Motorway

“ There is little reason for building a motorway unless traffic can find its way to it. With this in mind we have designed a distinctive series of signs, intended to be attached to existing direction signs on all-purpose roads, to indicate the route to the motorway from places as much as ten miles or more from it. ”

“ We have recommended at paragraph 101 that at ordinary junctions along the motorway no sign is necessary to give warning of traffic from the entry slip road merging with the main motorway traffic. Where two motorways converge, however, each of them consisting of multi-lane carriageways, the problem is obviously more serious, and we consider that appropriate warning should be given. ”

“ Some motorways will end at fly-over junctions with all-purpose roads, where one carriageway of the all-purpose road is carried over or under the motorway so that it leaves or joins the motorway on the left. On the approach to the junction along the motorway the 'End of motorway' signs described in paragraphs 126 and 127 should be erected a mile and half-mile in advance. Since there will be no choice of route to traffic approaching the junction along the motorway, advance direction signs would be inappropriate ”

“ On the other hand a motorist who wishes to use the motorway should be able to follow a consistent series of signs while he approaches the motorway and after that until he leaves it. Our attempt to cater for both drivers by combining the two colour schemes on the same sign having, we believe, proved unsuccessful, we have been forced to choose between them, and our choice has been partly determined by the consideration that the white on blue sign will give all drivers a warning that they are approaching a junction with a motorway. ”

“ Until the motorway construction programme is completed there are bound to be individual lengths of motorway which are scheduled for eventual extension but which for the time being end at junctions with all-purpose roads which will ultimately be merely intermediate junctions along the finished motorway. ”

“ We have not considered the signposting of urban motorways in detail, but the recommendations we have already made are generally applicable to urban as to rural motorways. The main distinguishing features of the urban motorway will probably be the closer spacing of junctions and the fact that it may be carried for some distance by a viaduct, so that there may not be room for the roadside advance direction signs we have recommended for most junctions. ”

“ We have had uppermost in our minds the need to give to users of the motorways clear and simple directions which can be read and understood, at the higher speeds for which the motorways are designed, in ample time for them to make the necessary manœuvres with safety to themselves and to others. There is the further point that, in view of the widely spaced intervals between intersections and the fact that no turning is allowed on the motorway, the inconvenience of missing an exit is great . ”

“ We think that every effort should be made to ensure that these rules and Regulations become part of the general knowledge of the motoring public, so that the mere indication of a motorway, by either word or symbol, will carry with it all the necessary implications. ”

“ They have no sharp bends, roundabouts, traffic lights or crossroads. Drivers joining or leaving the Motorway always do so from the left. Crossing traffic or right-turning vehicles are carried either above or below. ”

“ The sign at present in use on the London-Yorkshire Motorway to indicate excluded traffic, while in accordance with an earlier recommendation from us, is slightly different from that illustrated in figure 10. It is headed 'Prohibited on motorway' and the word 'NO' in the body of the text is of course omitted. It suffers from the disadvantage that it does not make it clear that the motorway Regulations are effective from the point at which it is sited, and drivers have been known to stop on the slip roads under the impression that they are allowed to do so. ”

“ We do not think it either necessary or desirable to attempt to show on the advance direction sign preceding the slip road whether the places shown on it lie to the left or right of the motorway. At this stage the essential need is to tell motorists wishing to leave the motorway that their way off is to the left, and the junction symbol we recommend has been chosen with that end in view. The eventual route to be taken will be given by a further direction sign on the slip road leading to the point where the normal road system is joined. Lettering 14. ”

“ The conventional black and white pointer signs should be used on allpurpose roads at junctions with the motorway to point to or along the allpurpose arms of the junction, and standard 'No Entry' signs should be erected to prevent traffic attempting to join the motorway by means of an exit slip road. ”

“ Locomotive driving at a hundred miles an hour is but mild exhilaration as compared to the feelings of the motor-car driver who travels at fifty miles an hour on the public highway.
Gigantic motor trucks carrying tons of freight twist in and out through crowded streets, controlled by one man more easily than a driver guides a spirited horse on a country road.
Frail motor bicycles dash round the platter-like curves of cycle tracks at railroad speed, and climb hills while the riders sit at ease with feet on coasters. ”

“ The fact that will assert itself directly we have a proper supply of easy, quick, and comfortable motor-cars available, is the fact just named—i.e. that we live on roads and do not live on railways. The circumstance that a motor-car can stop at the garden gate if we live by a highway, or drive up the carriage-drive and draw up level with the porch if we live within lodge-gates, and take a man direct to the door of his office, or of his friend, or wherever he wants to go to, is bound to make the motor-car beat the train for all short-distance work. ”

“ Motor-cars were rushing about as numerous as flies in August. Trolley-cars followed one another up and down Seventh Avenue in endless processions. Wagons and trucks stretched along the highway in slow-moving lines as far as the eye could see. Bells were ringing, whistles tooting, horns blowing, motor-cars honking, newsies shouting. The grinding of car-wheels, the rattle of carts, the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt, the shuffling of feet on the sidewalk, and a thousand other noises combined to make an indescribable and confusing roar. ”

“ People traverse it, not with the object of arriving at any particular destination, but for the delight of the road itself, of the joy it gives to the eye and to the imagination. Its only traffic is what the transport agent would call “holiday traffic”; for when the idle season ends the highway is deserted. In earlier days there would rumble along the road the carriage and four of the traveller of great means; then came the humbler vehicle hired from the town; then the sleek motor; and finally, as a sign of democratic progress, the char-à-banc, the omnibus, and the motor-brake. ”

