TRAFFIC CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 51, 4 March 1929, Page 9

TRAFFIC CONTROL

NEW YORK'S PROBLEM

THE THEATRE CRUSHES

i ([From "The Pott's" Representative.)

NEW YOEK, 6th. February.

One-way footpaths are New York's latest means for controlling pedestrian traffic in the luncheon hour. One-way istreetij. and. many other traffic prohibitions have been adopted during the theatre hour rush, going and coming, by Grover Whalen, former manager of Wanamakers, New , York-'s , biggest ■tore, now Police Commissioner.

An electrical eye, which, sees traffic heeds and automatically controls signals, was demonstrated before a meeting of the New York Electric Society. The device, which is the invention of JDK Philip Thomas, research engineer of the Westinghouse Company, may be [the keystone of a system which will give motorists on • a major street 1 the green or "go" signal continuously un•til a car on a side street comes within a short distance of the intersection. ,The lights would then go on a prearranged or set programme of operation, flashing green and 'red at set periods. After the. cross-street traffic had passed the lights would return to green on the main street, and stay that way till another car appeared on the side avenue. The electric eye is .placed in a jhushroom covering in the street, with jwhite lines marking its position, and comes into action When a car or other Vehicle passes over it, casting a shade lover the eye.

Mr. Whalen's' plan to correct New fork's traffic ills consists of six essential parts, two of which depend on. pubHe co-operation for success. The first is the creation of a theatre zone, with Recognition of the fact that its traffic as different from that of other soctions, requiring different remedies. The seer ond is the adoption by theatres of a "stagger" plan of certain times between 8.30 and 8 p.m. The third is tho prohibition of »11 turns in this zone between 7.30 and 11 p.m. on week-days. jfho fourth is the ■, banishment of all sightseeing and suburban buses, .delivery wagons, and trucks, and of cruising taxicabs, so far as is consistent with public convenience, from the zone between 8 and 9 arid 10.30 and 11.30 p.m. on week-days. The fifth is a request to the theatre-going public who ride to theatres in taxis to pay their fares a block away from their destination to avoid the delay and consequent congestion of settling bills while standing beside taxis in front of theatres. .The sixth is the severance of the traffic light system in the theatre zone from that of the rest of the city, so •that revisions may be made in the synchronising of the signals without disrupting the flow of traffic, outside the theatre district.