ENGLAND’S ROADS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 29, 28 October 1932, Page 10

ENGLAND’S ROADS

Unending Stream of Motor Traffic THE ÜBIQUITOUS BUS Dominion Special Service. Auckland, Oct. 27. “Traffic on the roads in England Is perfectly amazing,” said Dr. J. W. Crawshaw, of Christchurch, who returned by the Rangltlkl from a holiday visit to England. “I have not been Home for many years, and that was one of the developments that struck me most," he said. For some of the time he and others were on motoring holiday, camping out at nights. “Do you know,” he added, ‘ on some nights we could scarcely sleep. There seemed to be traffic on the roads all night—heavy lorries, buses, and motorcars.” Buses were everywhere, not merely on the highways, but on the by-ways. Farmers’ wives went to market nowadays in a bus. It was a common sight to sea them standing at bus stops with their butter and eggs in their baskets waiting for the conveyance which picked them up practically at their door and set them down almost exactly at their destination. For a while Dr. Crawshaw stayed in the pottery district near one of the northern arterial roads. At all times along that road crowded buses, some of them bent on long journeys—their destinations read, “London to Manchester,” “London to Liverpool,” or “London to Edinburgh.” They seemed to be undertaking longer and longer journeys. With them were buses which combed the countryside as well, the suburban lines so to speak. “As a corollary,” he added, “we noticed that passenger trains were comparatively empty.” Another development he noticed, whose explanation might lie also in bus traffic, was the building of dwelling houses far out in the country. “Homes are being put up right in the centre of country districts, with no place of employment anywhere near that I could see. Buses are serving the outlying districts so well that workers can afford to have the benefit of country air and yet be taken practically from their doorstep right into the city and back again at night, all very cheaply.” Roads were aiding the buses. They were almost perfect, and only once or twice did he see any dust rise after a vehicle had passed.