Chapter 5: General conclusions

Grant systems

476

Our studies demonstrate the great importance in larger towns of town traffic as opposed to through traffic. This has a bearing on the present system of financial grants from central funds for the improvement of highways. There are four main points to be made. First, the present system has been based, ever since it was inaugurated in 1909, on the concept that central funds should be used only for the benefit of through traffic. Some doubt is thrown on this concept when it is realised that the major problem in towns is to deal with terminating traffic. Secondly, the present grants are rigidly tied to highway works, and to such minimum redevelopment outside the highway boundary as may be necessary to enable the job to be executed. Thus road works and the wider lateral redevelopment they necessitate tend to get out of phase. Thirdly, there is the danger that normal highway grants may operate to the severe detriment of environmental qualities, especially in small towns. Fourthly, as we have shown, comprehensive redevelopment is very important for dealing with traffic problems, but financial aid for this is administered completely separately from highway grants.

477

We think the present grant system, with its emphasis on through traffic, has almost certainly been responsible for clouding the issue as far as the real nature of urban traffic is concerned, and that for nearly half a century, by fostering the existence of powerful, but narrowly conceived highway departments in the local authorities, it has prevented the proper amalgamation of highway planning and land use planning. There is an important lesson to be learned from the United States which is pertinent to our own position if funds were to become available on a much bigger scale for urban road works. This concerns the dangers that arise when highway authorities, acting with a great degree of independence, are able to deploy enormous resources to one end only—that of speeding the flow of traffic.

478

We have no concrete proposal to make, but we suggest it would be worth exploring the possibilities of orienting a comprehensive grant system towards the kind of approach set out in Chapter II above. We mean by this that grants would be available for dealing with traffic problems, but the latter term would have a new definition encompassing accessibility and environment. If suitable networks and environmental areas are to be established, it would seem that the grant system should operate in such a way that the plans which secure the best accessibility (using the term in a wide sense) and the best environment for the least cost ought to attract the most favourable rates of assistance. Such an approach would encourage the authority to strive for efficient, co-ordinated schemes, with a proper fusion of the town redevelopment and traffic planning processes.