Water 'Buses on the Thames
The House of Commons has agreed to transfer to the proposed London Transport Board the powers to run passenger vessels on the Thames. Again and again since the War the London County Council, discouraged by the classic failures of the municipal steamers Of 1905, has refused to facilitate any of the schemes which have been pressed upon it for running passenger services on the river. It has been far too readily assumed that the most magnificent natural highway in Britain, which was the original cause of London's greatness, and was for centuries the principal means of communication between one part of the city and another, has been superseded by roads and tubes. It is overlooked that since the un- happy enterprise of the L.C.C., with steamboats too large, too slow, and too uncomfortable, the improvement of the means of rapid river transport has gone on par/ passia with the improvement of roads and railways—which are
both gravely congested. A continuous service of swift "water 'buses "adapted for summer and winter use, would provide an agreeable alternative east and west rOute
through .London. At present the organized traffic possi- bilities of the finest British waterway in the midst of a concentrated population remain completely neglected:—
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