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World Experts Confer on Urban Motorways

RAFFIC engineers from 30 countries, industrial executives and

representatives from local authorities, Governmtnt departments.

and universities attended a conference in London this week, organized by the British Road Federation, to discuss how urban motorways relieve city traffic congestion. Pressure may now be brought to bear on the Government to build such roads in Britain, on the ground that restrictions cannot cure present difficulties.

Dr. W. H. Glanville, Director of Road :Research, and Mr. J. F. A. Baker, chief engineer (highways), Ministry of Transport, described the application of urban motorways in Britain, and Ing. C. de Bussy, Netherlands Director of Roads, spoke of projects in Holland. Mr. A. F. Hodgkiss, general manager of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, New York, outlined the economics of urban motorways, whilst Dr. Max-Erich Feuchtinger, Germany, dealt with design aspects.

• ' Other papers were contributed by: Mr. G. C. Richards, Detroit works commissioner; Mr. L. M. Braff, Los Angeles traffic department; Prof. J. W. Korte and Dipl.-Ing. P. A. Macke, Germany; Mr. J. L Barnett, Washington, D.C.; Mr. H. E. Davis, California; and Mr. J. A. Volpe, Massachusetts works commissioner.

Speed with Safety

" A N urban motorway is a highway for tAmotor vehicles only, a road which gives drivers an uninterrupted run through an urban or built-up area at the speed modern vehicles are designed to travel. It provides speed with safety because it has no side roads leading into it (they pass either over or under it), no mixing of vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, no sharp bends or steep stretches; and it has no parking and no shop or house frontages."

This definition was given by Dr. Glanville and Mr. Baker. •

By-passes were not the best solution for freeing traffic-choked areas. Experts had found that the bigger the town the fewer the drivers intending to pass through it. The need was for smooth dispersal of vehicles on arrival, for sorting out the mix-up of conflicting traffic streams—and for a drop in accidents, 75 per cent, of which happened in built-up areas.motOrways provided these benets, they said.

What would happen if we did not build urban motorways? We could try to cope with congestion by widening streets and making more of them oneway, by restricting traffic, prohibiting parking, banning right-hand turns, extending underground railway and bus services and staggering workers' hours. These steps would bring temporary relief, but the truth was that our reliance on the motor vehicle was now such that only new roads in towns and cities would meet the need, the speakers affirmed.

Where should urban motorways he located? The only complete answer entailed carrying out traffic surveys to find what present traffic volumes and patterns of movement were, forecasting future volumes and movement, and then choosing the best lines of route to provide for these factors. This sort of research was still in its infancy in Britain.

A start had already been made on building the first stretches of motorway in Britain, but, the speakers asked, was it logical to build a road enabling drivers to travel quickly between builtup areas if jams were going td be even bigger towards each journey's end?

Progress in Holland

LIOLLAND had decided in favour of 1.1 building urban motorways even though traffic was not as dense as in Britain, with Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague as the three cities first needing treatment. Cost was holding back far-reaching construction at present, but the authorities were not letting this postpone planning or the reservation of land 'for when it was needed, Ing. de Bussy told the conference.

Nations might boast about full employment, but many shirked thinking of the futility created by bad traffic conditions. Slowness of traffic was a bad form of under-employment of both manpower . and capital equipment. Inside factories more and more automation was being introduced. The same thinking must apply to (-Clads, especially in cities.

How Better Roads Pay

TRAFFIC congestion and accidents in 1 New York had been estimated to cost between £350m. and £400m. a Year, said Mr. Hodgkiss. Because of the way that urban motorways were designed, they drew vehicles off ordinary streets and offered drivers a safe, free run through built-up areas.

This meant lower fuel consumption, swifter fire, police and ambulance services, increased property values and changed traffic patterns, resulting in stimulated local business activity and simplified delivery of goods. Economic savings would be bigger in Britain than they were in America because the percentage of commercial vehicles and buses was higher in this country.

America was proving that urban motorways were a sound proposition. Two by-passes round Manhattan and two elevated express highways across the island would pay for their construction costs if they eliminated only 5 per cent, of the congestion on the local network of city streets. Fuel consumption on free-flow roads was about half that on crowded streets and deaths a third.

Learn from America

AMERICA was about 25 years ahead of Europe in road traffic developments, and although conditions there were often quite unlike those in Europe, much of American engineers' knowledge could be applied on this side of the Atlantic, Dr. Feuchtinger contended.

Traffic surveys in America revealed that 86 per cent, of the traffic on main roads started and ended in cities; only 14 per cent, originated and finished in the countryside, said the•speaker.

If road traffic in Europe doubled in six to eight years, and trebled in the neXt 15 to 20 years, some cities would have something like the present vehicle density of American cities. This meant that Europe would have .to build highways similar to urban motorways in America—or economic life would fade.

" We need.not necessarily copy American designs; each city must work out its own solution. It is not a case of urban motorways becoming fashionable; it is a case. of necessity. And London's traffic problem is likely to be among the most difficult tasks ever to confront traffic experts," Dr. Feuchtinger

rned.

' Need far Facts

THE great. obstacle in finding the best solutions to traffic problems was lack of facts and information which would enable action to be taken to meet future situations. To deal with this problem, America set up a National Committee on Urban Transportation in May, 1954, consisting of representatives from municipal, public works, public finance and legal organizations, and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, Mr. Richards stated.

The Committee decided to produce a manual for the guidance of civic authorities wishing to know what traffic problems they were up against. Nine sub-committees, with technical advice and help from federal, civic, university and private consulting fields, were assigned to investigate nine " logical study areas" and report present transport facilities and needs, and existing legal, financial and administrative machinery.

A preliminary manual was ready by February of this year and its value had been put to the test in Seven "pilot cities,Each of the manual's nine sections was complete in itself, so that a municipality could use one or more simultaneously, depending on the nature and urgency of its problems.

