ROUTED OBJECTIONS
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COMPLAINTS following the publication of plans for a lorry route to the London docks lead one to speculate on the extent to which the Ministry of Transport ought to be concerned with any loss of facilities suffered by drivers as a result of the change. According to reports in the Press and on the air, the main objection comes, from lorry drivers who have become accustomed to making their way through Barnet High Street, and who resent the suggestion that they should be compelled to use the Barnet by-pass.
It is said in particular that there is no place on the by-pass where refreshments can be obtained, and no doubt there are other things that it lacks. The purpose of the protests is that the Ministry should see that any deficiencies are made good before they put the lorry route into operation. Otherwise, presumably, drivers will refuse to use the route, and will have a good deal of support and sympathy if they resist attempts to direct them along the lines the authorities wish them to fellow.
This would be in every way a pity. The idea of a lorry route has been under discussion for a long time by the Ministry and by a number of the organizations concerned. It is a serious exercise in the still comparatively new science of traffic engineering. Its success depends upon the co-operation of a large number of people with widely different interests. There will be some inconvenience, especially for the inhabitants of the thoroughfares along which the extra traffic will flow.
THE Ministry, the local authorities and the police will find themselves with plenty of work to do, especially in the early days of the scheme. They will have a variety of complaints and to some of them they will have to give way. There must be some limit on the field they are expected to cover. The London lorry route is the first, although perhaps the most ambitious, of many similar routes. If it meets with too many obstacles the Ministry will be discouraged from pursuing the experiment.
It must be expected that some of the facilities almost taken for granted on a busy road will not be found on another with less traffic. Cafés and other places of refreshment are not exempt from the usual economic laws. They spring up in the places and along the routes where they are needed. They are plentiful all the way down the road that so many lorry drivers now take into London, through the centre of Barnet. There are few or none on the alternative routes that are not much used.
If more drivers take the alternative route now proposed by the Ministry, somebody will very soon find it worth while to provide the facilities they need. It is in most ways desirable that the opportunity should be left to private enterprise. The drivers prefer the free-and-easy, individual atmosphere, and it is the possible loss of this that is causing some of their concern.
No doubt, in any event the authorities would not attempt to set up municipal or Government cafés. The utmost extent of their interest would be to find suitable sites and put them out to tender. Even this would entail a good deal of time and trouble, and it is difficult to understand why even to this extent the authorities should be expected to make themselves responsible.
The procedure adopted for the London-Birmingham motorway does not provide a precedent. An entirely nel highway was being built as far away from large town as possible. Generally speaking, travellers would be pet mitted to stop only at one or two places chosen by th Ministry. There was no scope for private enterprise t study the market and decide upon the spot where busineE was likely to be most brisk. Having willed the motorwa as a self-contained ribbon of road 70 miles tont the Ministry had to accept responsibility for siting th ancillary installations.
HAD this not happened, the users of the motorway woul have been entitled to complain that the Ministry were m carrying out their duty. They would still be justified, eve though private enterprise took over once the site had bee fixed, in grumbling at an unsuitable or too expensive servic In the same way it seems natural and right for operato to expect official help when they are called upon to pa what they consider excessive charges for the towing awa from M1 of a broken-down vehicle.
There may be other circumstances in which the Ministi should justifiably be called to account. Commercial vehicli that come into town, especially at night, ought to be ab to find somewhere to park, preferably not in the strec In other words, if a town attracts a certain volume of traffi it must be the duty of whoever is responsible for th town to make sure that there is space for the traffic. Idea11 this involves the provision of an adequate system of lord parks, for the use of which a reasonable payment wou naturally be expected. No town should be allowed evade this obligation. Failure to fulfil it should be co sidered a civil dereliction and not the fault of the unfe tunate operators.
Once again, although municipal vehicle parks a common, a town need not be expected to run them itse All it has to do is to provide the opportunity for free entc prise. In fairness, it must be said that a town has no du to do anything more for the vehicle operator or drivi If he has space for his vehicle and has left it there,
becomes indistinguishable from any other visitor. I must make his own arrangements for food and rest.
IF this principle is generally accepted, it should also apt to special schemes, such as lorry routes, and probably t majority of by-passes. The intention is usually to ta traffic well away from the main centres of human activi The driver is expected to find his benefit in greater safe less strain, and smoother travel at higher speeds. Thf should more than counter-balance any yearning for t more sociable milieu that he is by-passing.
Naturally, no chance should be missed, if it is read available, of providing the facilities that a driver wan such as a café and a place to rest. To make this an °IA tion upon the authorities in every cast might prove t great a burden. The point of the present dispute appc to be whether or not the facilities should be provid as an essential preliminary to the opening of the new loi route. If they are not there, the task of persuading drivers to use the route will be that much more diffict It is surely not impossible, and once the route has been popular, or even before that time, the facilities will be to blossom of their own accord.