BRITAIN’S ROADS

Southland Times, Issue 22508, 16 February 1935, Page 3

BRITAIN’S ROADS

A NATIONAL HERITAGE. AN IMPORTANT REVIEW. The roads of Great Britain are a national heritage that have been handed down to us by our ancestors, like any other valuable piece of property, says the “Riley Record.” It is our duty to keep this inheritance always in good condition and to improve it where we can. In these enlightened times the reasons for keeping our roads in good order are so obvious that they scarcely need stressing. New forms of transport call for new types of road. Just as a track of beaten earth was sufficient in the days of the pack horse and the macadamized highway came into being with the coaching era, so must our modem roads be flat, smooth and wide to take the fast mechanically-propelled traffic of our times.

The system of administrating our roads is definitely wrong. It may have been good enough in the old days, when people travelled little and it took many days even for the news of a great victory to reach the majority of rural areas; then one might have argued that each community had the right to maihtain its own roads, as those who lived in each district were the only ones who used them. But with the astonishing amount of travel that characterizes this century, the highway is no longer of local but of national importance. It is essential that the great arterial roads which span the country be consistent in width and surface. It is of vital importance that they should provide the safest possible travel and slippery surfaces should everywhere be abolished. At the present moment the upkeep of the roads is in the hands of hundreds of different authorities. There are County Councils, and Urban District Councils, and goodness knows what others besides, each with their own ideas of road-making, governed, alas, only too often by local financial considerations or (still more regrettably) almost ignored owing to local apathy. How often on crossing a county boundary is one not bumped off a wide, skidproof modem highway on to an oldtype country road with a steeply-cam-bered surface as slippery as any skating rink? Wanted—a Dictator. Why cannot there be a dictator of roads, with dictatorial powers, who will, first and foremost, ensure that all over England, Scotland and Wales, the same type of non-skid road surface is provided? The elimination of dangerous corners and curves is less important and this dictator could well turn his mind to the completion of unfinished works. These great new . by-passes which start out with a flourish from a great city, only to end abruptly in a field, are about as much use as a ladder stood on its end in an open meadow! Like the Indian conjurors who dart up a ladder and disappear into space is the motorist who follows some of the uncompleted by-passes and finds himself lost and bewildered in the unknown territory at their extremities. Far too much power is still left to local authorities. The width of all main roads and bridges should be the same, warning signs should be placed a given distance before the comer and cross roads to which they refer and all comers banked, so as to minimize the risks of skidding. The imposition of speed limits , should be confined to a few streets in towns where there is a reason for their existence, and local authorities would not be allowed to extend the speed limits far into the countryside. A dictator of roads, such as we have suggested, would investigate the entire network of roads in Great Britain. In England and Wales there are over 150,000 miles of roads and in Scotland

over 25,000 miles. The present expenditure on class 1 roads and bridges is about ten million pounds, and approximately half this amount is spent on class 2 roads and bridges. Some of the early British or so-called Roman roads (for it is doubtful if the Romans constructed many new highways) might well be brought into service again in their entirety. Uniformity is Necessary.

How often do we not find long, straight stretches of road separted at intervals by a few miles of narrow lanes meandering across country? A typical example, familiar to most readers of “Riley Record” is Watling Street. Once Weedon is left, this noble road degenerates to about half its width, with queer kinks here and there and many exceedingly dangerous humpbacked bridges. With most of these bridges made safer, and the lines of the telegraph poles followed where they trace the route of the old road, there would be a fine highway avoiding the busy industrial area of the Midlands.

In,.,the south another example of the “lost” early British road is Stane street. If the long, straight stretches of this highway were joined up and the road widened, there would be a magnificent, safe highway from London to the South Coast, instead of the dangerous, tortuous roads that wind along the river valleys and round the fringes of great estates. The road makers of pre-his-toric times had a greater unity of purpose than any that have since taken over the administration of the inheritance they left with us. May be, after a lapse of thousands of years, we may learn wisdom once again, and put back into use the highways along which men travelled long before English history, as at present known, began.