Lessons learned from studies in " pilot cities" would 5e applied in the final version of the manual, which was expected to be ready by 1958.

Cheap at am. a Mile

I N Los Angeles there were 102 miles of super-highways for motor vehicles only. The eight-mile Hollywood Freeway cost over £2m. a mile to build. but it was considered one of the least costly major highways in the world, Mr. Braff contended.

It carried three times as much traffic as an ordinary road at twice the speed and five times as safely, and had done for city travel what the aeroplane did for global travel.

Radar checks by traffic engineers had shown that 85 per cent, of drivers usually travelled on these special roads at just under 50 m.p.h. Thousands of householders—nearly all motoristshad to be moved from the path of the contractors when construction began, but the public clamoured for more freeways.

Because many drivers used these roads, even a minor accident could cause a long traffic queue in a matter of seconds. Engineers looked upon this as a challenge, and were experimenting with techniques to solve the problem.' These included television scanners mounted over the highway to transmit a picture of traffic hold-ups to a central control centre, and electronic devices for channelling vehicles off the road and controlling the number trying to join it.

Pf "hen Crossings Cannot Cope THERE came a time when road and street crossings could no longer cope with traffic, usually when the flow was 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles an hour. The traffic must then be separated vertically by leading one road over or under the other, explained Prof. Korte and` Mr. Macke.

This did not always mean building super-highways for motor traffic only, or a "motorway's at arty price" policy. The motto must be: "Traffic rehabilitation on a generous but financially still bearable scale."

Western Germany, with an already impressive network of autobahnen, had decided, however, that her major industrial cities needed impressive traffic rehabilitation, including many stretches of urban motorway. Her engineers preferred roads in cuttings to roads on viaducts, from a town-planning point of view, but submitted that where urban motorways had to interfere with cherished vistas, this was part of the give-and-take of modern life.

Hamburg's plan for curing traffic problems, including solving the parking problem and developing public transport systems, would cost more than £80m. and include urban motorways. Cologne's streets were undergoing large-scale remodelling and would include a road with three levels. The main traffic flow at Hagen, in Westphalia, would be carried on a viaduct over the city centre, and Duisberg. Europe's greatest inland port, would have an expressway making use of the gaps created by the 'seams betWeen residential areas, open spaces and industrial districts.

Not Free for All

AN outstanding feature of recent highway development in America was road-users' acceptance that a road need not necessarily be free for all to drive or walk on and off as they pleased. Controlled access had been agreed on because it helped traffic to move quickly with safety, Mr. Barnett stated.

Arterial highways in American cities could be either major streets or expressways. As in Britain, major streets had side streets joining them and direct access from shops, offices and houses. Expressways—for motor vehicles only —were for through traffic and had separate carriageways for traffic in each direction. Crossings were few and rarely on the same level. Access was mostly, but not always, by special feeder roads.

A freeway was an expressway with no crossings "at grade "—other roads went either over or under it. It had no abutting buildings and access was fully controlled. This was the type of road which had cut deaths and injuries by as much as two-thirds in many cities, and was now claiming most attention in the U.S. in spite of its high cost.

Highways' Many Purposes

-CI

A ROAD was originally a strip of

land used specially by people to get from one place to another, but today it was many things in one, Mr. Davis explained, A highway formed a convenient route for laying watermains, electricity and telephone cables and sewage pipes. Car and lorry owners used it as storage space—for parking.

But it also had vital social characteristics. It was a centre of community life, a place for meeting,. sometimes even a children's playground. People with things to sell wanted to set up shop alongside it.

When one of the many uses of a road conflicted with the others, some

thing or somebody suffered. Most roads in Britain were never intended for motor traffic; now it had overwhelmed them, or, looking at it another way, old roads were strangling motor traffic with disastrous results.

Experience had proved conclusively that with controlled access to roads for motor vehicles only, surrounding property had risen, not dropped, in vatue. Companies found that cheaper and safer road transport brought more business activity. When the land changed hands, the estimated income from doing business there went up because it became a coveted location.

"All cities eventually face deterioration. And, like plants, they are threatened with blight. The quality of transport, and the lack of it, affect a city's economic health. Ribbon. development, with free-for-all access. brings a decline in the benefits of road transport; the conflicts between different kinds of road users go on unchecked." Mr. Davis said.

Urban motorways. with controlled access, liberated the road from surrounding problems and at the same time freed the surroundings from the road.

Steam-heated Feeder Roads

PIPE grids carrying steam-heated antifreeze solution were embedded ia the feeder roads of Boston's central artery, a six-lane highway which the city was building as top priority in a highway plan, said Mr. Volpe.

Part of the highway was opened last year and the rest was expected to be completed by mid-1958. In the second section would be the widest vehicular tunnel in the world, with two three-lane roadways each 40 ft. wide, Besides the most modern lighting and ventilation, this tunnel would eventually have a television monitoring system operated by one attendant.

Boston's street pattern was not regular, so that the task of feeding traffic on and off the motorway was difficult. In the central section alone 16 ramps were needed. The highway was designed for a speed of 35 m.p.h., and it was expected that it would be used by 90,000 vehicles per 24-hour day by 1970. Fifteen per cent, of these would be commercial vehicles.

One of the factors which hastened the decision to give the city an urban motorway system was the drop in the value of property rendered inaccessible by traffic congestion. One area's assessed valuation fell by 35 per cent. Better accessibility was already apparent with only one"section of the artery in operation, and drivers using it now made journeys in two to three minutes that took 18 to 25 minutes on the old streets. Traffic on the old surface roads had been reduced bv-40 to 60 per cent. with c-onsequent benefit to business establishments.

Areas adjacent to the motorway were reserved for parking.