SLOW-MOVING TRAFFIC

As a means of increasing the capacity of transport, higher speed is not limited to railways. It applies with even greater urgency to congested street traffic. Mechanical traction has reduced enormously the time on long journeys. There has been no comparable gain in busy urban centres. Street locomotion still retains its unregulated character. Even where several tracks are provided, slow and fast traffic are hopelessly intermixed. Shortly before the war the authorities issued a by-law requiring slow-moving traffic to keep to the kerb. The time has surely come for the enforcement of the regulation. Fixed stopping-places, for omnibuses as well as tramcars, would facilitate increase in speed. An average four stops per mile, involving little more than two minutes’ walk to the nearest halt, should meet all public requirements. The Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade calls attention to the interference with other traffic, necessitated by the repeated drawing in and out of motor omnibuses to take up or set down passengers. This interference would be largely reduced by the method suggested. The gross overcrowding seen on tramcars and Tube railways does not mean proportionally increased capacity. While more passengers are conveyed each trip, the time taken at stops largely neutralises the advantage. A better solution is afforded by a more frequent service which would result from higher speed.