GLC defends its motorway plans:
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but public transport has a major role to play
by Derek Moses
• "The twin transport objectives of the Greater London Development Plan are to improve the public transport system and to improve the road system, which in turn will help bus and coach services. With a planned expenditure of £16,000m on roads and £13,000m on public transport during the next 20 years, it just can not be said that the Council is biased in favour of private rather than public transport."
With this statement Mr Peter Boydell, QC, representing the Greater London Council, on Tuesday concluded the opening defence of the Council's controversial motorway plans at the resumption of the public inquiry into the Greater London Development Plan, chaired by Mr F. H. B. Layfield, QC.
The inquiry into the transport policies outlined in the GLDP is expected to be the largest part of the inquiry, and for this reason Mr Layfield stated that five days eact week would be devoted to this subject during the period March to July, with a short break at Easter and again at Whitsuntide.
Mr Boydell opened the Council's case by stating that the present state of transport systems in London must not be allowed to affect the proposed plans. Transport, in the context of the GLDP, came under three main heads—roads, railways (including the Underground) and airports, he said.
The road system planned was the most complete new system ever designed for London. Some of the 14 radial routes inherited in the present basic system did, in Fact, date from Roman times. By the 1930s, the problem of road transport in London had become acute, but the first new roads designed for motor traffic were built during this period, such as the AI0 Cambridge relief road, the A13 through East Ham and :he A3 Kingston bypass, together with the Irst orbital road--the North Circular Road.
London now had 8000 roads which )ccupied 11 per cent of the total land in a'reater London. The efficiency of roads :ould be determined by road speeds. In 1962 the average off-peak speed in the aiburbs was 21.5 mph, but was as low as 12.4 'in the Central Area. By 1968, despite xtensive traffic measures, the speed in
Central London had fallen to 11.1 mph. The six most prominent evils arising out of this situation were:
O Cost arising from time lost in traffic congestion (£150m in Greater London in 1966, including non-working time).
O Loss of bus journeys made and lack of reliability of bus services. (31 million miles lost in 1966.)
O Number of deaths and accidents to pedestrians due to inadequate roads.
O Increasing volume of noise--not merely by volume of traffic, but arising from the lower speeds and time spent in low gear.
O Increasing pollution. It was becoming increasingly disagreeable walking and cycling among the heavy traffic.
0 The mere sight—in residential areas—of moving traffic.
A further hazard was the delay caused to emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines.
Freight growth
Also causing cOncern was the growth in goods traffic in Greater London. Goods vehicle registrations had risen from 190,754 in 1962 to 258,562 in 1968 (35.5 per cent) and were expected to rise steadily in the next 20 years. What was alarming, said Mr Boydell, was the increase in the proportion of goods vehicles with an overall weight of more than 8 tons.
Greater London contained some 1 800 haulage contractors, and the total annual tonnage of freight hauled in the capital was 220m, which included 8m tons by rail and 1m by water, Goods vehicles accounted for onefifth of the total movement of traffic on London's roads.
There was no single remedy to meet these transport problems, claimed Mr Boydell, though many had been proposed. These included constraints on cars and traffic schemes. One development had been the introduction by London Transport of large single-deck buses on a new network of Red Arrow routes in Central London—an bperafion which had been a distinct success, he said. Ultimately, the only solution for road traffic was the proposed road system.
Mr Boydell then outlined the controversial road plans, which involved a three-tier network of roads—primary; secondary— supporting the primary network; and local.
The primary system would consist of roads built to motorway standards, with a strictly limited number of access points. These would be both orbital (the three ringways) and radial, and would total 320 miles, including ringway three, much of which would actually lie outside the Greater London boundaries. They would probably incorporate special access points for buses.
The secondary network would largely incorporate the existing road network, but with some restriction of access. Some of these roads, where money was available, might be diverted past existing town centres, such as the A1-18 at llford, or may be turned into buses only roads, as in Bromley, southeast London. Extensive traffic measures would be employed on the secondary network, which would total 1000 miles.
To implement the above road network would involve the demolition of some 25,000 properties, and the GLC estimated that 20,000 families would have to be rehoused— the main cause for the widespread opposition to the schemes. However, only seven square miles of land would be required to accommodate the primary roads, and one square mile would be taken up by development schemes on the secondary network—a total of eight compared with Greater London's total area of 620 square miles, Mr Boydell renirarked.
The lowest tier of roads comprised local and environmental roads, to which access from the main network would be restricted to keep the nature of traffic on a local scale. About 7000 miles of road came into this third category.
Mr Boydell again stated that the importance of public transport was in the forefront of the plan, and the primary and secondary road proposals should lead to much improved and more reliable bus and coach services. The GLDP forecast for 1991 showed a modal split of 59:41 in favour of public as opposed to private vehicles Enter the Londoners The secondary roads network would greatly help London Transport's Bus Reshaping Plan, said Mr Boydell who then outlined the Executive's proposals. In its own documentary evidence to the inquiry, London Transport Executive reiterated its intention to switch entirely to o-m-o buses by the late Seventies. This involved the purchase of "purpose-built, high-capacity buses—which in future will mainly be double-deck buses". It was proposed to spend £85m on the renewal of the bus fleet over the next 20 years, and £40m in supporting services, such as bus garages, interchanges and so on.
New systems of transport were always under review by the GLC, such as "Diala-bus" or moving pavements. Pipelines might be a, new method of transporting freight in bulk, such as coal, wheat and so on. Over the next 20 years transport in London was likely to be based on conventional forms of transport, however.