Copenhagen Traffic May Go Underground

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29108, 21 January 1960, Page 18

Copenhagen Traffic May Go Underground

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

COPENHAGEN. Traffic may have to go underground in the old quarters of Copenhagen. Engineers say thai a network of tunnels is the only solution to the traffic congestion which is increasing every week in the Danish capital. How to handle rapidly the expanding traffic circulation in this fast-growing capital city where more and more Danes want tc live has become one of the biggest talking-points in Parliamenf and the press. The density, and noise, of the traffic is the subject of fierce debate among motorists’ and householders’ organisations. Tempers are becoming frayed. Motorists complain that they can hardly move—and cannot find a parking place when they arrive. Nonmotorists grumble about the noise and the smell of the petrol fumes. But the city authorities can do little about it. Copenhagen is just not big enough to take all the traffic without some drastic readjustment. In spite of the 100 per cent, car tax here, the number of new cars registered this year is 50 per cent, more than in 1958. The Minister of Trade (Mr Kjeld Philip), remarking recently that every family looked like having two cars in 10 years’ time, added ironically: “But there will be nowhere to park them.” The worst trouble spot is the old city. It is this half-mile-square area of ancient buildings and narrow, twisting streets, with the most fashionable shopping

centre running ngnt tnrougn the middle of it, that causes most of : the trouble. ; Two sweeping proposals have been put forward to keep traffic i out of these streets, which were : never intended for the automobile age. The first stop-gap measure, ■ which has already evoked en- : raged screams from the heavilyi taxed motorists, is to ban parking, > except by meter, in the whole area. The second, long-term, pro- : posal is simply to send the trams and motor vehicles under the old : city—by tunnel. Two Motorways Denmark’s leading traffic expert (Mr C. E. Andersen) has put for- • ward a plan for two long under- : ground tram and motorways, with intersections and link tunnels, i under the old city. One would stretch from the City Hall Square tc tree-lined , Korgens Nytorv (King’s New Square). The other would take traffic from picturesque Nyhavn, the lively, crowded dockside quarter of old cafes and restaurants, to a spot just south of the Royal Palace at Amalienborg. Mr Andersen wants Copenhagen to solve its town-centre ; traffic problem in much the same way as Rotterdam and some other cities, working on the principle that if there is no room on the ground you must simply go under- : neath. His ambitious plan is for two- ; storey tunnels, with trams or suburban trains on the top deck, and ; cars and lorries in two double- . lane roads underneath. Meanwhile, as an immediate means of easing congestion, a committee set up to investigate the parking problem in the old town has concluded that the only way is to make motorists pay for their parking time. Then some of theffi will stop their cars a little further out of town, and walk the rest of the way. If they do park in the centre, it will be by meter, and limited to one, two or threehour periods. The plan to install 900 parking meters has enraged motor organisations. Mr Vaga Loft, general secretary of the Royal Danish Automobile Club, described the [ proposal as “a lunatic extra tax I —a scandal.” But the head of the parking 1 committee, Mr Egon Weidekamp, believes that the plan will be passed by the city authorities. ' “We have to do something,” he said. “The only real solution is to build big multi-storey parking houses.” Irate lorry-drivers, who today can hardly deliver goods because of bumper-to-bumper lines of parked cars, are not even content with a proposed one-hour limit on kerbside parking. They want to cut to half an hour—and have threatened otherwise to boycott distribution of goods to the old city. Noise Nor is congestion the only trouble in crowded Copenhagen. There is the noise, too. Organisations have been set up to try to eliminate the excessive noise of motor vehicles. The worst offenders are the “knallerts,” cheap, noisy light-weight motor-cycles, which every leather-jacketed teenager must have to be in fashion. Gangs of young men roar round the streets on them every night. The racket at the week-end becomes unbearable. Householders complain and newspapers have taken up the campaign. “Noise is the growing plague in Copenhagen,” wrote the news- : paper, “Information,” which has led the anti-knallert campaign, i “Every day, new horsepower by ‘ the hundred is out on the asphalt, [ the motor-cycle gangs flash round the streets, and the music of the city has become the sound of the ■ petrol-engine.” ’ The police have now stepped in, and begun handing out fines. Teenagers dare not rev up their motor-cycles too much to impress their girl-friends or it may cost i them up to £3. | But whether you are driving a scooter or a limousine, old Copenhagen has become a nightmare.