TRAFFIC TOWERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4587, 18 July 1923, Page 4

TRAFFIC TOWERS.

(By Basil Macdonald Hastings.) The pedestrian who attempts to cross a New York avenue, or even a street, is either killed or not killed. There is never a clear road in New York, and as symbols of acknowledged affliction the authorities have erected .traffic towers. A traffic tower is a thing like a lighthouse built in the centre of any road where traffic is likely to be very congested. A man lives in its upper storey, which is surrounded by glass,, and amuses himself by switching on and off coloured lights. A red light means one thing, a green light yet another thing, and a yellow light something else. From personal experience I can testify that a yellow light is-a good tip to take refuge in a shop. A green light made me clutch at the nearest policeman, and a red light drove me into St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pray. On the whole the visitor to New York is best advised never to walk. The only way is to step -from one’s hotel steps straight into a taxicab. This means that one leaves the country without any money, but one has one’s life. Slipping about in taxicabs is not nearly such a time-saving device as it is in London. The cabs, travel fast, but every few blocks the light in the traffic tower orders them to sifop so that the road may be crossed by pedestrians. This only happens when you are riding in a cab. At all other times the traffic flashes by, intent on its mission of death. The result of the constant checking is the complete extinction of punctuality in New York. People invited to dinner at 8 arrive at 8.30 and do not even apologise. What looks like a five minutes’ journey can easily become one of twenty minutes if the fellows in the traffic towers don’t like the look of your taxicab driver.