NEW THOUGHTS FOR CITIE
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and a new deal for commercial vehicles
From Our Political Correspondent CAA SQUARE deal for commercial vehicles and a big boost for public transport. This will be the effect of the startling Buchanan-Crowther Report if the Government casts timidity aside and embarks on the spectacular programme which il demands.
The Buchanan Committee has been studying the problem of traffic in towns and is shocked by the size of the disaster about to bear down upon us. But it has proposed a plan which will control the motorcar and not only keep trade moving— but also improve city centres beyond belief for those who live and work in them.
Basically, the Buchanan plan sets out in detail how the urban centres should move towards the year 2010, when traffic will have increased fourfold. The heaviest increase will come in the next 10 years and, in that time, the motor vehicle will either be controlled or it will probably wreck the cities. It is as simple as that.
This—in the view of the Buchanan Committee and the Crowther steering group—is what we should do: First, step up urban road building considerably, but only after making a careful analysis of flows and needs for a long time ahead.
Second, persuade the car commuter to make the journey to and from work by bus or train. In any case, he will probably have to be controlled by parking limits, prohibition schemes or taxation.
Third, strengthen public transport, preferably by making it comparatively cheap. Give the car commuter free parking if necessary at the spot where he changes to bus or train.
Fourth, reshape the big towns and cities into something different, removing the pedestrian from physical contact with the motor vehicle and preventing each driver from having to worm his way through a maze of streets to reach his destination.
A Comprehensive Approach None of these measures will work separately. They must be taken together. For instance, the many schemes for restricting car commuters would fail if public transport was not strengthened. And the reshaping of the big towns and cities is all-important regardless of the cost.
From a swift reading of the report, the colossal increase in car ownership is seen as the real bogey in the urban transport problem.
Although the various schemes to tax or prohibit the use of road space are discussed and given credence, they are not examined in any other context except their effect on car owners.
The Crowther Group clearly sees difficulties in granting permits to use certain streets, however. They ask: "What would be essential traffic? " and hint that such a scheme would be open to discredit and abuse.
• The real strength of the Buchanan Report lies in its imaginative and detailed proposals for Making the cities work again. Just as a tree branches outward from the trunk, so should traffic reach its destination.
The cities should be bounded by the main corridors of traffic, and through traffic should be removed from their centres. They should be dissected by swift routes to specific areas. And these areas should then be honeycombed by district roads on which all traffic should have a reason to be there. Into this last phase of roads would go only those vehicles with a definite destination in that area.
Each section of the city so created would have a hexagonal road system providing the freest possible flow. And each of these sections would be self-contained units containing an industrial, commercial or residential grouping (or a combination) which would be known, for want of a better phrase, as an environmental area.
The purpose of these areas would be to split a big town or city into a patchwork. of retreats from which all but essential traffic was excluded. Nowhere in the whole system would pedestrians meet traffic, except at bus stops and car parks in the environmental areas.
Within the areas, the traffic would operate more or less as a separate entity. In some, the service roads would torn the boundaries of pedestrian precincts which would look inward and away fron the roads.
In others, particularly in big cities, th, pedestrian level would be hoisted abov, the roads, leaving the full space under neath for buses, commercial vehicles, a many cars as could be accommodated t■ limits fixed for the roads, and acces stairs.
Away from the traffic, the experts ar convinced would be an entirely new lit for the cities, something on a seal undreamed of before.
Be Bold All this would cost a Jot of money But the two committees exhort th Government not to be feeble. Says th Crowther Group: "Any attempt ti implement these ideas would result in . gigantic programme of urban reconstruc tion. We see no reason to be frightene, of this. It would be very costly indeed– but if the rising number of motor vehicle are going to necessitate huge expendi tures, they are also going to generat huge revenues.
" We do not suggest that this revenu should be earmarked against the exper diture . . we content ourselves wit pointing out that if the rising tide I: motor vehicles requires money in va sums to be spent, it also promises larg new revenues." The Group also point out that ownership and use of vehicle has proved easy to tax in the past.
Commenting on the inability of publi transport alone to settle the problem r the car commuter—even if expansion wa pushed vigorously—the Crowther Grou says: "To prevent the .steady rise of ca
;ommuting it would be necessary to pro,:de a great many more bus and tube outes, running at very frequent intervals, ,t reasonable fares and with enough 'chides to guarantee a seat to every iiissenger.
"ibis could hardly be done on a payrig basis; it is very questionable whether t could be done at all. But this is not o say that the expansion of public transiort cannot make a large contribution. tegarded not as a solution in its own :ght, but as one arm of a co-ordinated policy. we think the case for expanded iuhlic transport in cities is proved."
In what appears to be a knock at Dr. leeching's fares-cost policy, the Report hen continues: "Without questioning in Es general application the policy of naking transport pay its way, we think he particular case of urban passenger ransport needs to be considered in a vider context than the simple comparison ietween what can be collected in fares rid what the service costs to run.
"Nor does this involve bringing in the nevitably vague conception of 'social equirements '. It ought to be a strictly conomic calculation. In any given city here is a calculable number •of bodies o be moved between home and work nd back again every day.
