Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
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Can It Happen Here?
URBAN passenger operators have been protesting about the problem of falling traffic in face of private-car competition for so long that it has perhaps come to be regarded as a cry of "wolf!" in many quarters. It will surely come as all the more of a shock to these people to realize how serious the situation can in fact become.
I am certain that few people in this country were aware of the state it had reached in America until they saw A. B. B. Valentine's message to London Transport staff, in which he cited the drastic measures which President Kennedy has had to take to keep U.S. urban transport alive.
The President has put forward an emergency Federal aid programme for operators, has commented on the "crisis conditions" which have overtaken some. cities and threaten to become widespread, and has suggested consideration of special traffic lanes reserved for buses at peak hours, Unless immediate aid was given, the President foresaw the disappearance of mass public transportation.
I can't see a British Government doing anything except slap 3d. on fuel tax.
Left, Right
TF you say it quickly it sounds quite simple: "Change the -I-British rule of the road from left to right." Look at it from a county surveyor's point of view and you are liable A20 to start having nightmares and going grey overnight. I say this after looking at recent County Surveyors' Society comments on this subject. It's not only the almost-instantaneous switching of directional and "keep left" signs (to "keep right "); it's also all those traffic-light actuating pads suddenly on the wrong side of the lights (or road), the studs at pedestrian crossings, and the entire double-white-line system being the wrong way round.
Being Faced ?
NEVERTHELESS, the problem is one that is being seriously `1 faced, as a fairly long-term possibility. There is a plan knocking around the Ministry of Transport for stopping the country one Sunday and starting up again on Monday the other way round. The cost to change? Sweden, with half the road mileage, one-sixth the number of vehicles and one-seventh the population, estimated it at £22 million. So shall we say around £60 million for Britain?
One thing the surveyors say will have to be faced is a temporary, but perhaps large, increase in accidents and casualties. They see this as the most serious problem. Almost insuperable I would say.
Scottish Puzzle
IT is not often that James Amos expresses himself as puzzled, but he confessed to this situation at the opening of the new Scottish Omnibuses, Ltd., works at Portobello, Edinburgh. Saying that a few years ago the town council had persuaded the company to build a new bus station in order, among other things, to provide more space in St. Andrew's Square for private cars, he remarked that although long and tedious
'gotiations had eventually brought satisfactory conclusions, ie question remained to be solved.
How did it come about that, when people were erecting ever rger and higher buildings such as flats in cities (including linburgh), the company were not allowed to erect a building more than one storey—even though they had just demolished six-storey building on the same bus station site?
I think he is still waiting for an answer.