PROVISION FOR TRANSPORT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 3, 3 December 1931, Page 3

PROVISION FOR TRANSPORT

LONDON’S FUTURE. Ono of the wonders of the world is the control of traffic in London, as even Americans who have travelled down Oxford street and Regent Street to Piccadilly reluctantly admit (writes a London correspondent). While it has been possible, however, to cope with the transport needs of this city ot over 12,000,000 people what is to ballpen when the population reaches i 0,000,000, or as fair Halford Mackinder predicts, when the metropolitan area holds half the people of England and Wales? No city can outlast the capacity of its transport, and it may be that within the next two generations the whole urban system will break down, and mankind will return to Arcadian simplicity. Up to the present, the measure of London’s growth has been the measure of its progress in transport. Referring, recently, to the prophecy made by iSir Halford Mackinder, and to the expectation that the population of New lork will increase to 110,000,000 in 40 years, Mr Frank Pick, managing director of the underground group of companies, told the Institute of Transport that it was difficult to condemn such forecasts. “Still,” he said, “there comes a time when growth slackens, when the curves of the statisticians plotted from current results flatten out. It is primarily a problem of transport which has created that unit of life which we call the city. People are caught up and maybe lost in this new phase of civilisation. It might eventually prove a failure, and collapse. The cycle would then begin anew, for there is no staying the evolutionary process.” Mr Pick quoted statistics showing that two-thirds of the German people were living under urban conditions; half the French; two-thirds of Australians; more than half of Americans; and 80 per cent, of the population of Great Britain. What the heritage of this aggregation of the human race will be none yet knows, but there are already many scientists who profess to read alarming portents. Meanwhile, the Londoner is to move faster. London, in fact, promises to becomo, if it i.s not already, tho fastestmoving city on the globe. This is the result of a policy about to be put into effect by the underground railways, which are hv far the most mobile form of transport in the city. The work of carrying London’s millions is to be speeded-up by accelerating the speed of trains from 19 to 25 miles an hour, extending the intervals between sta tions, and giving passengers direct communication to and from platforms by substituting more escalators for corridors and stairs. The system of automatic booking-offices now in vogue at Piccadilly Circus is also to be generally applied. Those who know London will remember Knightsbridge and its importance as a traffic artery. Engineers are at present busily engaged there in constructing a new tube station, which, in fifteen months’ time, will resemble a miniature Piccadilly Circus. The work is in the preliminary stages, just now, but once a network of cables and gas mains lias been removed, operations will be pushed on apace. Tho new station will consist of a circular subway similar to that at Piccadilly Circus, telephone kiosks, booking offices, and automatic ticket machines, and several shops. Escalators will replace the lifts, and there are to he three subway entrances by short stairways from the two corners of Sloane Street, and from the north side of Knightsbridge. The excavators are using a new device for beating down the road surface. It is known as “Jumping Jack,” and seems to be an even more arresting spectacle than the old pneumatic drill, which could always be depended upon to collect an admiring crowd. “Jumping Jack” is really an explosion hammer, and is a German invention to replace the hand ram. The inquisitive people who never tiro of watching others at wqrk have come to accept “Jumping Jack” as a special favourite. They regard “him” as one of the best free shows in London, where, as all the world knows, there is always something exciting or thrilling to see without paying out much either in energy or money.