North London Coach Minister Promises Station : Help
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THE Minister of Transport is to help operators to find a site for a coach
station in North London. He gave this information last week in the House of Commons during a discussion of London's traffic congestion.
Measures to combat the congestion problem are likely to include more prohibitions upon loading and unloading in certain streets and thr abolition of more right-hand turns. The Minister said that he would bring to the notice of the issuers of the directory of road transport cafés, the need for including a route map of London.
Parking, road-safety education and mobile police patrols had also engaged the Minister's attention, but he was not optimistic about the early execution of expensive road-improvement schemes.
London's traffic problem was also discussed in the House of Lords. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu suggested that the present London highway authority, as vested in the Ministry of Transport, was not organized to take bold action. The present administration was incapable of dealing with minor improvements. How, then, could it be expected efficiently to execute the major schemes envisaged in the recent report of the Loadon and Home counties Traffic Advisory Committee?
Lord Silkin asked: "What are we wing to do with these extra seconds which we gain by speeding-up London raffle?"
Danger of Exaggeration He did not say there was no problem, )ut suggested that there was a great !anger of exaggeration He submitted hat the cost of 'remedies would irobably exceed the cost to the cornnunity of the delays.
He pointed out that by facilitating ravel, more vehicles would be attracted. -le mentioned the proposal contained n the County of London plan to move own markets to the outskirts. This you'd remove a great deal of traffic rem the centre. Before embarking on ostly schemes, said Lord Silkin, it 'nould be remembered that the dispersal f the city which would take place uring the coming years would reduce he population and relieve London raffle.
Lord Strabolgi contemplated that sotorists coming to London would lave to leave their cars outside the
boundary and travel to the centre by bus or train.
Earl Howe mentioned cruising taxis and horsed traffic as factors underlying slow-moving traffic. It might be a good idea, he thought, to make a regulation that buses must not pull out at stopping places. but should proceed in line.
Lord Sandhurst emphasized that the cost of road delays found its way on to the price of all consumer goods. The value of time wasted must run into millions of pounds a year.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, said that initially the Advisory Committee's recommendations would have to he the subject of experiment. The Government was not responsible for the delay in building a coach station in North London. He hoped that the action he proposed to Lake. would not justify accusations of the report's languishing in yet another pigeonhole.