TRAFFIC CONTROL

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19667, 10 July 1929, Page 9

TRAFFIC CONTROL

FOUR DOME SYSTEM. A FAVOURABLE IMPRESSION. Traffic control in Christchurch may be said to be in the transition stage. 1 Some critics would aver that it was in | the elementary stage, while a third j opinion might be held that it was • just entering on the stage of experii ments. The last view is the correct one as it afiects such aids to traffic . inspectors as "islands,'' silent pohcei men, and raised domes at intersecI tions. There are plenty of the last j named about Christchurch, and some I motorists " think too many. Others hold that they are all in the wrong 1 places. Whatever their present faults their number may, be quadrupled before long, for yesterday the staff oi Mr H. Macintosh, Chief Traffic Inspector, aided by Dr. H. T. J. Tbacker's big motor-car and those of a number of other motorists who came forward to assist, and some of the Citv Council's own motor vehicles, was busv in the City demonstrating how comfortably a corner may be negotiated, and how the offside rule may be simplified, when, there are four traffic domes on the intersection nstead of one. Among the crowd were City Councillors, officials of the Canterbury Automobile Association and a number of motor drivers who parked their cars for a few minutes to see how the scheme worked out in stood at the centre of the intersection of Manchester and Gloucester streets, and Sl «?. a "°° t £v motorists to come on. Sometimes they took the corner in rotation, executing artistic evolutions round the white domes, while at other times they obeyed Mr Macintosh's to take it simultaneously, which they did without mishap. . When the domes were placed in line with the sidechannels, the experiment was not so successful as when they conformed with the building line. Aiter the demonstration at this intersection, a move was made to the Section of Gloucester street and Cambridge terrace, where Mr Macintosh showed how the dome the position of which has been subjected to criticism could be rounded at 18 miles an'hour. Some of the bystanders thou-ht Mr Macintosh's success was fine to his car's short wheel-base, and there seemed to be some truth in this, for Dr Tharker's car, when the driver Stepped on it," made the (urn, but the whSl marks might have resulted io the Deputv-Mayor of the City mak- „ Court appearance if the occasion not been privileged. They were •i the wrong side of the dome. Then the four dome system was tried out again, passing motorists who wcS not ° aware of the experiment which was being staged perhaps.for their benefit, displaying wonderment at s'uch a gathering ofW*stlie public Five domes were set down at the Bridge of Remembrance and w thout mishap to ordinary, traffic, u-pre rounded successfully as before. MoTof the onlookers thought the success of the experiments so pronounced that it was only, a matter nf the Citv Council procuring enough of the domea to equip all intersections in Mr F a member of the CoSu'of 'the Canterbury AntonoW. HZ Similar demonstration. Christ-