Traffic Control in Edinburgh
| Published date | 01 April 1930 |
| Date | 01 April 1930 |
| Author | William Roy |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3000300211 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Traffic Control in
Edinburgh
By
LIEUT.
WILLIAM
ROY
Chief Traffic Officer. Edinburgh City Police
MOST cities and towns to-day are troubled by traffic
congestion. Physical and financial limitations imposed
by enormous investments in great buildings abutting narrow,
antiquated streets preclude effective widening in the older
business centres. Corporations anxious to meet requirements
to facilitate speedy traffic movement are practically held to
ransom.
The
cost of improvements steadily grows as the
demand for wider streets, better pavements, and more adequate
traffic control increases.
This
building question constitutes a
real challenge to civic government. Parsimony and lack of
foresight in dealing with the problem will only aggravate
conditions in the future. Prompt and decisive action is
therefore needed. Unfortunately there is no single procedure
which can free our cities from traffic congestion.
The
prob-
lems concerned are too new, and changing too rapidly, to have
developed any standardized solution.
The
actual work in solving specific problems naturally falls
upon a few experts.
The
most logical way for a community to
meet its traffic obligations and to prevent arepetition of the
same problem in the future is to formulate its building plans
intelligently so as to prevent the reduction of our streets to a
state of impassability.
In
the Edinburgh
Town
Council we have one of the most
progressive civic bodies in the country.
They
are keenly
interested in the question of up-to-date traffic control and the
relief of congestion.
They
are jealous of the good name which
the city maintains in the van of progress in this respect.
In
this they are ably seconded by the various heads of depart-
ments, and
it
may be claimed
that
those who are responsible
a6a
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