THE CONGESTION OF TRAFFIC IN LONDON.
THE recent correspondence between the Roads Im- provement Association and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis • on the subject of street 'traffic in London draws attention to a problem ever increasing in complexity and one that appears incapable of complete solution. The Association asked the Commissioner to • arrange for the collection and publication at regular intervals of statistics of traffic upon the principal thorough- fares, and suggested that there should be a reissue of the police circular, dated August, 1898, and addressed to rail- way companies, market gardeners, carmen, and others engaged in heavy traffic, in which drivers of vehicles were advised to keep on the near side of the road as much as possible. The Association also asked for statistics as to the number of drivers of slow vehicles who had been prosecuted since the issue of the circular for obstructing the traffic by not keeping to the left or near side of the road. In answer to this application the Com- missioner declined to issue statistics relating to street traffic or to prosecutions for obstructing street traffic, but expressed himself as willing to reissue the circular of 1898 despite its unenforceable nature. The Chief Clerk at New Scotland Yard in his letter to the Association, however, assures the public " that regulations to meet the many con- flicting claims of the various classes of traffic in London is a subject constantly engaging the Commissioner's attention."
This correspondence exhibits one • aspect of the great traffic question. The control of traffic constitutes not the least arduous of the many duties cast upon the Metro- politan Police, and it is not too much to say that this work is performed with a high degree of efficiency and devotion. In dealing last week with the policing of the Metropolis, we pointed out the remarkable manner in which that small body of men carry out their multitudinous duties ; but we added that a considerable increase in the force was necessary in order to perform with complete efficiency the work for which the police are responsible. This is particularly evident when we turn aside from the general question to the particular case of congested traffic. The drivers of London are extra- ordinarily susceptible to police control, and a very con- siderable increase of men specially detailed for the regula- tion of traffic would, there can be no manner of doubt, produce results of a valuable character. Much of the congestion is due to a want of superintendence, direc- tion, and control, which could be supplied by the Commissioner of Police at a comparatively small in- creased cost to the ratepayers. To ascertain how the additional men should be distributed for the purpose of regulating traffic, it is absolutely essential that the statistics of traffic upon the principal thoroughfares asked for by the Roads Improvement Association should be collected by the Commissioner and published, and we fail to understand why this reasonable request, which goes to the very root of one aspect of the problem, should have been refused. In order that scientific methods should be brought to bear upon a social question of extraordinary difficulty, it is necessary that all the available data should be collected, that complete knowledge should be obtained of the " natural history " of street congestion in London. In dealing with disease it is now universally recognised that all progress is based upon the proper use of empirical methods, and the congestion of traffic is one of the most obstinate of the diseases that attack great cities. The formulation of statistics and the increase of men de- tailed for traffic control will have, however, little effect unless a further step is taken. It will also be necessary for the Commissioner to appoint an Adjutant-General whose sole duty will be the superintendence of traffic and the devising of means from day to day that will enable the great army of London, with its impedimenta and transport, to pass smoothly and swiftly on its way. We advocate, there- fore, as strongly as possible, the application of purely. scientific methods to this difficult question. In that way a partial solution will be found for a problem that threatens to endanger the position of London as the great trading centre of the world.