:ars Cannot Cope
"The number that can possibly be carled in private cars, even after an extenive programme of road building, is also alculable and limited. The remainder fill necessarily have to use public transort, and the means of providing it is ,ne of the essential elements of the sort f co-ordinated and comprehensive planing that is clearly needed."
On the same point, the Buchanan Comlittee contents itself with saying: "In the 3ng run, the most potent factor in mainiining a ceiling on private car traffic busy areas is likely to be the provision f good, cheap public transport, coupled rith the public's understanding of the osit ion,
" This last is essential , . . but the ttractions of private cars are very great, nd there can be no denying the difficules of providing public transport services
3 intrinsically convenient that they will
ttract optional car traffic off the roads appreciable quantities.
" lint, given a different financial policy, .avei by public transport could be made ?naively cheap, and this may prove to be icI,ey to the problem in the long term." If the reader is so minded he can delve nywhere into the glossy Buchananumber Report (" Traffic in Towns '', rice 50s., published by H.M.S.()) and rid incredibly complicated aspects of .affic engineering, and its relation to cornierchtl traffic, simply described.
Taking the Report section by section, first analyses what the towns and cities are up against. The cost of congestion in urban areas will be more than £250 m. this year. Road accidents accounted for one-third of accident fatalities in 1961 and cost £230 m. in compensation, damage payments and administrative costs.
Virtually no urban street is now safe. The public suffers from noise, odour, fear, danger, intimidation, dirt, inconvenience and sheer ugliness of surroundings on an increasing scale.
And, to top it all, the road traffic on which we have come to depend is grossly inefficient because of conditions. Vehicles are constructed to travel at a mile a minute at their heaviest and clumsiest, yet they achieve only 11 m.p.h. on average in the cities, Road transport is here to stay. Vast development has been disposed in various places based on motor vehicles and life would not thrive without them. They have forced the railways into a defensive position and are the dominantly senior partner in the transportation system, Although some loads could be transferred with advantage from road to rail, events have passed far beyond the point where it would be possible to revert to the railways. The appeal of the motor vehicle lies in its individual, highly flexible door-to-door service.
It is to be hoped we are not at the end of our capacities to produce a whole range of new ideas for moving people and goods in cities. "The bus, for example, for all its convenience, does not appear to be the last word in comfort."
Also, the travalator and continuously operating chair lifts might augment public transport. And conveyor belts, pipelines and pneumatic tubes might help the conveyance of goods. Why, for example, should the streets have to carry large oil tankers delivering fuel oil to individual buildings, when it could be piped in the same manner as water or gas?
Road Transport Is Vast Even so, it is difficult to see any serious competitor for the motor vehicle coming along. It is unlikely we should ever wish to abandon it. At present 2,305,000 people are employed in connection with road transport, a number only exceeded as a group by the distributive trades. It contributes about 10 per cent of the total labour force. .
" Consider also the fact that the manufacture of vehicles for export has become a main prop of the nation's economy, and it will be appreciated that as a nation we arc inextricably committed to the motor vehicle."
The Buchanan Committee agrees with the Wilson Committee that buses and heavy commercial vehicles are the main source of noise and adds: " It is disappointing to learn that there is no great hope of improvement in these cases." It a'so says that, to the five main sources of vehicle noise, it would add the noise of tyres on wet or rough road surfaces. As to the effects of traffic noise on people, the Committee agrees that traffic noise is steadily becoming a major nuisance, seriously prejudicial to the general enjoyment of towns, destructive of the amenities of dwellings on a wide scale, and interfering with efficiency in offices and business premises. But people have grown up with this and so tend to take it very much for granted.
The Committee notes that the Wilson Committee felt that the long-term remedy lay with town planning. "This we have had very much in mind throughout," says the Buchanan team.
Needless Noise "Even so, we are convinced, from our own observation, that much noise is caused by thoughtless and careless behaviour, and could be avoided forthwith. We have in mind the slamming of doors at night, unnecessary revving of engines . . . and most important, in our view, the rattling and banging of empty lorries or trucks with insecure loads or loose chains and couplings.
"At every turn in our consideration of traffic problems, we have been impressed by the need for vehicle users to be aware of their responsibilities to the rest of the community."
Regarding fumes and smell, the Committee believes that a rapid improvement could take place if public opinion was alerted to the present nuisance.
The increase in the numbers of goods and commercial vehicles will depend on the usefulness of road transport to industry, and the growth of new firms. new processes and new markets. The future number of public transport vehicles depends largely on the extent to which the public uses its cars.
There is a prospect in Britain of 18m. vehicles by 1970, 27m. by 1980 and perhaps 41m. (including 30m. cars) by 2010. Urban peak-period flows may be trebled and arc unlikely to be persuaded to shift; . . . the problems of traffic are crowding in upon us with desperate urgency".
, ON Tuesday, Professor Buchanan was told that the Nuffield Foundation had made a grant of £45,500 to the Imperial College of Science and Technology to enable him to continue his studies on urban traffic and transport. This is expected to make it possible for the work to continue for four years, and the professor intends, with the aid of American experience, to concentrate on: alternative movement systems for urban areas; the use of cost I benefit analysis for urban development projects; environmental standards • in relation to traffic; and transport survey methods as used in the U.S.A.