The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-05-21
koNpoN TRAFFIC. TIDE.
John Burns on the Future Of Great
City Streets.

1919 Ge' AfS VI liz Gt0EG u &EEah
City streets.
The fact is that London lacks adj
ministrative unity in matters Of traf-
&c, reads and streets, says the Pail
Mall Gazette. If parliament is to take
hand in its administration this
IL unneccsBaTy-there should be a
minister fl London, who knows its
moods, its difficulties, its river. its
subterranean movements, traffic, life
and work. It's labyrinthine dralnage
system is excellent and admittedly
the best in the world, because there is
no local veto, police control OF. govern <
ment meddling. Greatest Of al absur-
dities is a lord chancellor assuming
the role of arbiter on subjects without
his legal purview and beyond his civic
knowledge. See what Charing Cross +
station stands parliamentary ig-
noranca of London utility and beauty;
and its exemption, thr,agb the psstl
influence of railway directors in par-s
lament, from the general building act
ALCW = A.<Ao at tOiob VI l4lC anu pA0pT
erty, the. danger of favored and privi-
legged treatment.
What is the good of having wide,
beautiful street like Regent street il
its approaches and thoroughfares are
to be made dumping ground for rail-
way delivery vans? What is the bene-
fit to London traffic of widening the
Strand If it is to be filled up with
publicans' gigs, actors motors and
newspaper vans, or, as Kingsley is
rapidly becoming, rendezvous Tor
Covent Garden wagons, or else a pest
by reason of gangs of betting men,
who seem to prosper in the sunshine
of police tolerance in the purlieus of
Old Gravy?
But for the admirable police work at
conge5ted points and the inexhaustibe
good temper of the London driver
and his amazing skill London would
be impossible! But what London
needs is imagination, initiative, re-
source, inyentiveness and experiment
in its too numerous governors, and
the abolition of it's Orientalized police
bureaucracy, who find trasient and
: perfunctory diversion ON the road to
approximation in looking upon Lon
don as If it were province of Bengal
or yilayet of Bulgaria, instead of
being, as it is more truly, a suburb of ,
Battersea and, incidentally, Of course.
Tho o,saofocf oitxt In fbo world
The chief necessity, pressing and in
exorable, is the rapid extinction of the
London omnibus. l shall be sorry TO
miss the patient horse and, given its
uses, the good vehicle. Above all,
shall be sorry to see the disappearance
of the cheerful, If obsequious and
therefore oyerworked driver But he
has to 60 His horses, their INSOFAR
able dirt and insanitation. their ugly
pest-house stables, their rivalryin OBJ
struction-all these and his 1000 mo-
bile Instructions to the other vehicles
have to go.
In their place London needs, and in
the next te2 years should get 500
miles of electric conduit tramways.
similar to and Improvements upon. the
London County Council tramways,
that last year carried 170,000,OO0 OF
people and are as pleasant to passen-
e. .rs and beneficial to staff as they are
profitable to ratepayer.
AS for the motor omnibuses, their
cost, noise, maintenance, ubiquity OF
movement and mobility of obstruction
discount them for London use, except
as feeders for branch lines of Council
tramways. The tube railway is al
ready at its incomparative maximum
and will not be seriously extended, be-
cause of cost, smell and potential risk
and probable danger.
All who sys responsible for the
movement of London's 100000 horses,
its 10000 public vehia,NS ga = . &h-
nual conveyance o. is 1000, 000 of
population each ECO times pei annum,
have a serious, resi- ansihle ana press
ing duty cast upon them. That duty
is to see that wise public expendi-
ture in the widening and better PLAN
ming of streets shall be followed up by
some sort of public instruction, so that
every class Of vehicle and person,
while moving about freely, shall not
thereby impede or congest the great
flow of traffic that is London's greatest
feature, the foreigners wonder and, III
IT'S ver-ending length, strength and
Size. the marvel Of all who see it.