NEED FOR NEW ROADS

Evening Star, Issue 22455, 28 September 1936, Page 11

NEED FOR NEW ROADS

THE QUESTION OF SAFETY Few of our modern highways are as efficient as the automotive equipment passing over them. Engineers have developed the motor car so that it travels easily at high rates of speed, but highway engineers have not as yet _ been enabled to build highways sufficiently safe for the average driver (states Gilmore D. Clarke, in the ‘ New York Times ’). Too little attention or money has been given to the design of highways to fit then\ for present-day use of motor cars designed to travel at high rates of sliced. Many of the latest roads that have been built, and some that are now under construction, are already out of date. We have spent millions of dollars on Our highways, and yet the motor car takes a large toll in lives each year, and a considerable portion of the accidents may be attributed to highways which are not adequate to meet the demands of the modern car. Let us look into the future and see if wo can predict what the more efficient highway will look like. A WIDE RIGHT OF WAY, In the first place, it will be constructed on a wide right of way, and the abutting property owners will not bo permitted to. have frontage on it. The right of way of this roadway will be fenced, and access to it will be permitted only at certain specific intervals. There will be no crossings at grade. Intersecting streets, highways, and railroads will pass over or under this new roadway, and connections between the Intersecting roads with this new roadway will be designed so that left-hand turns will not bej possible. All cities and villages will be bypassed by this new roadway. This will servo to remove through traffic from the streets of the municipalities, and will result in an asset to the town and traffic alike. This by-pass will be planned to be sufficiently removed from the town so as to eliminate the necessity of constructing another by-pass to by-pass the by-pass. A connection with each town will be constructed so that it will be easily accessible from the new roadway. The pavement on the new roadway will be divided by an island to separate motor cars going in different directions. This island will be sufficiently wide to prevent headlights from interfering with traffic in an opposing direction. The number of traffic lanes on each side of the island will be cither two or three, and each one of these lanes will be not less than 12ft in width. Caro will be given to the manner in which these new roadways fit the ground, and they will be planned so as to provide long, flat, smooth, easy curves in places where curves are neoes-

sary. The curves of shorter radii will be saucered for higa speeds and .widened out to wxatas greater than tire normal roadway at these curves. Attention will be given to aesthetic features. The highway will lit comiortably into the landscape. The areas between the pavement and the property lines of this new roadway will be appropriately planted, principally with trees to provide shade in summer. The bridge structures necessary for the elimination of grade crossings and tor passing over water courses will be artistically designed. In built-up sections these new roadways will be lighted witn modern ligating equipment to eliminate the necessity of headlights Pedestrians will not be allowed to cross these hew roadways at grade. Where crossings are necessary root bridges over or under the roaaway will be provided. For the comfort of the motorists on these new roadways gasoline and rest stations, togeliier witn restaurants, will be provided at intervals of three or four miles. These facilities will oe housed in artistically designed buildings constructed and owned by the State or municipalities and leased for periods of years. TO ACCOMMODATE CAES. When these features are combined witn tne latest ueveiupmeius m cue structural qualities 01 me pavement, taen we shad nave motor suitable ror use by me eincieut motor cars oemg designed at tne pieseut tune. j.ne Gormans nave recogisea the importance Oi tne type, of roauwa.) mat i nave described, xuey call then new mgnways me “ Eeicnsautouaim.” This iteicnsautonahn is a national network of express nignways accommodating uign-speed motor iraihc between me principal cities of Germany. in casting about ror a name for tnis new type or American roadway or nignway we lind tne terms “ rreeway,” “motor way,” and “limited way'', used, but an these refer to tne same thing. This will be the hignway ot the future, and, in addition to mating travel safer, cutting distances and time between larger centres of population, mating motor trafhc comfortable, attractive, and easy, and providing u countryside devoid of ugly hot-aog • stands, gas stations, billboards, and the like, it will prove economically sound. The wide rignt-or-way which this treeway will provide will make it possible to screen it from the view .of the abutting private lands by appropriate tree plantations. Within metropolitan regions these abutting lands will retain a relatively higa value by reason of the elimination or the blighted strip found along the edges of most of our mala nigh ways to-uay. Our motor travel of the future will really be over parkways. A treeway should bo designed in a manner similar to the parkway, the only difference between the parKway and the freeway being that the latter will provide right of way for commercial vehicles as well as passenger cars.