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ROADS FIT FOR LORRIES
Page 63
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SPECIFIC proposals for new and improved roads were put forward in a report published this summer by the Traders Road Transport Association. The results of a similar exercise by the Road Haulage Association may be expected before long. In the meantime the Minister of Transport's White Paper on transport policy has appeared. It is clear from this—or at least as clear as anything else which it contains—that the work of the two road transport organizations will not have been wasted. If they do not take pains to express their opinions nobody is likely to do it for them.
As the TRTA points out, "the needs of commercial vehicles are not always the same as for other forms of traffic". There is no more than a delicate hint here that unless those needs are formulated they are in danger of total neglect. Prior information on Government policy might have strengthened the tone of the report.
Revealing
One revealing passage in the White Paper speaks of road planning as an essential part of physical and economic planning. Regard must be had to the broad pattern of population growth and to the Government's other proposals for regional development. In view of all this, says the White Paper, the Ministry's plans for roads are being drawn up after consultation with Regional Economic Planning Councils, other Government departments. the National Ports Council and the British Railways Board. There is no suggestion that road users as such will have anything to contribute at this stage.
An analysis of the requirements of commercial operators is certainly not superfluous. It should begin with a principle which has consistently been accepted, tacitly or otherwise, by successive Ministers of Transport and is fundamental to such wide-ranging surveys as the Buchanan report on traffic in towns. The needs of trade and industry and commerce must take precedence over the wishes of the private or pleasure motorist.
This principle can affect not merely the design and siting of roads but the entire transport policy of the Government. The White Paper at times reads like an official defence of the entrenched position of the railways. Certainly it is true, as Mr. S. E. Raymond told the RHA conference, that an industry performing essential services and employing 350,000 people "cannot be left to drift". But the desire to give protection need not be taken to absurd lengths.
Typical of the over-cautious approach of
the White Paper is a comment on railway closures. Where it appears that services might in future have to be reinstated on a closed line, says the White Paper—and gives as an example the result of planned movement of population and industry—"the Government will ensure that the route is preserved meantime, even if the actual track is removed, so that there will be no physical obstacle to reopening-. It is difficult to envisage this happening in an era when new towns are deliberately planned to take full advantage of the revolution brought about by road transport.
Road planning should also be directed towards removing the need for some of the "standby" railway facilities to which Mr. Raymond referred. Some major routes are made impassable by snow and ice for short periods during which time the only means of communication may be a railway scarcely used for the rest of the year. The expense of subsidizing the railway could often be overcome—although admittedly at a further capital expense—by providing a more suitable road. The normally unused railway track might even be suitable for the purpose.
Requirements
Transport requirements of trade and industry ought to be constantly in the mind of the Government. The volume and quantity of goods to be carried should determine such things as the strength of the road surface, the width of lane and carriageway, the use made of gradients and bends, and the height and strength of bridges. The increase in abnormal, indivisible-load traffic, in spite of efforts to divert it to other forms of transport, points the need for a grid of special roads capable of taking such traffic.
Strengthening of weak bridges is particularly relevant at the present time. The existence in the road system of so many dubious bridges made it seem prudent to the Ministry of Transport, when drawing up the present gross weight limits, to introduce complicated statistical variations according to the number of axles on a vehicle and the distance between them. Safety considerations, apart from the danger of a bridge collapsing, appear not to enter into these calculations at all; but manufacturers and operators, especially of tipping vehicles, have been called upon to solve some difficult problems in their efforts to combine operating efficiency with the maximum payload while still keeping within the law.
Revision
The Ministry had in mind revising the regulations to bring them as nearly as possible in line with Continental practice. That this aim has not been achieved is due apparently to the survival of a few weak bridges. The significance of conforming to the European pattern becomes clearer every day. Whatever happens about EFTA and the Common Market, and whether or not the Channel tunnel is to be built, more and more vehicles will travel to and from the Continent. Liberalization of the licensing procedure, which has now been accepted in principle, will have little meaning when so many of the foreign vehicles would like to come to Britain are debarred because of their dimensions from travelling on British roads.
Wider consultation than that promised in the White Paper might be advisable. This should involve no loss of time when so many of the Government's transport plans are awaiting fresh reports and the results of further research. On the other hand the main lines of the motorway and trunk road network, and of many of the principal urban roads and ringroads, have been set out so often that there ought no longer to be room for argument about them. Lack of money has been the main obstacle in the past. It would be regrettable if fresh delays were incurred by submitting the whole system to a leisurely reappraisal.
All the interests concerned in making and using vehicles ought to have a say in the design of the principal highways which remain to be built. They should also be consulted about new and improved roads which may seem less important from a national point of view but which will provide essential links. The people who use the roads must have a valuable contributicin to make towards the decision on what roads are needed.
Janus