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People and Cities—Too Many Surveys

15th January 1965
Page 29
Page 29, 15th January 1965 — People and Cities—Too Many Surveys
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

" WHEN I consider the traffic situation VI' as it is today, with delays and frustrations occurring with predictable regularity, whilst accidents in ever increasing numbers strike closer to one's personal life, I am shocked at what the consequences might be in 10 years' time." So commented Mr. James .Drake,, county surveyor and bridgemaster of Lancashire County Council, speaking at the British Road Federation conference "People and Cities; Lancashire" held in Liverpool yeSterday.

Mr. Drake went on to describe how, together with many 'other highway engineers, he had been trying to warn successive Governments for 15 years of the dangers ahead, with little success. He had hoped that when Professor Buchanan repeated those warnings there would have been appreciable advances towards remedying the situation. Unfortunately all that seemed to have happened was a demand for bigger and bigger surveys. It could take at least 10 years for surveys to be translated into plans, said Mr. Drake. The situation had reached a state when something must be done now.

The city planning officer of Liverpool, Mr. Walter G. Bor, said that the impact of the motorcar had galvanized their town planning thinking. They were beginning to see more clearly the ways and means whereby the conflict between the pedestrian and the vehicle, traffic and environment, and the competing claims of .public and private transport could be 'resolved. Speaking on the need for public transport, Mr. Bor said that it should be made as attractive as possible, and therefore door-to-door travel times should be as low as was economically feasible.

it had been found that people would walk up to fmile to a railway station, he continued, and therefore it seemed logical to assume that they would walk this distance to a stop on any " express " service: Thus an express bus service running at an average speed of 30 mph. with stops at 1-mile intervals could serve a band of development of roughly mite wide. Bus services were more flexible than rail, and an express bus could leave a primary road, becoming a 'feeder ". Also speaking at the conference was Mr. D. G. Stokes, managing director of the Leyland Motor Corporation, who stressed the urgency of carrying out research to discover how much a comprehensive programme of urban redevelopment in Britain would cost. Referring to the Buchanan Report, Mr. Stokes said that the cost of applying the Report's principles could amount to around £18,000 million in the next 50 years for road improvements alone. This, he added, seemed a truly daunting figure but over 50 years, during which lime we should expect a considerable amount of rebuilding in our towns anyway, the figure was not so alarming. He said that a Leyland Motors' study of the effect of recent motorway construction on the company's transport costs showed that savings of between five and 10 per cent were possible on selected routes.

Mr. Stokes also referred to the subject of transport integration. Britain had a road network that most people would agree was inadequate and a railway network which many people would.consider to be under-used. The argument was put forward,. therefore, that before investing further capital in building motorways, as much traffic as possible should be re-routed to rail. In his view this was a much over-simplified and under-sophisticated case, and the true position required an economic decision. In deciding what investment there should be in road and rail, a comparison of the different rates of return was required but, this information was hard to obtain.


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