NEW roads, reconstructed roads, modernised roads ; roads without dangerous
bends, roads with crossings which cannot be dangerous to any but suicides ; roads that prevent skidding, roads that are divided into as many tracks as may be necessary for the public safety, roads finished in some light colour that will take us back to the days when night driving was actually one of the greatest pleasures motoring could offer and not, as it is today, a thing to be avoided at all costs. A hundred million pounds to pay for them, possibly more, probably, if only to lighten income-tax, less. Five years to complete the scheme which will be the first really national thing of its kind this side of the Channel.
You must admit it is a noble scheme and, because we have for so long been handicapped in our national affairs by half- hearted not to say niggling plans that die premature but quite natural deaths before producing any practical results, for that reason alone I think Mr. Hore-Belisha earns our gratitude. Forgetting for the moment what it may cost to widen thousands of miles of ancient highway and generally bring its standard of efficiency level with that long ago reached in Italy and Germany, let us be glad that somebody has at last had the courage not only to say what is wanted (many have been eloquent enough in the past) but also to put his way of getting it into active work, on the road and not in the office.
There is really very little to criticise usefully in the plans of the Ministry of Transport. The usual outcry against this or that detail, against the omission of another, came mostly from people with that allegedly Irish tendency to believe that what- ever a Government does must be wrong—particularly when it is doing something new. And this Government is certainly doing something new with its road scheme. It is quite likely that many of its features will turn out to be failures which look today on paper as certain successes, and that some of the most criticised notions may work perfectly in practice. Nobody has ever made a flawless plan, certainly none that is to take five years to perfect. The point is that this is an infinitely better plan than anyone else's—it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it is the first plan with any vision at all—and that its success depends entirely upon the road users.
The first 4,503 miles of the " A " class highways are now under the control of the Ministry of Transport instead of under that of .1 forget. how many local authorities—twenty or a hundred or a dozen, a Gilbertian company, anyhow—and these miles, traversing the busiest parts of the country in all directions, will serve as models for the rest. The Minister can do as he likes with his own roads (as long as the money lasts), and he can bring very effectual pressure to bear upon the local men who have still nominal charge of the preserva- tion' of the highway, to do as he does. He issued a really masterly Memorandum to these a few weeks ago in which he told them what he was going to do and what he expected them to do.
His 4,500 miles will probably be ready to serve as a model some time before the local men have got more than some scattered reaches modernised, and it is when the Hore-Belisha highways are ready for all the world to see that the road-user will have his opportunity. For it is he and nobody else who can compel the local authorities to accept or reject the scheme. That important moment is some distance in the future yet, and time is the essence of the whole business. For the numbers of vehicles of all kinds is still increasing as fast as ever, far faster than the alterations to the roads necessary to the general safety, and by the time, say, the first r,000 miles are ready for the speed and bulk of the traffic expected to use them at that time, the whole situation may have worsened.
We have seen how swiftly such roads as the Great West, the Watford Bypass, the Western Avenue, only a short time ago hailed as models, have been transformed from fairly useful outlets into pandemonia of light-racing traffic, all going fast because they must if there is not to be a paralysing block; nightmare stretches of terror and discomfort you drive miles to avoid. If Mr. Hore-Belisha remembers what these places were like when they were opened and how short a time it took for them to become what they are today, he must study his new plans with ever-growing anxiety. Is there time, and if so, for how long ?
The fact is, of course, that England is much too small for her traffic. Her roads are the lineal descendants of cart-tracks and in innumerable places follow them. Save for the main highways and those that are legacies of the Romans, straight and scientifically planned, there are few roads that were ever meant to carry any weight of traffic. There are not nearly enough of them, except in .certain districts where there is only local traffic, and until there is an absolutely revolutionary redis- tribution of private property there will be no room to build more. Are we in just that position, rapidly choking under traffic pressure ? Or will the Five Year Plan give us roads that will not only relieve that pressure for the time being but be indefinitely capable of expansion and modification to meet fresh conditioLs ?
The Home Office have lately shown practical appreciation of the crisis. The new mobile police are to advise rather than to admonish the road-hog, to caution rather than to go fine- collecting—a job for none but the very pick of any of the most highly trained and intelligent special staff you can think of. They must have their subject at their tongues' end, able to speak with that supreme confidence that comes of arduous experience acquired in the toughest school. They must be courteous, because most of their advice will resolve itself into showing how, the behaviour that leads to dangerous situations is, in ninety cases out of a hundred, sheer lack of decent manners. And they must be tactful—how they must be tactful ! No man will envy them, but the heartiest wishes and sympathy of every road-user will be theirs. For it may easily turn out that they will accomplish more in the reduction of fatalities than the very [Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale or exchange of used cars.]
Previous page
