ROADS AND THEIR USERS.
THE NEED FOR BETTER ROADS.
NO one can deny that the streets. of our towns and the roads of our countryside are becoming inadequate for the traffic which uses them. When one considers the chief streets of London and the main roads leading from any of our big cities to the country beyond, there is hardly one of which continuous and free use can be enjoyed by the driver of the vehicle, whether it is a lorry or a motor cycle. The fact is that our roads have grown up gradually, not on any well thought out system, but out of the needs and legacies of the past. Many of our main roads run over the same soil as the Roman roads made over 1,500 years ago, and as for the less important roads, especially in agricultural districts, these have grown up chiefly out of farm lanes, footpaths, and short cuts across fields_ or through woods in the absence of any direct route between two important points.
Even if motor vehicles had not existed as they have done since 1900 the problem would already have become acute, owing to the normal increase of horse-drawn traffic which would have taken place. As it is now, with the coming of the mechanical road vehicle a large propor- tion of the passenger and goods traffic which used to be conveyed by rail is now conveyed by road, and the situation is entirely altered, as is proved by the recent returns of the railway companies showing the decrease in passengers and goods conveyed in 1921 and 1922 com- pared with previous years, and an obviously largeincrease, as to which there are no really trustworthy statistics, in ordinary road traffic. If we take some known figures as to the increase of traffic, they are eloquent enough. In the neighbourhood of Glasgow, on the principal roads of Renfrewshire alone, there was an increase of 1,165,060 tons for the year 1922 compared with 1921. In the neighbourhood of Liverpool, in 1918, 884,208 tons per annum used the eight principal roads leading out of the city, while at the beginning of 1922 this figure had risen to 7,138,248 tons. In London, at Hyde Park Corner, the tonnage in 1922, as compared with 1912, had risen by 10,000,000 tons, from 38,000,000 to 48,000,000, and at Hammersmith Broad way from 12,000,000 to 19,000,000. Many more examples might be given, but these will suffice ; yet in the last ten years there has been practically no street widening in London, and until about a year i ago no construction of new roads. Small wonder is it, therefore, that the roads of to-day do not suffice for the traffic which desires to go over them, and accidents of all kinds are happening constantly as a result of the con- gestion of traffic and the lack of room for vehicles to pass each other. If one thinks of the possibilities of the future, and considers how much transport by road. is increasing every year, there can hardly be any doubt that the whole question of either widening roads or building new ones must be- taken in- hand; or elSe the transport of the country will be so seriously handicapped as to affect national prosperity. Nov, as it happens, we have at this very time, when the need of a bold road policy is so urgent, over a million unemployed, a third of whom at least, or say 800,000, could be employed on the improvement and making of roads. There are difficulties in regard to the employment of those drawing unemployment pay, and there may be opposition from the Labour Party on various grounds, but I am sure that the true solution is for the national need for roads to be satisfied by the national need for work. And even if a large sum such as £50,000,000 has to be borrowed, it would be better to take some financial risk in regard to a long-dated loan repayable over a series of years than that the traffic of the country should be so congested as to affect its prosperity in the near future, or that genuine unemployed should be asking for work while there is none to give. In passing, I may observe that whatever proposals the Government may make for the abolition of the Ministry of Transport, and the reversion to certain Ministries of various functions now exercised by the Ministry of Transport, it is to be hoped that a Roads Department will be left in existence, for roads and transport are such a very vital and important subject now to all of us that a proper Department of the Government to deal with them is absolutely necessary. The Spectator, I am glad to remember, has always been sympathetic to the cause of good roads, and I assume that most readers of its pages are in accord with its policy. The need for new and better roads can only weigh with the Government if there is a strong public opinion expressed through M.P.s and the Press. When any Government can feel that it has the country behind it in a policy action will be taken. At the present moment those who use our now congested thoroughfares, whether in town or country, are apt to grumble and there the matter ends. But what they should do, if I may be bold enough to suggest it, is to write to their local M.P., in season and out of season. Every person who is con- vinced of the need of better and safer roads should consider himself an apostle bound to spread the true faith, and thus create a public opinion so strong that the Government of the day will have to pay attention or risk defeat.
In the private Parliamentary Bills this Session there is an interesting, scheme—the Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road—promoted for the special purpose of pro- viding a new and much shorter route between Bourne- mouth and Swanage, and of saving sixteen miles over the present route. If this Bill gets through, it will be the first motor road sanctioned by Parliament, and next year we may have other schemes, such as the motor way now being considered between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, besides other schemes of a similar nature.
And there is really no reason why private enterprise should not build these roads and earn a fair return on its capital by charging tolls, thereby relieving the Govern- ment of the necessity of finding money for the widening of existing roads and the building of new ones. Local bodies such as county and district councils also should welcome the assistance of private enterprise, for it will mean that much of the traffic which would otherwise wear out public roads will run on these new motor ways, and the rural ratepayer will thus be relieved of some of his heavy burden. But the mere birth of such an idea, and the bringing into Parliament of the first Bill to carry out the construction of a motor way, is evidence once more that the need for better, wider, straighter and safer thoroughfares is appreciated by the public. The past era in matters of transport has been dominated by the railway ; the next era will be that of the road.
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