LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LONDON TRAFFIC.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Mr. Gordon Selfridge, in his article on " London Traffic," speaks, no doubt, from bitter experience. What great business organization does not do so, especially where such organiza- tion's flow of trade is measured by 50 or 60 thousand customers a day ? London's supremacy as the premier business centre in the world is bound up in quick and cheap transport. The more you choke the main arteries through which its traffic follows, the more surely will you stagnate business. The heart will fail to beat. It is for this reason, therefore, that the London traffic problem becomes a national one, and must be treated in a big way. All that Mr. Selfridge says as regards control is correct, but the public can help the present situation by making more use of alternative and better facilities when provided. The London system of Underground Railways is generally recognized to be the finest of its kind in the world. It has a capacity at least equal to the subway system in New York, yet strange to say the number of passengers carried by the Underground Railways last year was a little over 568 mil- lions, whilst the New York Underground and Elevated Rail- ways carried 1,556 millions. In the same year the London General Omnibus Company carried 1,214 million passengers. If only one-third of the latter passengers had been transferred to the Tube from the streets this would have diminished street congestion considerably. The truth is the public is too well served above ground. It is easier for a passenger to jump on a 'bus outside Selfridge's than to cross the road and take the tube from Bond Street Station, although in the long run the tube will shorten the journey. The public is losing the art of walking (except when a strike in one or other of the transport systems forces this).
Below ground improvements are being made to make transit across London easier. Moving stairways are being provided to save the public walking from the lift to platform. Stations at busy traffic centres are being equipped with a multitude of subway entrances to avoid the necessity of crossing the street to catch a train. Who can say ? It may be that fifty years hence the actual streets will move themselves and the only stationary objects will be the buildings and the public.
London might well take a leaf out of Chicago's book. There they have a City Planning Commission and a Transit Commis- sion, working hand in hand, working not for to-morrow, but for fifty years hence. Out of the ashes of the old Chicago is rising a new Chicago with carefully planned boulevards, subterranean streets and subways and great wide streets capable of carrying six streams of traffic. Vision and foresight and proper control of the streets are the keynotes of Chicago's policy of development. The Street Car Company, the Elevated Railway Company, and the Motor 'Bus Company, each working under the control of the city's Transit Commission, are able to develop and perfect its lines of communication, and thus provide Chicago with a scheme of unified transit second to none. Mr. Selfridge as a native of Chicago will, no doubt, endorse these comments.—I am, Sir, &c.,
WORKER.
Previous page
