The motorway age (1955–79) - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 83

restrictions were co-ordinated and extended along main roads to create a series of
'urban clearways'. The area covered by parking meters (a recent innovation) was also
extended and enforcement was improved by the use of traffic wardens devoted solely
to this task rather than police officers.
Implementation of these measures undoubtedly succeeded in improving the speed
and throughput of traffic on major roads in Inner London. But many other road users
found themselves seriously inconvenienced. Some local residents also discovered that
their once quiet streets were commandeered almost overnight to form part of the main
traffic network. Even motorists found that whilst travelling along main routes was
quicker, actually getting to their destination and finding a place to park or unload was
often more difficult. This kind of traffic management was in its own terms therefore
only a temporary palliative and no long-term solution to the urban traffic problem.
The nature and scale of this problem, and appropriate ways of dealings with it, was
explored in the Ministry's commissioned study published as Traffic in Towns (MOT
and MHLG 1963). The study team was led by Colin Buchanan (and hence it is also
known as the Buchanan Report). Buchanan was previously a Planning Inspector who
had been singled out through having just written a book of his own on the subject
entitled Mixed Blessing (Buchanan 1957). He recognised the huge attraction and
advantages of the car to the individual but equally the scale of the challenge presented
in accommodating widespread mobility if civilised qualities of the urban environment
were to be protected.
Public debate at the time was full of imaginative (or alternatively far-fetched) ideas
about possible solutions to the urban transport problem - everything from monorails,
pneumatic tubes, and individual jet propulsion as well as comparatively mundane
concepts such as urban motorways and decked cities (MOT 1967b; Richards 1966).
By contrast the study team reflected that they were not dealing simply with a traffic
problem (however daunting in itself) but with the future form and management of
urban areas. In a remarkably prescient passage they commented:
There could be no question of a simple 'solution' to the traffic problem. Indeed we
found it desirable to avoid the term 'solution' altogether, for the traffic problem
is not so much a problem waiting for a solution, as a social situation requiring to
be dealt with by policies patiently applied over a period, and revised from time to
time in the light of events. There is no straightforward or 'best' solution.
(MOT and MHLG 1963 p. 8)
In defining the nature of the problem the Buchanan Report put forward the then
novel idea that traffic was a function of land use. A number of important corollaries
followed. Except for smaller towns and villages, bypasses did not offer a solution to
traffic problems since the bulk of traffic had its origin, destination or both within
the built-up area itself. However, by relating traffic flows to the land uses which
generated them it was possible to study the volume and pattern of flows much more
scientifically. Application of new computerised modelling planning techniques
pioneered in the USA enabled the potential scale of future highway networks to
be identified. These were used to demonstrate that it would be impracticable to
cater for the full extent of potential car use in Britain's larger towns and cities at
their prevailing land use densities. Hence restrictions on what was termed 'optional'
car use would be necessary (notably commuting) and continued reliance on public
transport 'unavoidable'.