THE STREETS OF PARIS

Evening Star, Issue 18541, 25 January 1924, Page 8

THE STREETS OF PARIS

SAFETY OF PEDESTRIAN'S. Pedestrians in Paris have received with a tmlr Parisian blend of raillery and resignation tho announcement that the Prefecture of Police is about to teach them how to move about in their city without being run over. This step was decided upon at a recent meeting c«f the Permanent Consultative Traffic Committee, which. 1 authorised the wholesale distribution of * pedratrmn» manual filled wit.h eag:o couijbc! on how to cross a road, alig-h't hoa an omnibus, etc. In order- that the official advice mar bo bctto r impressed upon t-bs public mind, the booklet is being illustrated with humorous drawings of tho kind of incidents pedc*. trians may expect if toey disrcawi the Prefecture's warning- iero xS a “ im> the authorities have some sympathy with the point of new of drivers of vehicles who, whenever a p©d<wfcnan is run down, oonsidor themselves the most aggrieved parties, or tho T-affio Committee states that after tin# booklet has been distributed pedestrians will have no excuse if they got themselves killed or iniurod. But as a ooimterpoiao to tin* determination of the authorities to discourse tho pedestrians' habit of getting in the va" of traffic, they are also about to make little easier to cross roads by a new sv«tem of electric signals, which will from tnue to time hold up tho stream of traffic aion- the main arteries. An experiment is to bo made, for Instance, along the Grand* Boulevards with a series of signals, set at intervals of a few score yards, a whole sene* of which wild be operated by the turning of one switch. Thus at a given moment ail side streets leading on to the boulevard! will be closed simultaneously for a distance o' perhaps a third of a mile, after which traffic on the boulevard itself will be arrested to allow all cross currento to pass over. This system is reported to have proved verv successful in New York. Another proposal is that the trailers of tramway cars should bo abolished, at any rate in the central portions of the tramway system. Whav is to bo done for those who crowd these trailers in the rush hours Is not indicated. They cannot go into tho underground railway or into omnibuses, for the reason that both are already crowded 1 to the limit of human capacity for packing: itself into a minimum of space; but pwliaps, if they study their pedestrians’ manuals oarefuLfy, Parisians may find it safe a* laufc to walk.