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A Mistake
Page 49
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THE problems for road transport operators—attendant upon the ever-increasing competition for road space in our over-burdened city streets—are assuming, almost every day, greater proportions.
There is a certain amount that operators can do to help themselves, but one thing that certainly will not do this is the unrealistic type of internecine warfare such as that launched secretly late last year by the traffic committee of the Municipal Passenger Transport Association, who believe that the answer to the congestion difficulties stage operators experience in town and city centres lies in banning goods vehicles during the morning and evening peaks, They are no doubt well-intentioned, and sincerely believe their suggestion to be a good one. It is not. This problem affects everyone in road transport, and it will not be solved sectionally. It will move towards solution when the Government decides who is to have priority— commercial transport (including buses) or private cars. It is false logic for one section of the road transport industry to attempt to score off another section.
Last week, and again in this issue, The Commercial Motor examined aspects of this vast and complex question. The chairman of the Road Haulage Association's traffic committee, Mr. J. T. Turner, last week looked at the difficult matter of turn-round of goods vehicles. Even hauliers (and, of course, C licensees too) realize that a stationary goods vehicle some 7 ft. wide is blocking a traffic lane. Mr. Turner made a number of excellent suggestions by which goods vehicle operators could help themselves.
In today's issue Mr. R. E. G. Brown, London and Home Counties divisional secretary of the Traders Road Transport Association, explores the dangerous potentialities inherent in the designating of urban clearways. The T.R.T.A. has for some time now been conducting a rigorous campaign amongst its members and amongst traders to cut waiting time.
The M.P.T.A. memorandum has never received wide publicity because it was only distributed to municipal general managers, but already some are making use of it. Just what does this document say? It poses three solutions—hiving off through traffic, introduction of compulsory staggering of hours of work, and total prohibition of standing or waiting in peak hours.
Of the loading-ban solution, the municipal busmen say: "This is an absolute ' must ' and is the only practical measure to give immediate results. . . . There will be an outcry, of course, from the shopkeepers and traders," It goes on to say: "There are many properties in the centres of our large cities where there is no rear access and the whole of the business of the shop is conducted in and out from the Queen's highway. The only solution to their problem is one that has been a common part of the transport industry ever since its inception—namely, shift work. Where such conditions apply, delivery van drivers and shopkeepers will have to adopt early and late hours of work."
The M.P.T.A. then accuses the T.R.T.A., among other bodies, of creating "a clime of opinion that would throw the blame for traffic congestion on to the most efficient user of the roads, namely, the public service vehicle." There is no proof of this offered by the M.P.T.A.
There is only one way congestion can successfully be attacked. That is by banning the long-term parker of private cars. The M.P.T.A. would have been wiser to advocate this.