Roadblock

“ Even the ghastly loneliness of the long straight road ascending the pass of Smitham Bottom is no more, for little villas, with dank little dungeons of gardens, line the way, and tradesmen’s carts calling for orders compete with the motorists who shall kill and maim most travellers along the highway. ”

“ And with all the finesse of their work the traffic moves like molasses. Long double and triple files of touring cars and limousines, the combined cost of which would render statistics such as would gladden the heart of a Sunday editor, make their way up and down the great street tediously. If a man is in a hurry he has no business even to essay the Avenue. And occasionally the whole tangle is double-tangled. The shriek of a fire-engine up a side street or the clang of an ambulance demanding a clear right-of-way makes the traffic question no easier. ”

“ The general increase of heavy traffic soon after the middle of the eighteenth century did not escape the notice of those responsible for the condition of the roads. Incompetent road-surveyors, ignorant of the science of road construction and employing unsuitable materials and unskilled labour, saw the highways they had mended with mud, road-scrapings and gravel continually falling into ruts and sloughs, often from twelve to eighteen inches deep. ”

“ Another great mistake is often made of spreading large and small stones over a well-graded and well-drained foundation and leaving them thus for traffic to consolidate. The surface of a road left in this manner is often kept in constant turmoil by the larger stones, which work [Pg 151] themselves to the surface and are knocked hither and thither by the wheels of vehicles and the feet of animals. These plans of construction cannot be too severely condemned. ”

“ The wilfulness of one or two private individuals sometimes becomes a barrier to traffic and commerce. The great drawback to the laying out of roads on the principle referred to is that of the necessity, in some cases, of building them through the best lands, the choicest pastures and orchards, instead, as they do now, of cutting around the farm line or passing through old worn-out fields or over rocky knolls. ”

“ Where traffic on the rural routes is heavy and, in the environs of cities, where it is desirable to discourage undue extension of road-bordering city growth, prohibition of access to the highway from abutting land, controlled access at specified points, and the closure or grade separation of all intersecting highways are essential. ”

“ You will not be interrupted if you detach, for your collection of curios, a yard or so of the dislodged statue of the leading municipal genius, and even the old man at the barrier of the eastern gate will only attempt to deter you by friendly advice if you persist in ignoring the notice, "This Road is Unfit for Vehicular Traffic." ”

“ There is at first the search for a good road, the hatred of cobblestones, dirt roads and badly kept pavements; doubtless an automobile, well built and prudently driven, can overcome the most difficult roads; but the fear of jolts and the terror of breakdowns cause us to see, always and everywhere, the good road, where the machine reaches its maximum of speed. Every detour becomes odious if it compels the abandonment of a smooth road for more dangerous crossroads. The chauffeur is therefore desirous of following blindly the line marked on his special map. ”

“ If further, we consider the case of the smallest urban communities—the highway or ribbon towns that at intervals stretch out along main highways and vary from a block or two to several blocks in width—the bypassing of such places is not only helpful to the preponderant through traffic, but is usually necessary for the avoidance of congestion and serious accidents and the protection of life on the main street of the little community. ”

“ They darken the avenues, of course, and fill them with an abominable uproar. Yet traffic goes on underneath, and life goes on alongside and overhead, and the city has adjusted itself to them, as a man adjusts himself to a chronic disease. I do not know whether they add to the foulness of the streets they pass through or not; I hardly think they do. The mud lies longer, after a rain, in the interminable tunnels which they form over the horse-car tracks in the middle of the avenues, and which you can look through for miles ”

“ The roads are full of holes and pitfalls, caused partly by the heavy traffic, partly by the fact that they are never mended, as it is the business of no one to attend to them. It is a sad irony to read now of such or such a town or village being pleasantly situated on the banks of its river. It is hardly possible to walk along the side of the stream. The blue scum which floats sullenly by has killed everything with which it has come into contact. ”

“ Here swaggered the hordes of miners coming off shift from a hundred working properties in the neighboring hills, grimy, spattered with candle grease, and adding to the bustle and confusion of the gold-mad crowd, was the torrent of traffic that surged up and down the rough, rocky thoroughfare—wagons of every description from the slim rattletrap buckboard, up through the various stages of all known vehicles, great freighter’s outfits, horse-drawn hacks, carts, automobiles ”

“ Now every new artery means a series of new whirlpools of traffic, such as the pensive Londoner may study for himself at the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue with Oxford Street, and unless colossal—or inconveniently steep—crossing bridges are made, the wider the affluent arteries the more terrible the battle of the traffic. ”

“ The modern traveller in the United States is sometimes surprised at dusk by finding the highway temporarily blocked by a house which is being moved from one side to the other and has been dumped down at the end of the day’s work, but this is nothing to finding that the road itself has been removed bodily. ”

“ He wants to smooth over the defects, he wants to lay the dust that every passerby kicks up, he tries to smear over the truth regarding conditions with messy and ill-smelling oil. Above everything, he doesn't want the road dug up and rebuilt—says it will interfere with traffic, injure business, and even set people to talking about changing the route entirely! ”

“ The highway now becomes extremely steep and narrow, with countless hairpin turns, though all danger of collision is eliminated by the regulations which permit no down-traffic in the morning and no up-traffic in the afternoon. During the final fifteen miles, in which is made an ascent of more than six thousand feet, one has the curious experience of passing, in a single hour, from the torrid to the temperate zone. ”