“ It was a bright, sunny spring morning, and the highway was not congested with traffic.
Freight trains shunted back and forth on the railway tracks below the embankment, and now and then a passenger train steamed by, trailing a cloud of black smoke. Like most boys, Frank and Joe could not help but feel the fascination of the railway, although they admitted that they preferred the comparative freedom of their own motorcycles, which were not bound to follow the steel rails and did not have to obey the beck and call of despatchers.
Out in the open country they put on a little more speed. ”

“ In most manufacturing centres, however, the motoring workman could get to his cottage home by a journey of a few miles. Even in London, moreover, this disadvantage will be overcome to a large extent in the future, for it is as certain as anything of the kind can be that we must ultimately have special highways, smooth, dustless, reserved for motor traffic, leading out of London in the principal directions.... My own conviction is that motor cycling, the simplest, the quickest, the cheapest independent locomotion that has ever been known, is destined to enjoy enormous development. ”

“ It met the competition of the gasolene locomotive upon the highroad, how? By cutting its all-the-year train service to two trains a day and gradually raising its fare to five cents a mile. People who have to go from one end of its main line to the other, about 110 miles, are still likely to patronize it. The motor-bus is hardly more effective in the long haul than is the motor-truck. And in the really bleak days of winter its snug little passenger-cars, well lighted and warmed, have more appeal than the poorly lighted and heated motor-buses that traverse the State highway. ”

“ He will meet comparatively few motors in the city on Sunday, even though the day be fine, such as would throng the streets of Chicago or New York with cars. The Englishman who goes for a drive is attracted from the city by the many fine roads which lead in every direction to pleasure resorts. One of the most popular runs with Londoners is the fifty miles to Brighton, directly southward, and the number of motors passing over this highway on fine Sundays is astonishing. ”

“ The present railways will always continue to do the heavy and long-distance traffic of the country, while fast mono-rail electric railways will carry the express passenger traffic. Rather the motor-car will feed and immensely increase the demand for express trains and long-distance journeys. The motor-car will not so much injure the railway as call a new kind of traveller into existence. Cross-journey traffic with its many changes, suburban traffic and short-distance traffic may suffer, but it will be amply compensated for by a great increase in the demand for long-distance tickets. ”

“ The next step will be taken by the railway companies, or by the local authorities, when it becomes obvious that there is much more profit in motor traffic than there ever was in catering for the public by means of vehicles drawn by horses. Each important railway station will have its diverging lines of motor-traffic for the convenience of passengers, some of them owned and managed by the same authority as the railway line itself. ”

“ Private motor-cars may appear to have deprived the railways of a good deal of their passenger traffic, and they certainly constitute a most material and much-appreciated increase in the facilities now available for getting about the country. It must, however, be remembered that a very large proportion of the journeys taken in them would probably not be made at all if the motor-car did not exist, and if such journeys had to be made by train instead. The actual diversion of traffic from the railway only occurs when journeys which would otherwise be made by rail are made by motor, in preference. ”

“ Surely there's nothing to equal motoring as a means of seeing the country. Not only are the constant change of landscape and constant succession of new scenes which the railway traveler may enjoy, to be had in an automobile but more—very much more.
The motorist gains a great deal that the railroad passenger inevitably misses. For the man on the train the musical clang of the dinner bell as one passes near some farmhouse, for instance, is lost—swallowed up in the noise and rush of the locomotive. ”

“ Altogether the motorcar must revolutionise our social life in the country, and let us hope before long will lead to the bettering of our cross-country roads. The horse, poor beast, has never been able to tell us what he endures from bad roads, and the pace of a horsedrawn vehicle has been too slow for even the springs to suffer much; but if you get into a motor-car going five-and-twenty miles an hour over a road which you have hitherto deemed good, the engine and car will very soon tell you the difference between what the road surveyor's work has been and what it ought to be. ”

“ In the matter of passenger traffic, while people of means may prefer to make such journeys as that from London to Scotland in their own motor-car, the railway will continue to form both the cheaper and the quicker means of travel for the great bulk of the population as distinct from private car-owners, whose number must needs be comparatively small.
It is in respect to urban and suburban traffic that motor-vehicles have their best chance of competing with the railways on any extensive scale ”

“ A party of three or four people with their own car, if one of them drives, can tour Britain for less than it would cost to cover the same ground, traveling first-class, by railway train. As to the comparative satisfaction derived from the two methods of touring, no comment whatever is needed. Making the trip by motor affords so many advantages and so many opportunities of seeing the country and of coming in touch with the people that there is really no other method that can in any way compare with it. ”

“ In other instances tramways and buses have been of advantage to the railways by relieving them of an amount of suburban traffic for which it might have been difficult for them fully to provide. But any general supplanting of railways by motor-vehicles is as improbable in the case of passenger travel as it is in that of goods transport. Motor-vehicles are certain to become still more serious rivals of the railways than they are already, but they are not likely to render them obsolete ”

“ In the next place, and parallel with the motor truck, there will develop the hired or privately owned motor carriage. This, for all except the longest journeys, will add a fine sense of personal independence to all the small conveniences of first-class railway travel. It will be capable of a day's journey of three hundred miles or more, long before the developments to be presently foreshadowed arrive. One will change nothing—unless it is the driver—from stage to stage. ”