’t drive at all (like all children) this must be a welcome liberation. And those who do have cars are clearly leaving them at home for some journeys. New habits are forming; the addiction is losing its hold.

Opponents of healthy streets focus on what’s been taken away – driving is a little less convenient when we can’t take every short cut. But think about what’s been provided – whole networks of safe, healthy streets where people have priority. We need more of this. We need streets that give us choices. We need streets that set us free from our cars.

If you agree, there’s an easy way to tell the council – use this form to send an email to all the party leaders in the local elections asking for ‘climate safe streets’, streets that allow more people to leave their cars at home: www.lcc.org.uk/enfield

Clare Rogers April 2022

What we said we do

1. Plan and action initiatives to encourage new cyclists to continue cycling
2. Support low traffic neighbourhood groups throughout the Borough, engaging in advance where we can.   Address particular challenges in the east of the Borough. We will need to engage with   cultural/community/religious groups.
3. Ensure that  active travel funding awards to Enfield Council are well spent (e.g. quality of   infrastructure/filling the Ponders End cycle lane ‘gap’/advising on Enfield Town to Ponders End   route/supporting Brownlow Road gate)
4. Map out our vision for the Borough and how we’re going to get there. Where should all the LTNs and cycle routes should be? Drafting an updated set of asks on that map, e.g. X% done by 2025. This could be tied into a call for a transport strategy in run up to the 2022 elections that includes key targets such as vehicle reductions

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Better Streets for Enfield’s Five ‘Asks’

Ahead of the Enfield council elections on 5th May, we are asking each party to commit to five ‘asks’. The ‘asks’ are designed to encourage and support cycling and walking in Enfield – reducing pollution, noise and danger and helping people to get active. They will also help address the Council’s ambitious climate change goals:

1. Traffic-free streets around every school during school run hours
2. A complete, coherent network of cycle lanes throughout the borough
3. Pedestrian crossing phases at all signalised junctions
4. An end to high-traffic neighbourhoods 
5. Borough-wide bike and e-car sharing schemes

If you’d like to email your next council leader to demand safer cycling and Climate Safe Streets in Enfield click here (it takes 2 minutes!)

We will update this page when we hear back from all the political parties.

• First to sign up were the Enfield Green Party on 14th April.

Five years ago few people had heard of a “Low Traffic Neighbourhood” but that has all changed. Here Better Streets for Enfield member Clare Rogers gives a very personal account of her journey over the last few years.

All around me London’s streets have been changing. It’s been extraordinary to watch. We’ve seen healthy, civilised measures erupt into the world – like protected cycle lanes and low traffic neighbourhoods and roads closed for al fresco dining – accompanied by a storm of controversy. It’s like watching the Incredible Hulk in reverse. A deadly, monstrous road system has a fit, falls into a coma and then breaks out into spasms of healthy streets. Who would have thought…?

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Sam and Roberta run Hot Milk neighbourhood cafe in Bounds Green and here Sam explains how their business is adapting. Adapting, not only to the low traffic neighbourhood, but also the need for fewer deliveries. This is a really good example of how businesses can play their part in reducing traffic and so emissions on our roads.

‘Hot Milk is based in Haringey but we have ties with the borough of Enfield Borough through many of our customers. We have been very supportive of the Bowes Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) since the beginning. As a business that receives many deliveries throughout the week, we had to look at the impact of the LTN. One of the first things we did was to investigate how we could get fewer deliveries. We started to consolidate in a number of ways. Firstly, we offered keys to all of our suppliers so that they could deliver during the night.

Our milk supplier was delivering every other day and we switched to a twice-weekly delivery. One less van on the road to us. We gave them keys to come during the night and they are able to put the milk in the fridge for us. They also now deliver all of our other dairy produce. We organised for our egg and smoked salmon delivery to be done by the same delivery company. Whilst they come during the day we have now limited what was a two drop to a single drop off.

Our pastry and bread come during the night – they have keys and are able to leave the pastry on our counter for us. Our dry store is now a fortnightly delivery and much of our fresh produce is coming from the local shops in Bounds Green. We discovered that they were using similar suppliers and we were able to support other local shops whilst providing a service for our customers. This is something that we are constantly working on, we are always trying to reduce the impact of our deliveries. Obviously the fewer deliveries we receive the better.

I also sometimes drive to the cash and carry, but my journeys there are limited and always planned not to be during the busy time on the road. I rarely encounter traffic by not driving at peak times.

Coffee Delivery
We have one coffee delivery per month. We now take 5kg bags which use less packaging than individual 1kg bags. We also run a subscription service and deliver these locally via bicycle. It’s much easier and faster to get around locally.

Passing Trade
Some groups opposing the LTN warned us of passing trade dropping but we would argue otherwise. Our trade is good and we are seeing cyclists, parents with prams, walkers, runners and more coming in every day. The idea that we are losing trade because people can’t drive here is madness. We’re a local heart of the community shop and want to be accessible to everyone.

One of the interesting things about the people we talk to every day is the absolute support that the LTN receives. People who walk here mention being able to walk here on a peaceful street which makes the journey more enjoyable. We’ve spoken to so many people who have offered words of support to the LTN. Not just parents, other businesses too who see the benefit of having fewer cars on the road. We have advised people to write to Enfield Council with their support but often know that with kids etc writing an email when they get home can be forgotten. We are very happy to pass on the many messages of support.

Bus Gate
We fully support the bus gate in Brownlow Road. The idea that people could sit outside drinking coffee and having less traffic while they do is dreamy.

To add, we are very supportive and would be very very saddened to lose the LTN. If anything we need to fight for more of these.’

Sam, Roberta & the Hot Milk Team