ARCADES FOR NEW YORK

Hokitika Guardian, 2 August 1923, Page 1

ARCADES FOR NEW YORK

CITY TOO 810 FOR ITS STREETS. NEW YORK. June 7. in California, a. lew days ago, ;l licence plate bearing the number 1.000.001 was issued to the o\ vner of a motor-car. Simultaneously, it was announced Unit in April American factories turned out and sold 301,000 cars and lorries bringing the total for 12 months to 3,208.000. The Stale of New York acquired iU millionth motor vehicle .seme months previously to

California. These figures explain a. traffic condition which is menacing the comfort of all great American cities, hut which is ail dieting New York with a problem of baffling complexity. AN lion, about 109 years ago, the city Fathers .I' New York drew up their plans for the future development of the metropolis, their imaginations pctured a great city whose boundaries in the course- of the coming century might reach a point which is now smothered with population. They foresaw a city the main arteries of which would ho always between the Hudson and the East. River. Accordingly they planned for only n icw avenues running longitudinally up and down the Island of Manhattan and foe many streets bisecting it laterally. The main arteries of traffic arc now tne avenues, where traffic is impeded to an indescribable degree by the cross currents pouring at short intervals through 100 and more lateral streets. These avenues are 70ft wide and Hie streets somewhat less. Tliev were constructed to meet the needs of a population living in houses 5 or 0 stories high.

They have now to cope with tile re-

quirements of a vast metropolis of sky .scrapers and lolly warehouses, risiuj

from 15 to 30 and in some eases to more than -10 stories. Rome buildings contain Jll.llOO people, ll all the clerks ami employees engaged in them were to attempt the journey to their homes nfc flie same time. Lower IJromlwny and the streets adjoining it would be jammed with layers of human beings five deep.

But the problem of the pedestrians does not compare with that of vehicular traffic.

Numerous remedies, some very ingenious, are being tested. So far none lias pooled more than a palliative. Some experts suggest that the owners of .skyscrapers, who make such inordinate demands upon the streets, must ~e compelled to give up 1o trMlic a portion of their ground ami first Moors. In other words, their idea is to convert the most crowded parts of New York into a. city of arcades. 'I hey would abolish the existing pavements and devote the streets thus widened to through traffic. Vehicles desirous o( stopping would, according to their suggestions, Is? dellected into an arcade formed out of the space now devoted to shop-window displays.

As for pedestrians, tne proposal is that they should “move one Might up and walk along n series of arcades formed out <:!' the second lloor ot the sky-crapers and connected by a series of Inidges with a similar series oi arcades on the opposite side.

Meanwhile the experts me convim ed that all horses and tramway-car must lie banished from New Aoi k.