Traffic in Towns - Response and Legacy

Response and Legacy

The RAC recognised that some conclusions were unpalatable, and controversial, but overall they welcomed the approach. However, they thought that restrictions on vehicular traffic would be acceptable to the motorist if they could see the government determined to build capacity in urban areas. The Pedestrian Association cautioned that "the Judgment of Solomon" would be needed to decide how to implement the ideas in the report.

The Parliamentary transport committee welcomed the report, as it offered an alternative to simply building more roads or providing more public transport. Thus it gained political currency, with the report forming the blueprint for UK urban planning for the next few decades.

In doing so, it gave acceptability and confidence to a number of proposals and innovations that soon became common in the UK landscape:

• urban clearways, flyovers, and the widespread used of single yellow and double yellow lines to limit the intrusion of vehicles in town centres
• pedestrianised precincts
• pedestrian city centres flanked with multi-storey car parks
• one way streets and traffic restrictions
• separation of pedestrians and traffic, with clearly defined kerbs and pedestrian barriers

Buchanan later proposed a development for Bath using the same approach to reduce traffic in the historical city centre by way of underground routes; this provoked such a storm of local protest that "Buchanan's Tunnel" was never built.

The recognition that road congestion could not be addressed just through new road programmes influenced the way that traffic problems would be addressed in future; there would now be a switch towards "transport studies" which should consider multi-modal solutions, i.e. both road and public transport options, including park and ride. However, in the absence of a central commitment to public transport the perspective was skewed in favour of road building for many years to come. By 1970 the government had committed to spend £4 bn on road schemes to "eliminate congestion" over the next 15 years.

However, this switch to a multi-modal approach took some time to become widely accepted, and meanwhile many grand road schemes were being planned. By 1970 there were plans to spend £1,700 million on multiple Ringways and elevated radial roads across London. Robert Vigars, the chairman of the Greater London Council's Planning committee, reported that the plan for a part-buried Ringway 2 to supersede the South Circular Road between the A2 and A23 would necessitate the destruction of several thousand houses, but it was:

...not just a traffic solution but a plan for the very people whose areas it passes through. It means creating living standards for them, so that they can live, breathe, shop and eat free from the menace of traffic congestion in their local streets. This was putting Buchanan into action ... We are satisfied that the total planning and environmental gains greatly outweigh the local difficulties.