Resilient or Rigid Tires ?
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An interesting communication from a well-known London haulage contractor, Mr. G. F. Fry, Junr., of Fry Bros., Ltd., Greenwich, is published elsewhere in this issue (page 279). Mr. Fry, in consultation with several members of his family, raises points which tend in the direction of4shoWing that vehicles which run upon resilient tires are the greater offenders in respect of damage to macadamized roads. He eulogises the steel tire.
We are delighted to give space in our pages to contentions and views of all kinds in relation to this complex problem, but we are inclined to think that Mr. Fry and his associates have allowed themselves to be influenced more by records in respect of running on water-bound macadam roads than upon the up7to-date surfaces and crusts which are held by pitch or bitumen. The question of established cost is not now one of the behaviour of water-bound macadam, any more than it is of distributing loose dressing from the surface, immediately after laying, into the gutters. The wear of macadam crusts has certainly in past years been. largely due to internal movement, and to the grinding together of adjacent pieces of broken road-metal, resulting in a progressive increase of the percentage of interstitial voids, bringing about the break-up of both the surface and the body of the road under wear. Nowadays, with the individual pieces of broken road-metal firmly held in a cohesive matrix, and with a close approach to the ideal specification for construction, we cannot agree that it is correct to ascribe SO many offences to vehicles which are tired with rubber.
Incomplete Statistics Concerning Road Maintenance.
The insufficiency and incompleteness of the figures, which are at times advanced by highway authorities in support of their oft-repeated contention that heavy-motor traffic causes inordinate damage to the roads under their charge, are, in our judgment, little short of a public scandal. We have, both in our own columns and those of" The Times," done our best to expose. the fallacies which underlie the supposititious data by which the county surveyor of Middlesex seeks—by means of local tolls upon motorbuses as a beginning—to make a profit on the plea. of current cost. This is a particular case of unjust and unsupportable claims by highway authorities against heavy-motor traffic. Another example of undue attack, with which we dealt recently in our pages, concerned allegations by one of the aldermen of Lancashire, Mr. Aspell, when he stated that certain roads near Ulverstort had cost is. per omnibus-mile for maintenance, disregarding entirely the unexhausted life of the new road.
The latest case to come to ouqnotice is from Staffordshire, and we are here concerned with a statement, prepared by the county surveyor, in which the total road expenditure for 25 years, from 1890 to 1915, is summarized. We presume that the statement is intended to be complete in all respects, but we find that it is anything but complete. The total expenditure, during the 25 years, is shown to have been 11,901,810, whilst the total receipts are given as £40,25. The receipts are stated to fall under the following two beads: (1) contributions by railway and canal companies and otheFS ; (2) grants from the Road Board. Nothing is said about the Exchequer contributions under the Act of 1888, which contributions, although available for general county purposes, were specifically intended, when the Local Government. Act of 1888 was agreed between the local authorities and the Parliament of the day, to be in substitution for earlier road grants. This help from national resources has, we understand, during the 25 years in question, been not very much below 11,000,000. Why is nothing said about this hi the statement to which We refer? We are asking the county surveyor of Staffordshire for his explanation. There may be a good one.
It is discrepancies such as the foregoing that cause road users to despair of receiving fair treatment at the hands of some surveyors and some highway authorities. Cost jugglings may delude the general public, but we are glad to know that they do not deceive the cognoscenti of the Road Board. When the day comes for a final settlement of the points which are in dispute, from the standpoint of taxation, between road users and road surveyors, at the hands of the promised Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, we confidently believe that numerous errors of book-keeping, both accidental and deliberate, will be treated with the contumely which they in fact deserve.
We are told that the latest claim of the county surveyor of Middlesex is that lid. per omnibus-mile is necessary as a recoupment charge. We scarcely like to credit him with so wild an assertion, but there is no doubt that he will, before long, be brought face to face with facts which will show that, if he really holds that belief, it can be held only ihi ign-oroce of proved costs under motorbus traffic. His4,4'suceessful claim for powers to levy, in the future, subi2ct.to their non-revocation, tid. per omnibus-mile, in respect of the new western highway, from Kew to Hounslow, which highway is to be constructed according to modern methods on tl ins. of concrete, and paved with wooden blocks, is not conclus.ire. It can be demonstrated, by reference to the ascertained costs of maintaining Castelnau in the area of the Barnes U.D.C., under segregated motorbus traffic, to be about 100 per cent. too high. How and why he now seeks to soar to 1,14d. per motorbus-mile is, indeed, beyond the COMprehension of anybody but. himself. His brothersurveyors are smiling at his immoderation.
The Expediency of a Local Levy on Motorbuses.
No heavy motors, should be taxed twice, without very good cause and some valuable consideration in return. There is no doubt that if any extra payment by motorbus owners is hereafter fixed and made more general, it will be fair only if in the nature of a consideration for the. equivalent of an exclusive or agreed franchise. The possibility of recovery of any such tax from passenger fares, by shortening the lengths of the stages, is a much more simple matter, as a rule, than its recovery upon goods in competition with other means of transit. Our recent reference to the fact that " motorbus traffic can now afford to bear such a tax " is reasonable. It was put forward in contrast with the state of affairs which existed, say, six years ago, when the proposala were being even more strenuously advanced than now, at which date, of course, motorbus undertakings as a general rule were losing money. In the past-, therefore, as compared with the present, any additional tax would have meant an additional loss, whereas now, subject to suitable safeguards and conditions,such a. small additional tax will come out of profits. A correspondent (page 279) goes somewhat freely into his views hereanent. If adapted, such a levy must be in return for a definite quid pro quo in respect of release from any risk of claims for extraordinary-traffic damage, and in due relation to other points which are now under debate.
