A New Vehicle Compelling us to Make New Roads: Arterial Roads for the New Traffic: The Five Necessities of these Roads: Ways and Means: A National Fund: Taxation according to Fuel Used: The Question of the Land Contiguous to the New Roads.
We have come to the point where some great initiative is imperatively needed for the re-establishment of communications corresponding to modern needs.
But while all feel this, no one as yet has, I believe, thought out the main elements of the scheme. We cannot remake all the ways of England, nor even change the main part of them to suit the new kind of traffic. We have been “taken aback,” as they say in sailing, and “caught all standing.” Our charming, narrow, hedged, tortuous lanes, our haphazard county communications, even our main ways, have suddenly proved grossly inapt to the new traffic; and our towns, unaffected by the great Continental movement (which I have heard called the “boulevard” movement) of the middle nineteenth century, are in the same case. If we cannot—and obviously we cannot—remodel the whole thing, what can we do?
So far as I can see, we can proceed upon certain main principles, with which I propose to conclude.
I distinguish between the problem of the street traffic in the towns, with which I am not concerned, and that of the main road. As it seems to me, what we need is, and that immediately, a certain number—quite a large number—of great arterial roads very broad and straight with a special surface, confined to motor traffic alone.
These, including circular ways round the towns to avoid the present unnecessary and congested passage through the towns, would act as ditches act in a fen. They would gather towards them the main streams of traffic, as such ditches gather towards them and drain the moisture of a fen. That having been done, the remaining difficulties upon the by-roads would be cut down to a quarter or less of their present evil.
I will develop this.
It is clear that our new vehicle, the internal combustion engine, will compel us to new roads, just as the vehicular traffic for passengers at the beginning of the seventeenth century compelled the creation of the turnpike. Far-seeing men grasped this the moment that the internal combustion engine appeared in our lives. I have myself heard the details of an idea which very nearly materialized and which was on the point of becoming law—an experimental road to be driven from one great centre to another, to be reserved entirely to the new traffic and to be made specially for these new necessities. Private interest defeated the scheme, and in my opinion that defeat was a very bad thing for the general development of the country. But though the first attempt failed, the very fruitful and sensible idea underlying it is worth describing.
A very few great arterial roads joining up the main centres of population would have far more effect upon our present difficulties than their mere mileage would seem to warrant. There could be no question of stopping the new form of traffic upon the ordinary roads remaining, which in length might be twenty or fifty times those of the new roads. But it would be of such advantage for long-distance travel to use the great arteries that at the expenditure of greater mileage you would find the new traffic seeking them at the nearest point upon one side and clinging to them for as long as possible.
Suppose, for the sake of hypothesis, a simple case. Suppose a great arterial road to be built joining the heart of London and the heart of Birmingham in a straight line: it would pass just by Tring and Buckingham and then on through the gap between Leamington and Warwick. A man living at Windsor and desiring to reach Coventry, and using the new method of fast travel, would seek this main road at its nearest point and leave it again at the nearest point to his terminus. It would be a less picturesque, but a much safer and quicker way of doing his business. It would add a dozen miles to his total trajectory, but it would save a much more than corresponding amount of strain and expense of energy in following the series of narrow and winding roads most nearly connecting the two points. The same would be true of any other trajectory not directly served by the new roads. The advantage of safe and rapid travel on a first-class surface of very broad gauge, free of horses and pedestrians, would make people take a “Z” to include as much as possible of such a road rather than cling to the shorter line.
The final effect would be the relief of congestion upon the typically narrow winding roads which cover the surface of England. They would be relieved, in the case we have quoted, not only of the great mass of urban traffic between London and Birmingham; they would be also relieved of the very considerable local traffic—not entirely relieved, of course, but relieved in a proportion large enough to make a very sensible difference to modern communications.
Though the thing still remains pure theory and though the political and social obstacles to it are very serious indeed (any trajectory you name in this crowded island would destroy much which all our people—let alone the owners—love to preserve), yet it is worth while to analyse the conditions of such roads, because only thus can we establish the main rules which, under whatever modification, must ultimately govern the change that should come.
We need five things:
(1) A very strong foundation, upon which depends—
(2) A permanently good surface;
(3) The avoidance of sudden curves (in which is included the avoidance of obstacles hiding the approaches to any curve);
(4) Great width;
(5) A fifth point, almost as important as these first four, the necessity for the providing of crossings. The great arterial road reserved to the internal combustion engine would be, for people who had to cross it, an obstacle a great deal worse than a railway. Our forefathers protected in all sorts of fashions the road crossing the railway at a level crossing—by insisting on gates and an attendant, by compelling the road, if possible, to pass above the railway upon a bridge, and so on. More attention was paid to this point in England than in any Continental country, and we benefit by the results of that care to-day. But the arterial road would be far more dangerous. It would have a continual stream of very rapid vehicles in both directions, and the scheme had better not be envisaged at all if the cost of providing for cross traffic is not faced. The problem is by no means an easy one. It means, necessarily, embankments for bridges, or tunnelling, at every crossing, and these will have to be more numerous than the road crossings: they will have to serve rights of way and private approaches as well. I think it will be found, when the scheme is first attempted, that this obstacle will prove the most serious of all.
It is for experts in the science (of which I know nothing, and allusion to which I have therefore kept carefully out of this essay) to decide what these details of surface, width, foundation, etc., mean in practice: their expense and character.
