Traffic Snarls
APART from its publicity value, the reasons for the promise of subterranean car parks near Marble Arch are hard to understand. The assumption appears to be that if the centre of London is overcrowded with cars, the best way to ease the jams is to provide motorists With somewhere to park on the fringes. But this is to ignore the fact that car parks close to the centre of London are likely to attract fresh commuter traffic; and more traffic is something that London's inlets and outlets are unfitted to carry.
As Malcolm MacEwen demonstrated in his survey of London traffic in the Spectator some weeks ago, it is absurd to `plan' for the private motorist only in terms of giving him more places to leave his car—whether underground parks, or compulsory garage space in new buildings— without relating this accommodation to the capacity of the roads to the suburbs and the country. Already, public transport is put at a hopeless disadvantage by the flow of private cars at rush hours (towards Christmas, at all hours). To encourage still more motorists to bring their cars to London without considering the effect they will have on traffic, is absurd.
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