LONDON’S TRAFFIC

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 243, 11 September 1935, Page 6

LONDON’S TRAFFIC

The very important connection between building and town planning on the one hand and transport on the other has been recognised in a long* distance forecast that is to be made of London’s traffic needs. In this work leading experts in architecture and highway planning are combining, and their survey will not only prove of immense value to the authorities at Home, _ but must arouse a sympathetic interest in other leading cities of the Old World. Sir Edward Lutyens, whose planning of New Delhi has made him famous, is acting as consultant to Sir Charles H. Pressey, chief technical officer of the Roads Department of the Ministry of Transport, and the objective is a comprehensive survey of the highway developments required during the next twenty or thirty years in the Greater London traffic area. It has been aptly said that the problems of satisfactorily rebuilding the centre of a great city and of planning* the outer residential areas are inseparable from that of planning the flow of traffic between the parts. The remarkable development of fast motor* traffic has awakened the competent authorities to the essential need of an adequate survey which will enable orderly progress to be made. Nowhere is this more essential than in the old cities which were allowed to grow Avithout thought for the future, and possibly none gives a better scope for such a survey than London. In an area having a radius of 25 miles there arc no feAver than 130 higliAvays authorities responsible for the upkeep of the local roads which feed the arterial roads, and as the outer areas are further built upon it is important that traffic requirements over a long period should enter into all the calculations. The survey, it is important to note, will deal AAutli the needs of nearly ten million people in tAvo very essential conditions of modern life.