Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 75
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'SLICKER CITY
ONCE upon a time the worst fate that could be imagined for a town was the draining away of its inhabitants, It was the fashion to mourn the deserted village and the city of dreadful night where
"The street-lamps always burn; but scarce a Casement In house or palace front from roof to basement Doth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast."
More recently attention has been concentrated on the opposite danger of a congested town choked with its own traffic. With Mr. Christopher Brunner's paper, "Cities— Living with the Motor Vehicle," the wheel has turned full circle. He makes clear, perhaps clearer than ever before, that a city may wither away and die if it fails to make proper provision for the all-conquering car. .
The negative approach is futile, says Mr., -Brunner. Positive, energetic action is needed. As it becomes more ' and more difficult for cars to come into and -stay in the centre of a city, there will be a tendency for shops and other amenities to move to the outskirts. An urban sprawl may not do much harm in large countries such r as the _ United States or Australia, but in Britain cities must be . prevented from disintegrating further. Mr. Brunner there-fore suggests a combination of higher density building,. especially towards the centres of cities, and the establish• ment of more new or expanded towns.
Although Mr. Brunner almost entirely concerns himself with the private car, his conclusions must be of great interest to commercial-vehicle operators. He describes his object precisely as the presentation of "a case for altering cities so that cars can be used in them." The bus, coach and lorry .users .may well wonder where they fit into the picture.. Until not so long ago they seemed the main people concerned, The Government and the Opposition have at various times agreed that the main reason for building new roads, and especially motorways, was to help trade and industry. The general public have assumed that the private motorist was the beneficiary.
Argument Is Won
The argument for a massive road programme has been won, even if the money has still to be found. It may be that cities will have to adapt themselves, as Mr. Brunner proposes, but there is justification for considering whether some adaptations cannot also be made to the private car. Mr. Brunner speaks of new inventions, and gives as examples airtrains on the monorail principle, hovercraft and commuter aircraft. He also calls for the "shedding of old passive beliefs," and it is strange that he does not follow up this point by suggesting an investigation into the car itself.
Nearly every car, in Britain at any rate, is designed and bought for a number of different purposes. It is first and foremost a family car even if rarely used for family trips. In consequence it is unsuitable, inefficient and uneconomic for many of the other uses to which it is put, and particularly for commuting the breadwinner. It is far too big for one person, and takes up perhaps three or four times the space that he really requires on the road or on the parking site. It is expensive on fuel and vastly overpowered for a journey where it is rarely possible to travel consistently at the speed limit of 30 m.p.h.
There are one or two baby cars and bubble cars on the market, but no serious attempt has been made to design a car merely for travelling to and from work and in con gested areas. The ideal would be a single-seater car, with low fuel consumption and not necessarily a high maximum speed. It should take up as little room as possible; and if the owner .could take it into his office and keep it in a cupboard during the day with his bowler hat and umbrella, everybody would be. satisfied.
All the reasons Why at present no such car exists can be found in Mr. Brunner's paper. One family in three in Britain now have a car, he says, but that is not the end of the story. " By and large. every adult would like to own his or her private means of mechanical transport,and Mr. Brunner sees the time approaching when the wish will become reality. ' He calls up a picture, obviously observed from the life of millions of people at the weekend polishing a well-made machine outside their own front door, before setting off, on a jaunt with their family.
Built Round Garage
If every adult in the family has a full-size car apiece, the ,
space outsidethe -front door' is likely to be as congested as the cities that Mr. Brurmer sees in danger of ;extinction;: .and thegarage space required Would be So ample that the house ViciUld more or less need to be built round it rather as Mr Brunner envisages the town. being built round the car. There would be less congestiorrif only one of the cars
were full-size and the rest vsire Single-seaters.
It is true that in North America there•are already more cars than families, but nothing remotely resembling the development I have suggested has taken place. As Mr. . Brunner points out, there is far more room in America than over herefor the expansion of towns, of population and of the number of cars. Space is precious in Britain. If a serious attempt has to be made, as Mr. Brunner suggests, to limit the size of cities, an equally serious attempt might be made to limit and in some cases reduce the size of cars.
The commercial-vehicle operator, and particularly the carrier of goods, has always accepted this principle for himself. It may have seemed so self-evident that he has never thought to put it into words. The vehicle he sends on a job is obviously chosen with an eye on the weight and volume of the load. If he were lucky enough to have an identical load every day of the week and a prospect of the indefinite continuation of the work, he would no doubt have a vehicle built that was exactly suited to the purpose.
He may take some comfort from the fact that Mr. Brunner, in his paper, has not found it necessary to give him special consideration. The private car is the real stumbling block. The goods vehicle has in some ways kept congestion at bay. It has acted as a mobile warehouse for the shopkeeper and the manufacturer, who no longer have to hold large stocks of goods or of raw materials. If, in addition to parking space, the cities had to find room for extensive warehouses as in the old days, the traffic problem might be even worse than it is.
A small beginning has been made to the road programme. It must be followed up vigorously and imaginatively. Mr. Brunner mentions particularly the need for new urban motorways, and points out that there is no easy way to solve the road problem. Traffic engineering,. a novelty in Britain, will be helpful, but only to a limited extent. There is now general acceptance that -roads must he made to fit the traffic instead of the other way round. One is entitled to wonder whether it is not going a little too far to suggest that cities also should be Made tO 'conform to that Pattern.