ROAD TRANSPORT MATTERS IN PARLIAMENT.
Page 30
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The Co-ordination of Passenger Traffic. Proposed Traffic Police Corps. Dangers of Hawsers Across Roads.
By Our Special Parliamentary Correspondent.
pARLIAMENT resumed last Tuesday after the Christmas recess and there remains harely five months in which to finish off the business of this Parliament. In the circumstances very little legislation affecting road traffic interests can Ee expected. The only measures of importance that will definitely be brought before Parliament are the bills promoted to enable the London County Council and the London Electric Railway Companies to enter into agreements for the co-ordination of passenger traffic. It is expected that the second reading debate will take place in about the middle of February.
Whilst there has been much Labour opposition to the proposal to bring the L.C.C. tramways under a joint control arrangement it is not anticipated that the opposition in the House of Commons will prove a serious obstacle to the passage of the bills.
Negotiations With Main Lines.
THE proposals are really a step • towards that scheme of the co-ordination and pooling of London passenger traffic desiderated by the London Traffic Advisory Committee. if the main lines should eventually agree to come into the arrangement the necessary preparatory legislation will have been obtained to enable agreements to be made more expeditiously.
I understand that the question of the main-line companies participating in a joint scheme is still under negotiation, but that their decision may be expected at a very early date. •
Lord Cecil's Bill.
TNLESS Mr. Churchill again alters the scales of taxation affecting motor vehicles there is no possibility of proceeding further with other legislative proposals. The Government's Road Traffic Bill is postponed until the Royal Commission on Transport presents its report:
Viscount Cecil's Road Vehicles Regulation Bill, even If it were to be passed by the House of Lords, would not be given time in the House of Commons. This Bill was put down for Committee on January L2nd, but was postponed until January 29th. It was hoped that some indication might, in the interval, be given as to the intentions of the Transport Commission in the matter of an early report on matters dealt with in Lord Cecil's Bill.
B40 Should the Committee stage be proceeded with Earl Russell will move that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee. This course would probably eliminate any chance of the Bill reaching the other House in the present Parliament.
Proposed Traffic Police Corps.
TIRE Home Secretary has informed Mr. R. MOrrison _I that he intends to call together at once the Conference which, as he intimated before the Christmas recess, was being set up to explore the question of forming a special corps of traffic police. The County Councils Association and the Association of Municipal Corporations have nominated representatives to take part in the Conference.
The Charing Cross Bridge Scheme.
OLONEL ASHLEY, on being asked to make a
statement as to the present position of the Charing Cross Bridge scheme, said that negotiations were actively proceeding between the London -County Council, the Southern Railway and the Department, and various proposals had been examined. The magnitude of the 'scheme and the very important interests affected made prolonged investigations and negotiations inevitable. He regretted he was unable to make any statement at the present time and was satisfied that it was undesirable that he should do so. The negotiations were being pressed forward by all parties as rapidly as possible.
• I understand that an alternative scheme. has been under discussion, whereby the building of a viaduct from the Cavell Statue across the Strand would be obviated.
Hawsers Across the Road.
THE strange practice Of stretching steel hawsers
across the road was mentioned by Mr. Day, who called attention to an accident On the TenterdenAppletlore road at dusk on December 12th, when a motorcar ran into such an obstacle. He suggested that in any future legislation a clause should be embodied requiring the compulsory attendance of a lookout man, in such circumstances, to warn on-coming traffic of the danger.
Colonel Ashley said the matter would be considered.