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Planning transportmen

must think anew By S. BUCKLEY, Assoc lust T TRANSPORT is an integral and vital part of urban planning. It is a key factor in urban development. In so affirming the role of transport, Mr. Walter Bor, Liverpool City Planning Officer, in the opening paper emphasized the excellent choice made by the Institute of Transport in choosing "Transport and Town and Regional Planning" for its conference held in Oxford last weekend. Justifiable opinion was, however, voiced by delegates that insufficient recognition had been given to the vital role of transport by some planners in the past. Transport in relation to the topical subject of regional planning was also discussed while the operator himself was allowed to give his reactions to planning in the third and final address.

In his introductory address, Mr. A. R. Dunbar, president of the institute, instanced examples of lack of planning in the past which had aggravated the problems of running public transport services. When new towns were built after the war, operators were assured their design would produce balanced flows of traffic. But often this did not materialize. Even though the husband might work in the self-contained new town other members of the family tended to drift away and so add to the peak problem. If better shopping facilities in the new towns achieved their objective it resulted in fewer women travelling at off-peak periods to shop elsewhere, and so isolating and worsening the existing peak problem. Mr. Dunbar maintained that wherever a new town was created, however well-balanced, within reasonable distance of London some inter-city travel would invariably develop.

Educationally, Mr. Dunbar concluded, transport in the past had been looked upon as of very minor academic interest. Recently, however, there had been an improvement and the subject of transport was now being treated on a wider basis. The use of all available techniques was needed to ensure the best return from the inter-relationship between transport and planning.

Key Factor

While recognizing at the outset that transport was a key factor in urban development, Mr. Bor (who is about to go into private practice as a planning consultant and university lecturer) admitted that in the past the importance of transport had not always been recognized.

In town planning there were many conflicting issues. They had to be brought together and it was the prime purpose of a planner to do just that. He must be primarily responsible for transport planning since only he was in a position to assess the total problem as a whole within an urban area Transport planning fell into three broad groupings, collection of information, determination of transport Policies and, determination of transport plans.

Information was obtained from land use and transport surveys. There had been a substantial improvement over the past five years in the method of collection of traffic information. But there was still the vital need to get the right sort of information. It was costly to obtain and one must beware of collecting too much. Often it was not used.

In future there would be more simulation of information, rather than collection, and deductions made from that. Simulation was both quicker and cheaper.

Saturation Conditions

It was important to project planning to near saturation conditions of car ownership. At present the practice was to project 20 years hence. But Mr. Bor claimed that this seemed basically wrong although it must be accepted that it becomes more and more difficult to project accurately in the future. Nevertheless, 20 years seemed, to him, too long to be accurate yet not long enough to include saturation.

When determining policy for a new town design, a major decision to be made was the degree to which the motor vehicle was to be allowed accessibility. In addition to essential traffic, Mr. Bor reminded delegates that consideration must also be given to desirable traffic. Unless given reasonable access shoppers and visitors would take their custom elsewhere, to the loss of traders.

But even if one had the authority, he continued, how did one control such traffic movement? Pricing policies on road use could be adopted. Parking facilities could be regulated and the allocation of land use could have regard to major traffic generators.

Mr. Bor commented on the effect of whatever policies were adopted on public transport. He deprecated the "cinderella" attitude adopted by some to public transport. It was the most important influence in moving people in cities. There could be a need for central government to make grants for roads for public transport.

Determining transport plans necessitated first determining the most efficient of the several modes of transport in varying conditions. It was not possible to rely on any one form of transport; one must look quite dispassionately at all forms. But what may prove the most viable might not be socially acceptable on the grounds of hardship. Also one had to decide priority relative to financial and man-power resources, and in the light of central government grant policies and local means of financing. There was a need to review plans every five years, Mr. Bor claimed, because we were living in a fastmoving society.

Regional Planning

Regional planning was then explained by Mr. L. S. Mills, under secretary, Ministry of Transport, with special responsibilities for regional planning. Briefly recapping the trend in regional planning in the past, Mr. Mills said that what was new about the present regional planning was the machinery. There were now ten regions, Scotland, Wales, Northern, Yorkshire and Humberside, East Midlands, East Anglia, South-East, SouthWest, West Midlands and North-West. The Yorkshire and Humberside region did not follow the usual pattern (e.g. licensing areas) and constituted a very important change in boundaries as laid down by the Department of Economic Affairs.

Planners had a shock when the registrargeneral forecast that the total population of their country by 1980 would be very many millions more than was previously estimated. That meant many more cities and rebuilding of existing ones. In the process a better relationship between jobs and homes than previously existed should be planned. It was here, Mr. Mills added, that the economic and town planner came together.

Transport straddled both forms of planning and all forms must be considered. But transport was not an end in itself: it was an expensive commodity. Transport infrastructure was very important but good roads and railways were not the only requirement. The transport services which ran on them must be good.

With transport it was essential to start with a national plan and not a regional one. When it came to expenditure it must be decided centrally. At the Ministry there was being evolved an economic criterion which was a great advance on previous methods. They looked to the regions for local know

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how but ultimately it was a concensus of opinion that was required.

The councils were pressing ahead with regional plans but they still had to get round to the second stage when their advice to the Government would be so valuable. Mr. Mills added that the Ministry of Transport was in the forefront of co-operation in regional planning and there had been an early meeting of the Minister and regional chairmen. Regional councils would be expected to come up with their own ideas on how best transport could be expanded in their own areas. Pilot studies were being conducted to this end.

