Sacrifices By Road Users
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Traders Must Play Part in Obtaining Maximum Road Use : More "Tidal Flow" : Throughways for London
BY OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT
STRINGENT measures to deal with the problem of traffic congestion in London and other big urban centres were proposed by Mr. Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport, in the House of Commons last week. Although his ideas were of a preliminary nature, he made it plain that if they were adopted they would involve sacrifices and stricter discipline for all road users.
"As soon as anybody is hurt in the transport field, an immense scream goes up," he said. " I thought I knew the meaning of the words vested interest' until I came to this Department. I have made up my mind that, whatever happens, I am going to be unpopular. I have just got to make that decision."
Mr. Marples, warning shopkeepers and traders, told them they must play their part, like everybody else, in obtaining the maximum employment of the roads. _That meant loading 'restrictions. " They can write or send their chambers of commerce to me," he added. "I shall listen to them sympathetically. But it is my job to see that something happens."
• Study Group Outlining his ideas, Mr. Marples suggested the establishment of a study group of traffic experts to recommend a long-term solution of the traffic problem. At the same time, he expressed his willingness to operate a number of shortterm remedies.
In London, he envisaged an area slightly larger than the present pink zone, which ceases to operate on January 16. He saw this larger zone as a two-year experiment in which a traffic engineering unit could "act fast."
It would have to be a manageable area upon which an impact could be made. If the London problem, the hardest of all, could be "licked," an example would have been set for other urban areas to follow.
The Minister went on to advocate surveys of roads, with the object of seeing that traffic could flow freely. Any space left could be given to kerb parking and to unloading.
"I would like to see roads and kerbs painted so that every single person will know what will happen in every square inch of road," he said.
"It is almost like playing snakes and ladders: square one you can park; square two you can load; square three you must keep moving." Paint should be used on the roads to encourage lane discipline, because at the moment drivers "wobbled all over the place in a most alarming fashion."
The Minister stated that the day of the long-term, eight-hour-a-day parker in London and other big cities was over. Loading and unloading, too, had to be restricted and it was no good traders saying that this was impossible.
e.24 He thought that U-turns in the middle of streets should be prohibited. A start on this would be made in the pink zone, where he would order taxis not to do it when proceeding along. They could, however, make a U-turn from a stationary position.
More throughways were needed, he said, especially out of London. Throughways should be marked in a distinctive manner with a yellow line down the centre so that people would know that between 5-7 p.m. no vehicle could park.
"We should have more tidal flow," he added. Waterloo Bridge, for instance, was not built as a car park but as an artery to South London. Parking and central lamp standards should be abolished and there should be five traffic lanes. Four should be devoted to southbound traffic in the evening and four to northbound traffic in the morning.
He considered that his Ministry should set up a department of traffic engineers to apply appropriate principles to an area of London typical of the whole. They would take over controlling powers, if necessary, with the co-operation of local authorities, but would look at the problem in the area as one of through traffic instead of a parochial subject.
The debate was held on an Opposition motion regretting the Government's failure to tackle the growing problem of traffic congestion, and demanding a comprehensive plan "to meet a rapidly deteriorating situation."
Opening the debate, Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, in his maiden speech as Opposition Front Bench transport spokesman, made the startling proposition that concerns employing office workers in London should be fined if they failed to stagger working hours.
Compulsory Staggering
"We will not get staggered hours unless a measure of compulsion is applied," he said. "It is a very difficult thing to compel staggering. The only way is to say to people who employ workers in London that if they insist on discharging them at 5.30 p.m. they will have to pay a tax for employing people in London, but this tax will be immediately discharged if they co-operate with the staggered hours committee."
The proposal was criticized from the Government benches, and it was stated later by Mr. R. J. Mellish (Lab., Bermondsey), who wdund up for the Opposi
tion, that Mr. Wedgwood Benn was expressing a personal view.
In the general debate, a number of ideas for solving the traffic problem were put to the Minister. Mr. R. Gresham Cooke (Cons., Twickenham) recalled that during the last century the Victorians constructed 11 great railway termini in London. He said that in this century we should have to build motor terminals for our road traffic.
Mr. Ron Ledger (Lab., Romford) suggested that travelling on the railways should be free. Surely it was a reasonable thing for the Government to pay £165m. to London Transport and British Railways and induce large numbers of people to come into the towns on public transport, rather than in their own cars.
"The Minister may well laugh, but he will be severely judged in four years' time when he has failed to solve the problem with his pots of paint," he said.
Integrated System
Several Labour speakers urged the Government to apply an integrated transport system. Mr. R. J. Gunter (Lab., Southwark), who is president of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said that a modernized. efficient, dieselelectric railway system should be the backbone of the whole transport industry. The country would be unable to cope with the increased number of vehicles without a modernized railway system.
"Industry reserves to itself the right to send the cream of its traffic by road and to use the railways as a stand-by," he went on. "It would object to any restriction on the amount of traffic it desired to send by road and, at the same time, it would object to paying a full contribution towards the capital cost of providing the stand-by service, which is the railways.
"1 say to the Minister that when he faces the overall problems of transport he should pay attention to the financial structure of the British Transport Commission."
Mr. Frank MeLeavy (Lab., Bradford East) said that it must be accepted that road and rail had to be treated as a unit if there were to be a solution. He believed that industrial concerns were not seriously worried whether their goods went by rail or by road, provided that the cost and the services were satisfactory. "I am sure that there is a big future for an extension of the road-rail service system," he added.
Mr. Hugh Molson (Cons.. High Peak), who said that he had served as a junior Minister under three Ministers of Transport, commented: "A motorcar is a lethal weapon, as the casualties on the road remind us in a tragic way. We must have traffic wardens. We must have fines leviable by the ticket system, without court proceedings. We must have an extension of the towing-away system. We ought also to have an increase in meter charges."
The Opposition's motion of censure on the Government was defeated by 301 votes to 232.