OPINIONS and QUERIES
Page 30
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Expedite Transport in Cleaning up After Bombing
I APPRECIATE very much your progressive ideas
with regard to the clearing and opening of roads, but there are still too many instances of blocked-up or fully closed roads; in fact, I think that some of the authorities concerned have not yet an adequate idea of what a road is. It is certainly not a mere passage through which the traffic has to be jammed.
Notwithstanding cases where roads or houses near roads are severely damaged, there are far too many instances where roads are partly or fully blocked by a negligible mass of stones or even rubbish which could be removed in a very short time. Even when deep excavating is necessary to replace underground cables and pipe-lines, is it absolutely necessary to heap the excavated soil just behind the same place and leave it there for many weeks? As some kind of transport is, in any case, necessary, arrangements should be made to deposit excavated soil so that it does not obstruct the road, e'ven when the soil has to be dumped at another place.
The time will not be far ahead when large places will become free from debris. What will be done with these cleaned but still not civilized-looking places? One suggestion is to use them as parking places for some of the motor vehicles which are now jamming the streets, and for this purpose the basements, if any, need only to be filled up with soil and debris, removed from another place.
It might be still better, in certain cases, to convert these places into air-raid shelters, with the special advantage that such strong walls as exist could be used.
The diversions road transport has to make owing to the temporary closing of usual lanes are sometimes of considerable length, and are due to the incorrect planning of roads a long time ago. The responsible authorities should be asked to investigate the means by which these diversions could be reduced to cause the minimum possible inconvenience, sometimes it would suffice to build a road through already untenable property, gardens or even churchyards. REFUGEE ENGINEER.
London, W.1.