TOWNLESS HIGHWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

TOWNLESS HIGHWAYS.

MOVEMENT IN AMERICA.

NEW MOTOR-AGE TOWN

WIDE BY-PASS THOROUGHFARES

The town of Radburn, in New Jersey, is only two years old. Tt was planned as a motor-age town. There are no street intersections. Where streets cross, one goes tinder or over the other. The houses are well planned, surrounded by an unusual' amount of communal open space in the form of a park, through traffic is confined to the through avenues; from these branch off a system of motor lanes, each of which comes to a®dead end. The greater number of residences, says the New York correspondent of the Herald, can be reached only bv motor lanes, and no car is tempted to enter a mfetor lane unless the driver has definite business there.

The wide, through avenues are. dedicated to through traffic, and the narrow local motor lanes to local traffic only. Pedestrian traffic crosses by subway or bridge. Xo child need ever cross a road on its way to school or playground. The housewife who goes shopping is equally safe. The highway has been isolated from the residential area, the two being connected by side lanes. r l here is; no congestion. The side lane corresponds to the siding on the railway; it is the only orderly way of entering a main line.

The Town I ess' Highway is the main topic of discussion at tho moment among road builders and city engineers. In

future, the highway will'avoid passing through the town. Tho New \orkFlorida Highway is to be re located so that, instead of passing through the bisr cities along the Atlantic Const, it will pass them by 011 the inland side. The State of New Jersey has completed a system of such by-pass highways. Main Street is now not congested by tourists and travellers who are riot in the mood for shopping. The demand for this arrangement of highways is still more intense in small towns and villages. Peoplo are determined to be rid of the endless stream of gasoline locomotives that pass under domestic windows—the private pleasure motor-car or truck, with its dust and noise, and its constant threat to the lives of children. What is known as slum development on highways is a problem local authorities aim to solve. This is th 6 familiar row of frontage developments—the peanut stand, the- " hot-dog " kennel, superfluous filling stations and badly-designed bungalows. The solution most favoured is the resumption of land on each side of

a highway in the form of public parks and forests. By this means the value of the land will be increased, placing it beyond the cheaper form of exploitation. The same eyesore is becoming notircablo in England, according to the chief consultant. of tho Greater London plan, Mr. Raymond llnwin.

The most feasible means of achieving the Townless Highway is through Federal direction. It can be made a condition of tho grant of Federal subsidy to a highway that such principles bo observed.