They know from experiments made what materials and foundation may be best, what minimum width suggests itself (I have occasionally heard the minimum width of 100 feet suggested); but whatever the detailed practice, when the experts set to work on the new motor roads it must be with these five main provisions before them. There are minor considerations. You have, with the new traffic, to consider a gradient somewhere between the old road gradient and the railway gradient. There, again, it is for experts to determine what the maximum useful gradient should be. The trouble in our present road system is that in any trajectory you will have one or two places where the new traffic is perilous. There are even exceptional points in England where it is almost prohibited by excessive gradients.
Another point in connection with such great arterial roads is the capital one of exit from the great urban centres. It is of little use to relieve traffic, to diminish the strain and expense of energy connected with it, and the peril, and all the rest of it, between two urban centres if the exit and entry from and into each are blocked.
Now, the trouble here is a purely economic trouble. Urban sites have a special value, even in the outskirts. They are not, as a rule, sites to which anyone is attached, but the cost of buying them up has made reformers hesitate to drive the arterial ways which are so urgently needed. Once your great road has reached the inner ring of a large town its traffic disperses and there is no need for continuing its dimensions. But the new system can be of no real service if, on the approach to a great town, we retain the narrows and guts which disfigure, for example, the western road out of London. It might even be said that from the political standpoint it would be better to begin with the assurance of good exits and entrances than with the planning of the Road as a whole.
At present we have, in the particular case of London, one, and only one, good entry. That is the entry from the north-west. All the others are hopelessly congested.
There will occur in connection with all this discussion of the necessity for a modern change in the Road the point of ways and means. Somebody must pay. How shall the payment be made? It has already become a matter of politics. Pretty well all that can be said upon it has been said, but as yet there is no agreement. I would maintain (very tentatively, hardly as more than a suggestion) that we shall never get a satisfactory settlement until we found ourselves upon three main principles:
(1) The making of a few great arteries, coupled with the making of proper exits from the great towns and of by-ways round the urban centres, is a national concern. You cannot, in the present state of society, regard it as local, nor even as chiefly concerning the direct users of the Road, for even these, who are apparently the people upon whom the burden should most justly fall, develop by their travel the district through which they pass.
I suggest, therefore, that you must start in this case with the fundamental principle of a national fund, and a national fund not proceeding from ear-marked receipts alone, but also drawn from general taxes.
(2) The second principle which I should suggest is that in so far as you tax travel for the purposes of this fund you should tax it not by any complicated combination of weight, power, fuel, and so forth, but through some one factor alone, otherwise you will be perpetually remodelling your scheme and as perpetually causing a grievance.
Now, the most obvious factor is fuel. One way and another, the fuel a man uses for his machine is the nearest test to the use he makes of the Road. A heavy weight needs more fuel, great speed and consequently greater wear and tear needs more fuel, and greater horse-power needs more fuel. The curves are, of course, not parallel. You can get equal speeds between heavy and light for nearly the same consumption of fuel. One type of machine will do more harm to the road surface for every gallon of fuel than another, and so on. But if you want to have easy revenue simplicity in taxation is vital: surely the taxation of fuel is the simplest and most direct method. It is easily collected. It does away with all chance of confusion. It can be imposed at source and in bulk, and it has that invaluable quality which has been often lost sight of in the last two generations: that it is paid gradually and at will and yet paid inevitably. So long, of course, as a false distinction is maintained between the commercial and the private use of vehicles you will have gross anomalies and injustice. To draw the line between economic waste in the use of the modern internal combustion engine and what is part of the general and normal life of the community is impossible. It would be better were the distinction to be wholly removed. We do not ask a man who takes a ticket from Birmingham to London whether he is going for fun or folly, for business or necessity. Men pay the same price for the ticket whatever the motive of their journey. It is an absurd anomaly as things now stand that the man who travels in a little Ford car from one town to another with, say, two members of his family—and travels therefore much more cheaply than he could upon the railway—should pay the rent of a house for the privilege of having his car, while the heavy vehicle of a tradesman who is distributing advertising matter—sheer economic loss to the community—should tear up the road for nothing.
(3) The grant for the new roads should include the purchase, if not of a continuous belt along each side, at least of blocks of land, especially in the neighbourhood of existing communications, near railway stations, near villages or other centres now established, etc. The price to be determined by arbitration upon the old price basis before the scheme of the Road was developed. If this were done the great difficulty for certain purposes (not residential, but other) of using these sites would accrue to the public purse and would gradually relieve the cost of construction.
This project touches, of course, upon one of those political theories which have been debated, as have all political theories in our time, with too much violence and with too much generality. If it be contended that we here introduce the principle of the “single tax” and of the nationalization of land, I can only say that nothing is further either from my thoughts in this essay or from my general politics—as any number of my public pronouncements suffice to prove. But we have here a very special case. These new roads, if we drive them (as we ought to drive them soon) between the main points of the island, will, unless some such scheme is adopted, make a direct and immediate present of millions to the chance owners of land upon their trajectory. It would be a gross case of actual endowment at the expense of the community. Conversely, the reservation of land on either side of the way for the purpose of helping to pay for the new scheme would be of direct advantage to the community and of disadvantage to no one.
At any rate, just as we must soon have a reform of the road system or suffer decline in our communications and therefore in our national life, so we must soon settle a reform in the matter of road maintenance and road taxation. For the new main arteries that should be built we must depend upon the general resources of the community, while for special taxes upon traffic we must establish as soon as possible a simple and universal system.
I need not add, for it is obvious, that such a scheme of new roads would involve a certain amount of individual hardship. It is impossible to avoid that, but it is in the temper of this nation to compromise closely and in detail upon all such things. Nor need it be added that the scheme would have to proceed by trial and error, and could only be, at first, tentative and applied experimentally to one or two chosen trajectories. But I think that it is upon these lines that the problem can be solved.
[1] Our shires were probably originally British, and later Roman, divisions.