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Looking at Public Transport in British Cities

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25th September 1964

Page 95

Page 95, 25th September 1964 — Looking at Public Transport in British Cities

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A PART from peak-hour traffic, there will always be people who require public transport--,those who have no car or cannot or prefer not to drive, children, and the old or disabled. These requirements were enough to ensure that communities would continue to need public transport systems both in cities and towns, and to link villages with them. What kind of public transport, and on what scale, would depend on public opinion and government decision, as modified by all sorts of local circumstances.

The above points were tn1ide by Mr, A. H. Grainger, vice-chairman, London 'Transport Board, in a paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Transit Association in New York on Tuesday. Mr. Grainger opened his paper by describing the organization of passenger transport services in this country. He then went on to contrast the picture of less than a generation ago, when the problem facing every transport manager was to meet the ever rising demand for public transport, with the present day when the people wishing to travel by public transport were declining in number and presenting themselves during fewer hours out of the 24 and on fewer days a week. More people used their own cars, and apart from work and holiday tines, left their homes and moved about less than they did. There was also no longer a press of applications for jobs in transport undertakings, times having changed in this respect too, he said.

In Mr. Grainger's opinion there was no question that metropolitan cities would continue to require—or need to initiate or develop-rail-borne public transport for as long ahead as one could usefully conceive. Road-borne public transport in these great congested areas would increasingly turn to the role of supplementing rail-borne systems and meeting demands where distances were too short or numbers of passengers too small to call for rail transits. At the other end of the scale, to provide links in, rural areas or small towns, the road vehicle would take the place of the railway.

On the subject of the massive amount of equipment and staff which must be employed merely to ensure that a reasonably adequate service was provided for two relatively short periods of peak-hour traffic each day, Mr. Grainger said that the industry had yet to reach a position in its .public relations and charging techaiqUes from which it could successfully ntroduce a system of differential chargng to cover the higher costs of peak veration. It was something they might lave to consider for the future. The :ommunity would insist that such services vere provided, and it would be for the :ommunity to decide how they were to

)e paid for—whether by the passengers done or by some other method involving in bile money.

Congestion, whether caused by parked 'chides, road works or just sheer volume )f traffic prejudicially affected so many cquirements of good road transport erviccs, Mr. Grainger continued. The iublic transport operator could not omplain about the use of private cars provided the users were prepared to park their vehicles off the highway and pay the commercial cost of doing so.

The problem of public transport should be kept in front of the community and the community's leaders in a way which was persistent, reasonable and constructive, he said. Perhaps it would be best to stop calling it a " problem " always-nobody loved problem children—but keep on reminding people (especially those who never used it) what public transport was doing, day in and day out, to keep the nation going.

Town Planners Attacked Mr. Grainger then attacked town planners for so often providing housing areas where the only roads suitable for heavy vehicles were built around their perimeters. This meant that buses failed to get to the heart of the area where they were needed and in addition, because of the longer distance travelled, the frequency had to be reduced to half what it should be. Whatever was being planned, whether it be a whole new town, the redevelopment of a neighbourhood or merely a new office building, consultation with the transportation authority at the outset was vital.

Regularity was a much more immediate problem, and the potential passenger expected to be able to know when he could leave home to reach his destination by a given time. In the larger British cities ts was becoming !note and more difficult to .achieve because of traffic congestion, said Mr. Grainger. They were making some headway in convincing the highway, authorities that the , double-deck bus, with accommodation for anything Up to 80 passengers, must be given preferential treatment over the private car with an average of one and a half persons. Limited-stop bus services already existed, he said, but there was room for expansion.

In Britain the bus operator had always tried to offer a high standard of comfort in his buses, Mr. Grainger continued. He must continue to do this and resist the temptation to cut costs or increase the revenue earning capacity by skimping. Comfort did not end with a comfortable seat, and a passenger's enjoyment of his journey could be seriously marred by a discourteous employee, by bad driving, lack of ventilation or heating and by inadequate windows. Mr. Grainger also stressed that the length of his wait and the conditions in which, the passenger must wait would also affect the overall comfort of his journey.

Mr. Grainger concluded by referring to the way in which Britain often looked across the Atlantic Ocean to see what was happening about public transport in America. Their economic developments had, up to now, been some 10 to 15 years ahead of Britain, but the attempt to run a metropolitan city area Virtually entirely on automobile transport made us stop and think hard, and it could perhaps teach us some lessons if we had the sense to take them in, he said. He congratulated them on the steps now being taken in the United States to treat transportation and land-use planning 4 one operation, combined with financial assistance in approved cases for the public transport element.