Tramcar Monopoly of the Highway.
We publish elsewhere, in the couvse of a communication from the Scot,ish Automobile Club, the text of new by-laws, recently passed, and now being enforced, by the Glasgow Corporation. We feel there is occasion to comment upon the far-reaching precedent which is set in the fourth of the by-laws. This reads; When a tramway ear is standing_ at attainway. stopping-place, as such -stopping-placeis indicated by a notice on. the side of the street, every driver of a vehicle who intends to pass on the left or near side of such car shall draw up immediately before arriving at such stoppingplace until the roadway is clear of passengers entering or leaving such car." There have already been summonses and convictions under this novel by-law, and fines gciing so high as 21s., with the alternative of 14 days imprisonment, have been imposed. The cases have concerned both private-car and commercial-vehicle n$ drivers. Weektave nothing 17,1-. _say against the administration of the law in conformity with the bylaw, but we desire to indicate certain dangers which are undoubtedly associated with the working of any such by-law, from the point of view of equal right of user of the highway by all parties.
Every driver in ihe streets of any of our big cities knows-that tramcar passengers do run risks in passing to and from the cars. Some drivers have undoubtedly not shown sufficient consideration for tramcar passengers, but any extension of this by-law power may have the result of turning large sections of our highways into standing accommodation for waiting tramcar passengers. Once the right is conferred, as it now exists in Glasgow, for a tramcar passenger to hold up traffic of all normal kinds, in order that he may walk to or from the car in the middle of the road, it is not easy to prevent the establishment of a custom by which the same passengers, when waiting for cars at popular picking-up points, will be found, by reason of their eagerness ta obtain seats, to wait on the carriageway instead of on the pavement. The writer made this objection when giving evidence before the House of Commons Commiftee on London street accidents in 1913. Ile well recalls being pressed by Mr. Kellaway, when he appeared before that Committee as the witness on behalf of the Royal Automobile Club, in regard to this matter.
There has, for several years past, been a conspiracy amongst tramway protagonists to obtain every conceivable preference for their passengers. This fourth by:law in Glasgow amounts to a prior right to use the highway FIS against every other user, and its seriousness, from the standpoint of general traffic congestion, is due to the inability of the tramcar to draw up at the kerb. , We understand that. Glasgow is the first city which has been able to obtain sanction for a by-law in the above-quoted terms; we are much afraid that it will be found to work unjustly, and to be liable to grave abuse, in the absence of appropriate regulation of the crowd at certain stopping-places, to the end that they shall assemble on the pavement, and not add, by their premature presence on the carriageway, to the extent of the monopoly which is already accorded to the only road vehicle which possesses fianaed wheels—the vehicle which alone enjoys the much-vaunted use of the metal wheel on the metal track, to the. exclusion of all others.
We cannot accept. Glasgow as a fair precedent for London. The traffic conditions in the Metropolis, and particularly within the inner zones, are very much more exacting than are those in any provincial 'city., All of us.are to be classed as pedestrians, and we respect the Eves of pedestrians, in common with. all other users of motor vehicles, but we view with discomfiture the adoption of a by-law which, if it be copied elsewhere, must still further reduce the already7sma1l obligation which in the United King,. dom rests upon the pedestrian to take care of himself. Every pedestrian owes it to himself and to the community not to waste the carriageway by any undue occupation of it. The by-law to which we have been referring encourages him in a retrogressive direction. Its working can only be made harmonious with the admitted needs of the travelling public at large if the police remember that the first function of a street in a commercial city is to carry the traffic. There must be regulation of the pedestrian, and not merely regulation of ordinary wheeled vehicles and those who own or use them. The tramcar remains the real ' bully of the road."
The Local Government Board and Approval of Loans for Motor Purchases.
There appears to be a striking lack of uniformity between the decisions of the. Local Government Board in respect of sanction for loans to local authorities for the purchase of motor equipment. It has been held in a number of cases that the purchase of motor fire-engines can be deferred. We have nothing to say against this, on the asSumption that the local conditions and resources have been adequately considered. We note, incidentally, that some fire brigades are getting over the difficulty by instituting voluntary funds.
It is the generous attitude of the L.G.B. contemporaneously towards purchases of battery-driven vehicles that discloses a serious anomaly. The ea-pital cost of equivalent conveyance, by means of battery-ptwelled vehicles, as compared with the capital cost with either petrol or steam, is very high ----frequently about 75 per cent, more than with either of the older types. We know that delivery is very uncertain in respect of either petrol Or steam models from British works, but we seriously question, at this time of financial anxiety, and above all in view of the decisions of the L.G.B. in respect of fire-engine loans, the course which is being followed of sanctioning exorbitant sums, compared with the prices that would have to be paid either for petrol or steam, as at, to quote two recent examples, Ilford' and Sheffield. Facts of such a character thai we shall be converted, but of which we have at the moment no knowledge, may in the future transpire.
It is admittedly a matter of public urgency that streets should be cleansed and refuse should be removed, but there is a limit to the degree of extra outlay that can be accepted, Itis freely owned, in some instances, on the part of the applying Councils, that they wish to encourage the use of batterypropelled vehicles. This object, no doubt, having regard to their large interests in the generation and sale of electric current, is. commendable, within limits. Again, some local Councils may prefer to buy a battery vehicle of British origin, in preference to a petrol vehicle of American origin, although this point does not help all battery vehicles.
We are content, for the time being, to raise the question of the degree of extravagance that can be permitted on the score of expediency, in the belief that future applications to the L.G.B. for such loans will be scrutinized with more regard for the extent of the excess capital, 28 compared with the sums which are involved by petrol or steam alternatives.