RELIEF FOR TRAFFIC CONGESTION

When the gentlemen attending the Road Congress go to Hounslow to-day to inspect the constructional work on the Great West Road they will see a great deal that will please their professional eyes. They have the opportunity of inspecting a highway which for strength and endurance is believed to be better than any other in the world, and if the capital cost is high the engineers are confident that maintenance will prove to be so low as to justify fully the initial outlay. The Great West Road was planned by the Middlesex County Council to relieve the serious congestion of traffic through Brentford to Hounslow, but particularly in the neighbourhood of Brentford, where the main thoroughfare is so narrow and the volume of traffic so heavy that vehicles are often held up for long periods.

Users of the Bath road have been patient. They must not expect the relief they sigh for until the summer or autumn of 1924, although in about a year’s time they will have the advantage of using one-half of the road and of avoiding Hounslow. The Great West Road begins at Gunnersburylane, and sweeping to the north of Brentford and Hounslow, enters the Bath road a few hundred yards west of Hounslow Barracks station. The contract for the first halfsection of the road has only just been let, and it will take, probably, two and a quarter years to complete. The other section is well under way. and it is this part that the delegates to the Road Congress will inspect. There is a spur road at Sion-lane, Brentford, connecting it with the main highway, and when it is complete this section is to be opened for traffic without waiting for the eastern half to be finished. The engineer of the Middlesex County Council has planned an almost straight road, practically level throughout its length, the only gradient worthy of notice being 200 yards of 1 in 40 where the road is carried over the District railway at Osterley.