LONDON OF THE FUTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

LONDON OF THE FUTURE

CITY 100 YEARS HENCE STREET LEVEL FOR VEHICLES ELEVATED SHOPPING CENTRES What will London' be like in A.D. 2036? If two men of vision, who have given their prophecies to a London journal are right, it will be a city of great speedways, overhead pedestrian streets, skyscraper stores and tall, healthy people. Mr. E. A. Rowse, principal of the Architectural Association's School of Planning and Kesearch for National Development, and Mr. J. E. Cowderoy, a traffic expert, are the men who have visualised the London of a hundred years hence for the Sunday Express. Here is what they think:— - " The London of the future," said Mr. Itowse, " will be raised one, or oven two, storeys above the ground. Not until every building, shop or office parks its own vehicles can the street traffic be operated with efficiency and traffic.lights done away witty. , " I think that in the future the entire street level will be left clear forvehicles and all pavements enclosed. I imagine that the ground floor of a big store will be allocated to garaging and the despatch artd-delivery of goods, and the first floor to storage, while pedestrians will walk along on the second floor level, where all business and shopping will be carried on. " Escalators will take the pedestrians up to their business and shopping centres, which wilJ be an enclosed street

running the entire length of the street below, right through all the offices and shops. " Here you will make your purchases or look at the shop windows in the best conditions of warmth, air conditioning and artificial sunlight. The web of London streets in the future may, therefore, be on a broader lay-out for ordinary slow traffic lines, while above, at intervals, will, stretch across, the secondary pattern, the ruler-like lines of the speedway system, transverse and circulatory "A century of peace will see these overhead streets and traffic roads an accomplished fact." Mr. Rowse prophesied "that the buildings of London in 2036 will have less base area and be taller by some 300 ft. Every station, he thinks, will have an airport on its roof. The Londoners of 2036, he says, will be over six feet tall, magnificently developed by scientific training from the earliest period,

lightly clad in the open and almost unclad indoors.

" The Londoner of the future will be far more alert and disciplined than ourselves," he said. " Just as the slums create sloth and crime, so will replanned London create a finer, happier race."

Mr. J. E. Cowderoy is a London Passenger Transport Board expert. He prophesied:— A new road east and west of Westminster to relieve traffic congestion at Piccadilly and Oxford Circus. The abolition of bottle-neck roads. Better roadii to the docks. The creation of roundabouts or over-bridges to give freer circulation at street intersections. A new road north and south through the centre of Westminster to relieve traffic at Kegent Street and Charing Cross Road. " There will be/' he said, " accommodation roads in all large buildings for standing vehicles —that is to say, not only those engaged in loading or unloading, but also those belonging to shoppers and visitors.."-