“ And as they drew near a great green square resembling a public park, in the very heart of the business section, the traffic became so dense and slow-moving that the young fellow was compelled to give all his attention to his driving and to crawl, start, stop continually. ”

“ The wear and tear of highways in places of through traffic has proved intolerably expensive; in others it gives nobody a serious thought; and then some blockhead, smitten with the mania for doing sums and statistics, takes out the mileage, population, and ratable property in two metropolitan antipodes, and by a rule of three works out a solemn balance of condemnation against the hard-driven and specious praise of the happy-go-lucky subjects of his contrast. ”

“ The crowds of suburbanites rushing frantically for trains, elbowing and pushing in their anxiety to get home, the strident hoarse cries of newsboys, the warning shouts of wagon drivers as they drove recklessly here and there at murderous speed, the blowing of auto horns, the ceaseless hum and roar of the big city's heavy traffic—all this bewildered and dazed him. ”

“ The effects of high civilization may perhaps be best estimated by its contrast—the rude and infant stages of society. Let us imagine for a moment the destruction of Railways, the neglect of Turnpike and Highway Roads, and the consequent interruption of our present modes of rapid and regular locomotion. ”

“ They were never built to carry such traffic as this, and since the inevitable ditch on either side deprives them of lateral support, the effect of a constant stream of monstrously heavy vehicles upon the surface of one of them is that of a rolling-pin upon a strip of dough—it makes it wider. Not only wider, but thinner; for the edges of the road are squeezed out [165] into the ditch, and the whole fabric loses cohesion. Almost anywhere, but in particular near the sides, a wheel is apt suddenly to find a soft spot and sink up to the axle, with consequent congestion and tumult. ”

“ The land on either side of the streets becomes enormously valuable. The traffic changes in character. New ways are demanded by the new conditions, but they are not built because the compensation required for disturbance terrifies the reformer. There follows a phase during which you have heavy congestion of traffic, and then, unless reform comes in time, a succeeding phase of decay.
It is very rare in the history of great urban centres to find the problem tackled at the right moment and solved: to find governors of sufficient daring to take the economic plunge. ”

“ But the common impression that provision of such routes would constitute invariably a complete, or even a substantially adequate, solution of the highway problem at cities is not well-founded. It is a fallacious conception of the need for adequate accommodation of the traffic moving over the rural highways. From the standpoint of the cities it fails as a solution of the most serious aspects of the problem. ”

“ And each and every bridge is going to be a traffic hazard. Now, this bridge in this little town was not much longer than our truck but it served its purpose; it was a hazard.
When a car with electric lights turned a corner and faced us, we were blinded and our presto lights seemed to go out altogether. They didn't even shine down as far as the road at our front wheels. Nor did they show us the bridge with its little wooden banisters. Well, I did see one banister a little—not much—but Papa didn't see it at all. He didn't even know there was a creek nor a bridge ahead of us. ”

“ But with the changed conditions brought about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to harden their surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places. ”

“ Crossing at right angles the great thoroughfare on which they walked, was a second canyon-like way, threaded by throngs and vehicles and various lines of cars which clanged their bells and made such progress as they might amid swiftly moving streams of traffic. Yet the little group seemed unconscious of anything save a set purpose to make its way between the contending lines of traffic and pedestrians which flowed by them. ”

“ There can be no justification for such a complete surrender of our road-beds to corporations and contractors. Undoubtedly the prosecution of necessary and useful improvements requires an occasional disturbance of some part of the pavements of our streets, and sometimes a partial interference with the movements of traffic. ”

“ It may be a shock perhaps to some minds, but I must confess I do not see what is to prevent the process of elimination that is beginning now with the heavy vans spreading until it covers all horse traffic, and with the disappearance of horse hoofs and the necessary filth of horses, the road surface may be made a very different thing from what it is at present, better drained and admirably adapted for the soft-tyred hackney vehicles and the torrent of cyclists. ”

“ It's sure one hell of a road, but there's got to be a light somewhere about it or the best of the whole world wouldn't take to it for choice, would they? Yet they do! Like Jesus Christ, say. They turn down the other side cold, though it's nicer traveling. Why, you can hog that other road in an auto, you can run down the beggars and the kids, you can even shoot up the cops that want to make you keep the speed laws. ”

“ The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.
"Look here," said Champion.
I looked.
"What on earth are those fellows doing?" he continued.
"Re-laying the road, perhaps."
"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."
"Well—gas!"
"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a special conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion. "There's no need to dig." ”

“ The big percent is one way traffic. To get a block or so away from where you are you execute some geometric figures they didn't have in the books when I took geometry.
This day we had an accident. Driving in the downtown congestion a car from the lane to our right pulled into us, tearing off the right hind fender of our almost brand new convertible. Traffic stopped momentarily only. You would think the two owners were exchanging pleasantries. They gathered up the pieces and pulled out what was left of the fender to keep the tires from scraping, and away we went. ”

“ The congestion of traffic in the downtown streets of our large cities is due to four causes: (a) the increased number of vehicles, (b) the different rates of speed at which different types of vehicles desire to move (horse-drawn vehicles, street cars, motor trucks, trucks, motor cars, motorcycles, etc.) , (c) the inadequate width and faulty arrangement of streets due to the lack of planning, and (d) the improper driving and parking of vehicles.
The older streets cannot now be widened except at very great expense because the private property which fronts on them is so valuable. ”