Political Commentary
Page 54
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Flying Dutchman
By JANUS
WOUNDING remarks have been made about the recent national traffic census. The Ministry of Transport, it is said, should build new roads before calculating how many extra vehicles are using the old .ones. The survey can teach no lesson except what has been proved over and over again. Rather than pay £180,000 to 20,000 enumerators, the critics continue, the Government should use the money to build an appropriately magnificent mausoleum for the innumerable plans for better roads that have never got farther than the Stationery Office.
Some people are hard to please. It seems to me that the enumerators have done good work. Braving the weather in the tents and little huts thoughtfully provided for them, they hive proved to the road user that he is not entirely forgotten and that every revolution of his wheels is -numbered. In contradiction of the statement that the capacity of the roads is not strained to the utmost limit, they have shown that traffic has increased by nearly 40. per cent. since 1938.
Not Far Enough •
My complaint is that, if anything, the census did not go far enough. It is a harmless and even instructive pastime to watch the traffic pass by, but some of the observers might have been stationed where they could see the traffic that remained in one place. They were playing, it may be said, an adult variation of a game popular among children. One child stands with,his back to the rest. They creep forward to touch him, but he turns round at intervals and can disqualify anybody he detects making a movement. Like the enumerators, he watches for anything that moves, but his real problem is the person who stays still.
The operator of the mechanically propelled vehicle is much troubled by the law. He musf not go too fast or in some cases too far, and he must restrict his load to certain things and to a specified weight. There is a growing tendency also to find fault with him if he stops. The task of the goods-vehicle operator in particular is becoming more and more difficult, and in some ways he is the hardest hit of all by no-parking and no-waiting restrictions such as those recently tried out in the London area. .
Additional Hazard
Unilateral waiting, first introduced as an experiment in January, 1953, must have been considered a success in view of its proposed extension to a number of additional streets. There is a time limit of 20 minutes, but in few cases is this observed, and in many streets the side on which waiting is allowed is filled by an unbroken line of cars. The commercial-vehicle driver is not allowed to pull up on the opposite side, and soon gets into trouble if he stops some distance away from the permitted kerb. An additional hazard is the requirement that no vehicle may stop within 45 ft. of a zebra crossing that it is approaching. This reduces the effective length of road on which a vehicle can park.
The Metropolitan Traffic Liaison Committee of the three associations comprising the National Road Transport Federation have drawn public attention to the latest attack on the stationary goods vehicle, and have persuaded the Ministry of Transport to defer for a short period he ban on the stopping of vehicles in the vicinity B20 of a number of the principal road intersections in Central London. In some cases the ban was to last for seven hours each day, beginning at 11.30 a.m.
The problems that such a ban presents to operators are great. A vehicle travelling a long distance may have to start in the early hours of the morning so as to arrive before 11.30 a.m. If delayed it must presumably wait until the forbidden period has passed. In some cases there may be nobody to receive the goods after 6.30 p.m. It would be difficult tu give examples of these and other problems unlil after the damage has been done, and it has been found in the past that the authorities are not always as sympathetic as they might be to the troubles of vehicle operators.
More effective evidence might be available from the businesses with premises at the intersections where the proposed ban is to take effect. The committee have undertaken the painstaking task of making their own census, this time of the frontagers to be affected by the scheme. On the results of this census may depend the decision of the Ministry whether or not to go ahead.
Stopping Forbidden
The prohibition was in the -first place recommended by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, and it would be put into effect by the police. The willingness of the authorities to make and implement such a proposal can be understood. The art of traffic control would appear to be to keep the vehicles moving, and there is no better way of doing this than by forbidding them to stop.
Unfortunately, the main purpose of carrying passengers and particularly goods is to deliver them at their destination, and this is becoming more and more difficult when the destination is in the centre of a large town. If further prohibitions are made against loading and unloading, the goods vehicle will find it almost impossible to stop anywhere, and will be compelled to travel forever, like a Flying Dutchman of the road.
Perhaps this is the sort of problem the Ministry of Transport should be studying rather than the mere counting of radiators in motion. Perhaps exasperation is understandable at a census that seems little more than an academic exercise. The man with a lorry all loaded up and nowhere to go cannot show much interest in a project the avowed purpose of which is to "determine the growth and trend of modern traffic" and the changes that "may have occurred in the general pattern."
Space for Trade
Trends and changes may make a pleasant subject for the historian. The operator who is directly affected by them scarcely needs to be told what they are. He is more interested to learn that samples of the soil in Cavendish Square have been analysed as a possible first step towards the probable construction of the first underground garage that may ultimately leave free sufficient overground space for him to ply his trade.
It is doubtful whether the census will reveal anything new that is of value. Anybody who stands for a little while in a busy street will understand the "growth and trend of modern traffic." The effects are already making themselves felt. The need for more roads and better roads has been amply proved, and it is now up to the Government to provide them.