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Air and Road Links

4th November 1949
Page 27
Page 27, 4th November 1949 — Air and Road Links
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE air transport of goods is still looked upon by many people in trade and industry as someihing which will grow gradually but will be employed only for comparatively small loads of considerable value compared with their bulk. Certain of them may have been shaken somewhat by the wonderful achievements of the Berlin air lift, which, at its peak, was carrying many thousands of tons of material daily. The carriage of passengers by air is more readily appreciated, particularly when the distances travelled are-great, but for shorter hops the time taken by the air journey may be considerably outbalanced by the low average speed and possible delays in conveying goods or people between the airports and the main centres of population or business. '

We are rapidly approaching the time when the air trip between London and Paris may occupy under half-an-hour, yet it :may ,easily take 40 minutes to travel the few miles from the airport to the centre of London Thus the air is inevitably linked with other means for transport, particularly that by road. It may be that, later, helicopters of some kind will bring people and goods almost to their doorsteps, but, for the time being, that need not receive any great consideration from us.

Berlin Air Lift Used Lorries The huge quantities of materials carried to Berlin by air had to be moved for reasonably long distances. How was this achieved? By road, of course, using large numbers of British and American lorries.

At the great airports of Europe, particularly at Orly and Le Bourget, development plans are in hand to cope with an immense increase in ground transport. We know that in the development of London Airport some attention has been paid to this matter, but is it enough? It is not sufficient merely to provide possibly hundreds of new road vehicles to cope with the growth of air freight. They might deal with the quantities, but would inevitably •add to the present congestion of traffic unless suitable thoronglifares are prepared for them. Theyin u s t receive the benefits of real motorways. upon which they will be able to travel at high speed, without constant obstructions in the way of traffic lights and, of course, vehicles crossing at the same level. The Metropolis, with its packed buildings, does not easily lend itself to such enterprise, but it may be that, eventually, high-speed roads will have to be carried either overhead or underground, at least as they approach the centre. The saucer of clay on which London sits is, however, already well honeycombed by other services, and it may yet be decided that overhead roads will be essential.

Overhead Roads May Come Such roads have been constructed in some of the leading cities of America, and, to a limited extent, in other cities, such as Stockholm. Similar construction has for long been applied to certain foreign railways, but, here, the noise was the great trouble, as was experienced in New York and Berlin. Motor vehicles, however, are comparatively quiet in operation. They have no flanged wheels shrieking on lines.

We are not claiming anything new for this suggestion. It was put forward by us Many years ago in connection with the problem of improving general road traffic in congested areas. The drawings we prepared and published then were widely reproduced in other sections of the Press. We also expounded the idea that where it was essential to widen main roads and the value of the property fronting them was considerable, a system which might be described as "parallel arcading " could be adopted. This would mean setting back the ground floors and rebuilding the footpaths under the first floors.

The greater the extent to which aircraft are refined and made comfortable, even luxurious, the more marked will be the unfortunate comparison between air and road travel. A pleasant impression before landing may be utterly spoiled by conditions experienced within the hour or less subsequent to this. It must be remembered that first impressions are often diflicult to eradicate That is why attention to the development of firstclass travel by road is essential.

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