NEED FOR NEW ROADS

Southland Times, Issue 22999, 19 September 1936, Page 19

NEED FOR NEW ROADS

THE QUESTION OF

SAFETY AN AMERICAN OPINION Few of our modem highways are as efficient as the .automotive equipment passing over them. Engineers have developed the motor car so that it travels easily at high rates of speed, but highway engineers have not as yet been enabled to build highways sufficiently safe for the average driver, (states Gilmore D. Clarke in The New York Times). Too little attention or money has been given to the design of highways to fit them for present day use oi motorcars designed to travel at high rates of speed. Many of the latest roads that have been built, and some that are now under construction, are already out of date. We have spent millions of dollars on our highways, and yet the motorcar takes a large toll in lives each year, and a considerable portion of the accidents may be attributed to highways which are not adequate to meet the demands of the modern car. Let us look into the future and see if we can predict what the more efficient highway will look like. A Wide Right of Way.

In the first place, it will be constructed on a wide right of way, and the abutting property owners will not be permitted to have frontage on it. The right of way of this roadway will be fenced and access to it will be permitted only at certain specific intervals. There will be no crossings at grade. Intersecting streets, highways and railroads will pass over or under this new roadway, and connections between the intersecting roads with this new roadway will be designed so that left-hand turns will not be possible. All cities and villages will be bypassed by this new roadway. This will serve to remove through traffic from the streets of the municipalities and will result in an asset to the town and traffic alike. This by-pass will be planned to be sufficiently removed from the town so as to eliminate the necessity of constructing another by-pass to by-pass the by-pass. A connection with each town will be constructed so that it will be easily accessible from the new roadway. The pavement on the new roadway will be divided by an island to separate motor cars going in different directions. This island will be sufficiently wide to prevent headlights from interfering with traffic in an opposing direction.

The number of traffic lanes on each side of the island will be either two or three, and each one of these lanes will be not less than twelve feet in width.

Care will be given to the manner in which these new roadways fit the ground and they will be planned so as to provide long, flat, smooth, easy curves in places where curves are necessary. The curves of shorter radii will be saucered for high speeds and widened out to widths greater than the normal roadway at these curves. Attention will be given to aesthetic features. The highway will fit comfortably into the landscape. The areas between the pavement and the property lines of this new roadway will be appropriately planted, principally with trees to provide shade in summer. The bridge structures necessary for the elimination of grade crossings, and for passing over water courses, will be artistically designed. In built-up sections, these new roadways will be lighted with modern lighting equipment to eliminate the necessity of head-lights. Pedestrians will not be allowed to cross these new roadways at grade. Where crossings are necessary, foot bridges over or under the roadway will be provided. For the comfort of the motorists on these new roadways, gasoline and rest stations, together with restaurants, will be provided at intervals of three or four miles. These facilities will be houses in artistically designed buildings constructed and owned by the State or municipalities and leased for periods of years. To Accommodate Cars. When these features are combined with the latest developments in the structural qualities of the pavement, then we shall have motor ways suitable for use by the efficient motor cars being designed at the present time. The Germans have recognized the importance of the type of roadway that I have described. They call their new highways the “Reichsautobahn.” This Reichsautobahn is a national network of express highways accommodating high speed motor traffic between the principal cities of Germany. In casting about for a name for this new type of American roadway or highway, we find the terms “freeway,” “motor way,” and “limited way” used; but all these refer to the same thing. This will be the highway of the future and, in addition to making travel safer, cutting distances and time between large centres of population, making motor traffic comfortable, attractive and easy, and providing a countryside devoid of ugly hot-dog stands, gas stations, billboards and the like, it will prove economically sound. The wide right-of-way which this freeway will provide will make it possible to screen it from the view of the abutting private lands by appropriate tree plantations. Within metropolitan regions these abutting lands will retain a relatively high value by reason of the elimination of the blighted strip found along the edges of most of our main highways to-day. Our motor travel of the future will really be over parkways. A freeway should be designed in a manner similar to the parkway, the only difference between the parkway and the freeway being that the latter will provide right-of-way for commercial vehicles as well as passenger cars.