PROBLEMS OF TRAFFIC

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 23 July 1927, Page 9

PROBLEMS OF TRAFFIC

TTViIE day—not far distant —when ' London will become a city of double, triple, and even quadrup.edeexed streets and highways was predicted recently by Or. John A. Harriss, who. as Special Deputy Police Commissioner, was in charge of New York’s traffic for eight years, and is regarded to-day as one of the greatest authorities on traffic problems.

Dr. Harriss, chairman of the Committee on Traffic Kegulations and Street Uses, of the City Committee of i lan ana huney of New YorK, was a lew weeks ago on a t isit to jvuropean capitals, studying traffic- conditions, and be was also hoping to pay a visit to certain Etigiisii provincial cities.

Dr Hairiss. a short. Ivearded figure with t.*e peneet manner of a Harley Street specialist, stood at the windows of his suite in the Savoy .Hotel, and looked down '-on the trail ie in the Strand. it is. as a mamr o. fact, wit.i the mind o; a physidßn that he has approa hed one of the niost pressing Diobiem-s of modern civilisation. Incidentally, it was Dr. Harriss who imented the control of traffic by coloured lights which is now in use in nearly every city in the world.

1 ! on don’s traffic problems have always been most interesting to me,’’ said Dr Hairiss. “That -is largely because London has problems which no other city has. The problems are more

STREETS OF MULTIPLE DOCKS

di fic-ult of solution even than that oi New York. \\ hat do 1 suggest as a cure y ft is not for me to offer any suggestions in the matter of regulating London’s traffic, but I have natura.ly formed my own opinion about it.

‘•I believe that traffic blocks like that’’—pointing down to an immovable jam streffhiiig at that moment Horn Akhvych to the Savoy Hotel —• •‘could lie eliminated by three means. <]) Express highways in all directions. (2) Super or multiple decked streets. (3) Marginal express highways not ■onlv U)r city work, but for crosscountry traffic.

“In New York I have estimated that this stagnation cost us £*HX).(XX),-

..(>') a year. Seventy-three million pounds of that is due to traffic congest ion. and the balance is the depreciation o: the utilisation of motor vehicle investments that are idle for lour hours out of eight. In addition. I ha' e estimated that by means of this highway system deaths will be reduced bv 66 per cent., and accidents will be reduced by 75 per cent.

“The most urgent thing renuired today is the segregation of vehicles into their various categories—-fast mov--1 ing motor-cars on their own tier, omnibuses and lorries on their own. and so on As for the horse. I think its dav is o er as far as haulage is oon-c-erned. Few people, least ox all the horse, will regret that.”