Expanding Universe
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ideal Commentary By JANUS
10T so very long ago. the road user and the traffic expert wanted more than anything else to see some evidence that new roads were being built. Now that, ks largely to Mr. Harold Watkinson, former Minister ransport, the evidence is at last available, the expresof gratitude have soon given place to criticisms of werall plan, or to the suggestion that no plan exists. fashionable idea is to look a few years ahead, to lain that tomorrow's roads will not fit the traffic of veek after, and to point out that the building now in ress both augments the problem and succeeds only in Lng the solution from one geographical point to nen
Le mathematicians calculate the rate at which traffic is • ing, and come to the conclusion that it will always ,!.d the rate of road building, just as', according to ler branch of science, our largest telescopes are losing race with the expanding universe. The sociologist es his head over the vision of a car-owning democracy; rgues that the provision of fine wide motor roads will tlate the sale of cars, and end by making the problem ; as bad. The town planner believes that the new s will succeed only in bringing more traffic more cly to places where the congestion is already idable.
r. .C. T. Brunner has referred to the feeling " that if shut your eyes to it, somehow it will sort itself out." iew of the horrible consequences that are prophesied time a new road scheme is launched, there may be some se for the state of mind that Mr. Brunner deprecates. fatalistic attitude may be detected in the statement by Watkinson, last May, that " traffic congestion is at a sign of expanding and lively economy—a by-product n advanced technological way of life." Much the : idea has been expressed by .Sir Herbert Manzoni, iingliam City Engineer. He has described congestion a manifestation of normal healthy evolution, of our and still improving standard of living."
Not the End
tat such opinions can be expressed by persons in high arity may cause some uneasiness, but need not be taken ean that the struggle against congestion has been given ri despair. After all, a traffic jam is not the end of A/Grid. If is easy, and sometimes tempting, to go to )ther extreme and become over-portentous about the !ling effect of too many vehicles and the last car that e the nation's back.
attempt to make our flesh creep is to be found in Architects' Journal this month. The issue is devoted ely to the problem of motor traffic and the motorized or ivfotropolis. The reader is left to draw his own ences, but there is no lack of hints as to the reaction cted from him. The purpose of the main article, it is is not to offer any new cut-and-dried solution, but emphasize above all the need to place the study of c problems and the preparation of road-building protmes on a completely scientific basis."
.ter, it is suggested, and no more than suggested, that rurpose goes a little further. The London road plan forward by the Nugent Committee is found wanting use, among other things, it is almost entirely concerned improving the flow of through traffic, whereas it should been related to " a comprehensive plan to bring traffic
under control within a safe and civilized environment.The lesson drawn from what has happened in America is said to be that, no matter how much money is sunk in road-building, "no solution can ever be found so long as other measures are not taken to bring the volume of traffic within manageable limits."
The general theme that emerges from the article is in a sense directed against the private car. The plain statement is made that the attempt to use the car for all, or nearly all, personal journeys presents town planning and architectural problems for which no workable and acceptable solution has yet been found." Nevertheless, there are no strong recommendations that the car should be banned, or its use restricted by law. There should be "rational decisions as to its production" (what is meant by this is not clear); but the car is a "superb tool" that we should learn to use "economically and constructively, not wastefully and destructively."
Sticks and Carrots
City development should be controlled in such a way as to make a great many journeys unnecessary. There should be an attempt, "by judicious use of sticks and carrots "—which does involve some restriction, with the simultaneous offer of a "better service by public transport " —to achieve a balance between the capacity of the road system and the number of vehicles on it.
There are some interesting, and often sound, proposals in the article. Most people would now agree that teamwork is necessary to solve the traffic problem, and that the architect has a part to play from the beginning. It follows from this that a solution determined mainly by engineering considerations, and ignoring the planner and architect, " will be blindly destructive and cannot achieve its aims."
It is a good suggestion also that whatever plan is adopted must not be concerned with roads alone. There must be "comprehensively planned reconstruction," using where necessary multi-level traffic circulation. The programme of planned urban renewal must include a "new .communications system in the cities," a more sensible location of homes, workplaces, shopping and entertainment, and a balance between vehicles in use and road and garage capacity.
For public transport there is much comfort in the article. Full use must be made, it is suggested, of a modernized system for the mass movement of people in cities. We must not allow our own system, "still one of the best in the world," to be destroyed in the "vicious circle of declining traffic, rising fares and reduced services."
Where disagreement is most likely is with the assumption in the article that Motropolis is to be found perhaps in the U.S.A. and in science fiction, but is not with us now in Britain. The impression that remains is that we have time to spare. Not only is a great research programme proposed, which would go beyond existing or projected traffic movements, but this research, it is said, " must "• precede any large-scale road programme. There should be a Ministry of Planning, as the research in its entirety would be beyond the scope of any one of the existing Government departments.
In fact, now that the Government have been brought to the point of boasting about an expanded road programme, it would be a pity to discourage them by suggesting Ihat they are working to the wrong plan.