The Public Will Demand More Transport Facilities
Page 16
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ALTHOUGH the authorities concerned have, unfortunately, deemed it essential materially to reduce the road passenger transport facilities of the whole country by eliminating the medium and long-distance express services, there is, however, one ameliorating aspect, Which has, apparently, not yet been considered. We do not mean the promise to improve certain local facilities by bus, but to the feelings which will be engendered in the minds of the public.
Transport by road has become so much a part of the Nation's travel for business and pleasure that it is apt to be regarded as a side of the normal life of the individual. Consequently, the loss of much of the convenience thus afforded will undoubtedly present to him in full force the true value of the gradual growth of the facilities which he has hitherto enjoyed: He will, therefore, be all the more keen for their reinstatement and subsequent expansion when it once more becomes possible to remove the war-time restrictive measures.
Road transport has done more than any other means to spread the population over wide areas of country, 'end thus improve the conditions of living in cities and towns. It suitable services had not been provided, our already congested centres of habitation would have become even more dense. Likewise, it has, to a considerable extent, arrested the dangerous flow from urban and agricultural areas.
Even during this war, road transport is carrying out a task of vital importance in conveying workers to and from our vast plants for munitions production, thus instilling amongst millions of men and women an appreciation of the incalculable benefits afforded by well-organized travel by road. Complaints there have been, and will be, but for these the short-sighted policy of the men who endeavoured to check the growth of road transport is to blame.
After this war the public will expect great things . in the way of improved facilities and ability to get from place to place with speed and comfort. Therefore,' a great responsibility will rest upon the shoulders of those from whom these services will be demanded, as well das upon the Government Departments which will be charged with the task of licensing and regulating vehicle operators.
Similar remarks apply to the carriage of goods by road, although, perhaps, not quite so frilly, because the individual is not hit so hard and directly, except in the case of retat delivery. Fruit may be rotting on trees in one part of the country, but the average man does not think of blaming the waste to the absence of adequate transport facilities, but, so far as the business man and the trader are concerned, they know full well how restrictions on road transport, necessary though they may be, have brought to them most difficult problems which the railways alone cannot solve.