The efficiency, however, of traffic management represents but the outwardness, so to speak, of the problem. It deals only with the progress of an ever-increasing army along a given track. The questions of the proportions of the army and the nature of the track remain, no matter how efficient we make the management. If the track remains unaltered and the army ever increases, the solution by management must necessarily become less and less complete. The efficiency of the police cannot, unless other conditions change, keep pace with the growing complexity of the position. We must, therefore, consider these other ques- tions. The track consists of the myriad miles of streets that thread the seven or eight hundred square miles of Greater London. This Leviathan has emerged, as it were, from the marshes and rising land that surround the old City for the purpose of supplying the needs of a rapidly aggregated and stupendous population. No ordered plan is to be found in the growth of London. The flocking millions had to live somewhere, and with the need arose the houses in huddled masses on insanitary soil. The effort made in the seventeenth century to restrain the limits of the City was doomed to failure, and the opening of the nineteenth century discovered a Babylon expanding without any order. A system of drainage and of lighting was introduced, while the Metropolitan Paving Act, 1817 (better known as Michael Angelo Taylor's Act), did much to improve and regulate the streets of the Metropolis. The Metropolis Management Acts of the middle of the century made an effort to regulate, through the Select Vestries and a central Board, the streets and the health of the unclean monster. The legislation on these subjects was, however, totally inadequate, and for forty years many parts of London were left at the mercy of an inefficient Bumbledom. That the Metropolitan Board of Works did much good work—especially in the matter of open spaces—we are not prepared to deny, and we believe that the London County Council found a better foundation laid for the work which it began in 1889 than is perhaps generally acknowledged. But it was not until the London Building Act of 1894- a consolidating and amending Act relating to streets and buildings in London---:came into operation that it was possible to deal adequately with the street question. That Act arrested, or rather, let us say, gave the Council the power to arrest, the chaotic growth of the Metropolis. It placed the formation of new streets, and the widening, altering, and adaptation of old streets, under the control of the Council, and thus to some extent secured the possi- bility of a plan that should govern all future structural evolution in Greater London. It made it possible for a policy to be laid down that should aim at the gradual creation of great arteries through which the population could flow without interruption and without disorder. But even if such a plan has been devised, even if the full advantage of the Act is being reaped, nevertheless the broadening and the connecting of thoroughfares, the rounding and bending of great streets into easy conductors of traffic, will involve the labour of years, only to be per- formed slowly, with great difficulty and at a great price. And here, therefore, as in the case of the management of the traffic by the police, it is necessary that a great central plan under the control of one mind should be devised, to be followed out in patient detail in every part of the Metropolis.
Even if, however, we have a perfect police plan and a perfect structural plan, the problem is still unsolved in its essentials, for the tremendous fact remains that there are six and a half millions of people who live in Greater London,—an army ever on the march. How then shall this army be dealt with ? We have now assumed that all has been done that can be done to manage it, that it has a track as broad as the conditions of the case allow. But nevertheless the army remains, and must remain, enormous. It is plain that there must be means taken to keep the track clear, not to allow it to be blocked with transport or to be closed for days together while workmen deal with gas mains, electric mains, telephone mains, and the drainage system. It is useless to have good police and a good track if the track itself is closed. It is therefore evident that all the wires, pipes, and other underground necessities of London should be kept in tunnels where workmen can enter and work without interfering with the traffic overhead. It is also evident that warehouses and shops can only be allowed to receive and discharge goods during those hours of the early morn- ing or late evening when the main army is at rest from its labours. These two things are essential to any scheme that would relieve the congestion of the streets. But even this is not enough. Let the policing be good, the track be both broad and clear, still we have to face the fact that the volume of pedestrian and vehicular traffic is so enormous that it will stop and block itself from its inherent viscosity. It is therefore necessary that vehicular traffic should be reduced in individual bulk. In other words, vehicles must be built that are adapted to the peculiarities of London streets. Moreover, the horse is no longer suitable to London. He claims too much room. The motor-car can do his work and only take up half the space. It is, or it will be, also more cleanly, and will be less restive. The use of the horse in London has, in fact, become a cruelty to the beast and a nuisance to man. But even if the question of vehicular traffic can be dealt with, there remains the question of the pedestrian. It is necessary that he should be moved easily from place to place in London without troubling the streets at all. An elaborate system of healthy, airy "Tubes " will do much to promote this end, and it is possible that " Tubes " will also be supplemented by spacious, well-policed subways that will take pedestrians from point to point without the necessity of crossing crowded and dangerous thoroughfares. We may also hope in time for some measure of decentralisation. Swift trains and the use of telephones will do much to keep a large class, who are now for business purposes compelled to frequent the City, out of London. Their orders can be taken or given freely by telephone, and their goods swiftly despatched or received by train. So in a measure London may be able, despite its ceaseless growth, to adapt itself to its conditions. But it seems clear that its traffic con- gestion is a, disease that can only be dealt with by large and well-thought-out schemes that take into account not merely present conditions and the " natural history" of those conditions, but also all the future possibilities of the greatest town the world has known. In that way only can the pre-eminence of London be maintained without incurring the risk of apoplexy from high feeding.
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