Shadow Minister wants traffic commissioners
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• A new professionalism must be brought to transport, declares Mr. Peter Walker in a pamphlet (Cities For People), Conservative Central Office, 6d) published on Tuesday.
Mr. Walker, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government, this week also became Opposition Spokesman for Transport, a position he resumes on Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's transfer to Education. He says that cities should have a professional traffic commissioner responsible for forward research—a man who would "search the world" for the latest ideas in signalling methods and traffic engineering.
He would be responsible for seeing that all road signs were properly maintained; that the advantages of lane discipline were obtained by providing clearly marked lanes; that wise traffic regulations were enforced.
"We lack men with the knowledge and experience to be effective traffic commissioners," says Mr. Walker, "and a training scheme using the knowledge available internationally should be put into operation."
There must be maximum collaboration between the town planner, the traffic commissioner and the provider of the public transport system. Ring-roads must be combined with off-street parking facilities in our city centres and in turn with an effective public transport system.
"Far too often the bulk of warehousing and the railway goods depot are in the centre of towns," says the pamphlet.
"This entails an unending procession of heavy lorries, congesting the streets and polluting the air. All this could be avoided if distribution were organized from points on an adequate dual-carriage ring-road."