Broad issues of policy, Mr. Mills continued, still had to be determined. A most difficult one, to which there was no solution at present, was whether one should provide for the foreseeable future when resources were limited or spend on congestion only when it arises.

Some maintained this was too negative and the object in an expanding economy was to encourage development by extending, for example, motorways to Scotland and the South-West.

New Attitude

Transport men will have to establish a new attitude of mind towards planning, which was novel to them. The calling of this conference was a recognition of that. But we had begun rather late and if we did not catch up our successors would have some very hard things to say about us.

So commented Mr. R. M. Robbins, member, London Transport Board, when giving the third address entitled "Planning and the Transport Operator". At the outset he defined planning as being concerned with three principal factors. They were the forecasting of the general shape of things in the economic field in the short to middleterm future; proposing measures to take the best advantage of the opportunities thereby revealed or alternatively to mitigate the unsatisfactory features in prospect; and the disposing of the physical elements surrounding our lives—buildings, open spaces, roads and other transport systems.

The first thing the transport operator wanted to know from planners was what kind of world he was likely to find confronting him in five, 10, 15 or 20 years. He would want to know what there would be for him to do, how much manpower would be at his disposal and whether operation would be profitable or not. The nationwide operator needed to know the likely volume of trade and movement and, likewise the regional operator the probable volume of movement within his sector of the country. Major regional development must interest him particularly. For example, would there be a Channel tunnel, would there be new towns and cities and if so where, and would the North Sea gas field produce a new pattern of activity?

For indications of likely technical changes in transport equipment, the operator must look elsewhere. At the moment, Mr. Robbins contended, there was no recognized source of such information for transport as a whole, a deficiency in our industry's equipment.

Turning to physical planning on the environment he said that historically, planning had been developed in this country largely by architects and others who had been primarily concerned with the visual state of the environment. It originated largely as a protest against the sordid muddle of industry and uncontrolled residential settlement. It was evidently ugly, wasteful and often unhealthy too.

Environmental Standards

But this pre-occupation with environmental standards, Mr. Robbins continued, and what might be termed the "welfare" side of planning had led to a number of doctrines, perhaps unconsciously adopted, being held by planners and put into practice with results that now seemed to be unsatisfactory, and not only to transport operators. Thus when industry was mainly powered by steam engines it was objectionable for dwelling houses to be situated close to work. But in the interval most industries were now electrically-powered and a typical modern factory was pleasant, light and clean. But factory workers were still obliged to travel considerable distances from their homes to factory estates, which were often difficult of access and created serious problems of congestion on the approaches for short times each day in addition to a grossly uneconomic use of transport. A blatant example of this was the industrial area at Stevenage New Town which was separated from most of the residential areas by a main railway line and the old Great North Road.

This revulsion from the 19th century type of town had led to the garden city or garden suburb of low-density housing with meandering roads and this notion had been further elaborated into the "neighbourhood" concept—that is a small area for housing and a few shops, separated from other neighbourhoods by an open belt. A number of such neighbourhoods were in a sense satellites to the town centre which contained the major shops and similar facilities.

These concepts were being abandoned by up-to-date designers of new towns partly because of the transport problems involved. Too great a distance had to be covered by inhabitants too often and road systems of such open layouts were at times unable to cope with the vehicle demands made on them.

Mr. Robbins recognized that urban renewal in which whole sectors of worn-out towns were to be replanned was artincreasingly important task of the planner. But because new towns and large housing estates exhibited most clearly the problems which faced the transport operator in relation to planners he concentrated catthis aspect in relation to the bus operator.

Operators of public passenger transport by road had not so far been completely convinced that planners recognize that their form of transport deserved special consideration. This was partly their own fault because operators had been on the defensive too long rather than moving out to state their case.

Such a case ought not to be difficult to make convincing as it was already coming to be accepted that it was impracticable to try to provide for all personal movement to be made by. cars only in anything above a middle-sized town.

But it was not enough for this to be known intellectually. The inference must be drawn and put into practice if towns were not to be hopelessly cluttered up with transport by small vehicles within the next 10 years. Planners must give very special attention to devising their layouts so that buses could give services of such a quality and attractiveness that people who use them would do so gladly and not feel deprived of some personal advantage thereby.

Four Points

Mr. Robbins suggested four fundamental points for the planner to "bite on". Passengers must be picked up and set down as close as possible to the point where his complete journey begins and ends and he should be conveyed as near as possible in a direct line while on the bus. Any interchange it might be necessary for the passenger to make with another form of transport, whether the railway, another bus or his own car, must be as attractive as possible and should be under cover. Moreover, the road system should be devised to secure that buses could operate with the greatest efficiency and economy.

The first requirement ruled out the type of planning in which bus roads had wide expanses on each side separating them from the houses. It also ruled out "one-sided" layouts where the bus was obliged to go round the fringe of a residential development. It was twice as useful if it went down the middle, Mr. Robbins insisted.

Where a passenger needed to change from one bus to another, which particularlyhappened at town centres, walks of 200 or 300 yd. between stops on different routes, which were now commonplace, were frustrating. Flyovers and underpasses were normally ill-designed from this point of view and for this reason London Transport did not use the underpass at Hyde Park Corner. What transport operators saw as self-evident truths were by no means obvious

for a highly intelligent planner. But if he was intelligent it might be possible to convince him that these propositions were, in fact, truths. But this would only happen if there was a real meeting of minds—a continuing dialogue between the transport man and the planning man.