Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-20
BY BURTON w. MARSH,

6I nOhLON w. WUAhSh,
Trannc Engineer Of the City of Philadelphia.
Two Of the most pressing problems
facing municipalities today are unem-
ployment and trafflc. An unusual OPP
portunity offers itself this year to let
the one help the other or to kill two
birds with one stone"
Few, if any, cities are devoting the
energy to their traffic problems which
their Importance warrants. Just be-
cause the average cost per family Of
traffic congestion and accidents of 500
per year Is not q direct tax does not
make 1t any the less real. The horrible
and mounting traffic accident toll.
which has been appropriately called
worse than war" is q diSgrace-the
more so because 1t can be reduced, as
here and there a progressive city has
proved. Similarly, trafic congestion
can be materially relieved by numer-
Gus known methods. The trouble Is
that many Of these methods, approved
by the National Conference on Street
and Highway Safety and tested in
practice, are not being put to work.
Few Trained Persons.
One Of the main reasons why these
traffic improvement measures are not
being instituted more actively is that
there are not enough properly trained
persons devoting their time to street
trafic problems. In most municipali-
ties there are not even enough trafhc
officers and supervising officials, to say
nothing of manpower, working steadily
on the increasing engineering
phases Of the problem.
Most city fathers willingly agree that
more ought to be done on traffic i'm
provement work But how? Budget
making is a nightmare" they say. The
people want r-increasing services,
but they also want lower taxes" We'll
do the best we can for traffic" But
that best falls far short Of the need.
Traffic improvement work is, then, a
public work, which in most municipali-
ties is far behind. There Is much
back work" to be done-even to get
caught up. This work Is emphatically
not made" work, in the sense Of being
unnecessary or unimportant Work made
Just to keep idle hands busy.
Desire to Earn.
Americans do not want doles; they
desire to earn their livelihood. Why
NOT tie I'D this humanitarian, life
saving, close-to-the-public trat1c I'M
provement work with Unemployment
relief, which now looms as a greater
problem this Winter than last2 Why
not MT unemployed to work on pre-
T1ared/ programs for trafhc improve
last Winter Philadelphia carried out
this idea with fine results. through
the cooperation Of the Committee Tor
| UNEMPLOYMENT Relief, dispensing funds
raised by popular subscription, some
$4,000 was paid to 400 TO 500 unem-
rioyed traflc improvement workers.
What did these workers do? Reading
the following summarized illustrations
will convince any thinking citizen OF the
value of the work. It called for enor-
NOUS amounts of manual labor and by
the necessary technical studies 1t showed
| the way to many more jobs needed for
traffic betterment as well as unemploy-
ment relief.
Summarized Illustrations.
Some $1,000 accident records were
| transcribed and sorted-and over So
| 600 records were put into shape for
I ready use in devising remedial meas
q. Four accident spot maps were
made.
10 or more reported accidents in 1929
was developed.
4. Field studies were made for over
! 100 of the worst accident intersections.
s. Trafic studies were made In the
vicinity of approximately 400 public and
| parocEial schools. About 100 schools
viii have traffic protection this Fall
| because of this work, and as rapidly as
possible all schools win be protected.
8. Some 400 traffic signs were made
! and erected.
Z. Some 500 street name signs were
made and erected or cleaned and
| painted.
8. One hundred and thirty-seven
! United States and State route signs
! and posts were erected.
8. Two hundred and twenty-five
! one-way arrows were constructed
| 10. Two hundred mechanical soma
phores for use by officers were repaired
and painted.
IL. Nine hundred and ninety electric
trafflc signals were cleaned and 233
were painted.
! IL. Thirty-fi five thousand feet of traf-
! &c control cable were pulled in ducts.
! 13. Traffic volume counts were made
J at some ], 100 intersections. Those data
! have been used almost continuously,
/ and are of longtime value. A city-wide
| traffic flow map Is now being made
from these counts.
/ IA. Considerable parking data were
obtained, including some of the facts
! from which the recent downtown park
ing ordinance was evolved.
! is. -Four out Of flve Of the 10000
riders on buses daily using the Della
! ware River Bridge assisted loaned
workers by nlling out printed origin
/ destination missionaries. Numerous
other types Of bus information were OBJ