Lorry routes: why dodge the obvious answer?
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by Ralph Cropper
THE designation of special routes for lorries in towns has become a cardinal point of policy, both by central government and local government. Even the help of the Road Haulage Association has been sought in selecting the routes to be designated, The RHA has rightly replied that this is not a job for a trade association, and that the scheme should be worked out by those paid by government for this sort of work.
The obvious answer to the search for lorry routes is to use the existing complex of A and B roads. What are main roads for if not for the use of through-traffic? A and B roads stretch into every town for the very good reason that such a designation secures substantial contributions from central government towards their costs of maintenance and improvement.
Why search for other routes? Why should we hold back from this solution and what are the objections?
First difficulty
The first difficulty in the minds of local councillors and their advising staffs is that this would include far too many roads. Under pressure from the environmentalists and housing groups, they fondly imagine that only a minimal number of lorry routes will be required. more or less confined to a simple north-south, east-west, apart from circular routeings.
They have yet to face up to the realities and find out that this will be grossly inadequate. While this is already known by the transport providers, it is bound to come home shortly to the public and the customers of transport.
The public requires not only cars but lorries as well to reach every particle of roadway and even to stretch out beyond the highway proper into fields, forests, yards, excavations, and so on. It just reflects the point that road transport can reach almost anywhere on land and is expected to do so by customers. The local authorities are themselves often the customers who want vehicles in these off-highway locations. To reach them, small roads must be used. Moreover, it is often the large, or abnormally large, vehicles that are called on to provide such services.
This is the great flexibility offered by the road vehicle. Quite rightly, the public expects this availability from the lorry when required. I say "when required" because many of these requirements are seldom, spasmodic, non-repeating, or only for a quite short period. So it is difficult, if not impossible, to make absolute rules forbidding large lorries — including the very largest — from even minor roads.
Many rural roads are specifically forbidden to lorries above designated sizes "except for access". This may well have to be the method of approach for a solution for urban roads. The trouble is that it is difficult to enforce without bothersome and heavy administration, and will be even less easy in towns. Such a solution may well provoke lots of local irritations which could fester and create serious problems for the local authorities themselves.
Now let me turn to the main streams of lorry movements in towns. A multiplicity of roads for lorries cannot be avoided, particularly in the larger conurbations. As the GLC has said, the larger the urban area, the less the amount of through traffic. For London, the amount of traffic passing right across the GLC area is less than 1 per cent. This figure applies to freight as much as to passenger.
A and B roads
More than 99 per cent of all those heavy lorries arriving in London from the several motorways and trunk roads have to reach destinations within the GLC area. After leaving these main highways, they have to resort to lesser roads within London. This is where the widespread pattern of A and B urban roads, and then minor roads, is inescapable.
Additionally, much traffic both originates and terminates within London. This, too, requires the full spread of the A and B roads.
The difficulty is that, in towns, the A and
B roads are not sufficiently developed nor identified for coping with the needs of commercial vehicles. This criticism I will examine under three aspects: suitability, markings, and encouragement.
As to suitability, it must be recognized that the public authorities have made tremendous improvements to many of the main intra-urban routes, and these are nowadays well suited to the many types of commercial vehicles. Many more improvements are scheduled. But they are always slow and costly. Higher priorities should be given to bringing all the classified roads in towns up to the standard needed by attics and lorries of all sizes.
These improvements, accomplished or contemplated, do not apply throughout the pattern. Where this standard cannot be achieved by a reasonably early date the proper course could well be to reduce the lettered classification of the road concerned.
Inadequate markings Road markings are deplorably inadequate in urban areas. Frequently there is no indication whether the road is a classified road. The A and B numbering should itself
be indicated consistently and boldly and should be the first piece of information on every signboard. The user then knows that he is travelling on the approved pattern of main roads.
There seems to be a false modesty in revealing the road number. Because of the large number of roads with different numbers, the precise number of the road may not always be remembered; with more regular presentation, it would be remembered more frequently.
The important point, however, particularly for strangers arriving in lorries, is that the bold indication of the road number provides an assurance of moving on the main road Pattern and avoiding any straying into minor roads. By keeping to the main road pattern, the user can proceed with reasonable confidence that he will shortly see further road indications to help him along his desired routeing.
It is the road indications in towns which require the most urgent attention. Much rethinking and replanning is required. To use the A and B network, properly marked, is a far more suitable and satisfactory solution than trying to work out some new pattern of special lorry routes.
Instead of a host of new indications saying "LR 27" (lorry route), it is so much simpler to clearly mark the A and B roads,
which themselves become the lorry routes. It needs very clear marking, on every
indication board, of the classification and
number of the road being travelled; this should be the first item of information. It is
quite insufficient, for this purpose, merely to
indicate that the road is leading to some major road ahead, which is a common
failing of indication boards; we need to know the classification of the road we are on.
For example, what is wrong with A105, or A2I5, or A212, all in the London area?
If these roads carry an A classification, they were intended to be through roads and receive financial contributions as such. Yet anyone who tries to follow any of these routes by merely using the road number will encounter difficulties. You try it. If these roads carried the A classification boldly shown, it would help to designate them for all road users, as at least the preferred routes to be used.
This leads to considering the encouragement of the use of these routes.
Encouragement goes beyond the improve ment of markings already discussed. It extends to assisting traffic flows on main roads so that they are convenient for use by lorry drivers. Particularly it requires a more general recognition that lorries are welcome on these routes and are entitled to use them.