The British Road Federation argued strongly before the House of
Lords Committee on Tuesday in favour of road improvement as a means of averting accidents, and in par- ticular for the segregation of traffic—footpaths for pedestrians, cycle-tracks for cyclists and up and down tracks for motorists, with compulsion on each class of traffic to keep to its own ground. As a motorist I emphatically agree ; driving on the Kingston by-pass has been a different matter since the up and down traffic has been divided between two separate tracks. But there are two sides to this question of road development. If you are going-'-as you must—to have main highways scheduled for widening and other improvements, often at a heavy sacrifice of amenities, then in common fair- ness you ought to have thousands of quiet country roads scheduled against improvement, as improvement is now understood,—scheduled in fact for conservation. Some County Council surveyors, perhaps under pressure from motorists;perhaps motor-maniacs themselves, have developed an incredible passion for widening a road whenever they see one. Trunk roads to carry through traffic we must have, and better ones than we have now. But no motorist is entitled to demand that every road he may ever want to drive on shall be straightened out and opened up and generally vandalised to enable him to get over it a few seconds, or even a couple of minutes, sooner. County surveys with a view not to improvement but to conservation, except for good cause shown, are badly needed.
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