Getting a grip on gridlock

NEVER has the motorist had it so tough in London. Now, with the threat of congestion charging from mayor Ken Livingstone, matters may become even pressing.

There has also never been a better time to study some of the previous solutions considered by London authorities.

In the late 1960s, for example, the GLC commissioned a confidential report into the feasibility of installing twin overhead monorails in Regent Street, part of a high-tech network on which 30,000 passengers an hour could travel high above the cars, buses and taxis gridlocked down below and at speeds of up to 50mph. Fortunately, if only for the preservation of one of London's architecturally more distinguished thoroughfares, this futuristic idea was eventually shelved, although not before a similar project in Japan had failed to fly.

Nor is Regent Street the only landmark in the capital to have been threatened by outlandish proposals intended to ease the worst traffic congestion. At the same time, the GLC was also contemplating the destruction of Covent Garden, sending bulldozers into the old market and piazza as part of a plan to clear away the maze of "obsolete" streets and buildings and replace them with a more orderly grid of modern, car-friendly through-routes.

In fact, this desire to give the car free rein throughout London has arguably never been stronger than in the 1960s. In 1963, another report, entitled Traffic in Towns, had proposed separating motorists and pedestrians by constructing a new "building deck" high above street level.

With the traffic running undisturbed below, the report said it would then be possible up above "to create, in an even better form, the things that have delighted man for generations - the snug, close, varied atmosphere, the narrow alleys, the contrasting open squares, the effects of light and shade, and the fountains and sculptures".

Another equally radical two-tier proposal was the truly bizarre scheme suggested by the architect Charles W Glover in 1931. His grand plan involved an aerodrome shaped like a giant eight-spoked wheel being balanced on top of King's Cross station. Nearly half a mile in diameter and with each of the spokes serving as an inner-city runway, Glover said his aerodrome would enable well-heeled businessmen to fly into London instead of driving, leaving their aircraft parked above Euston Road while they took taxis into the City.

Even he had to admit, though, that the basics of aircraft design would have to progress somewhat before anyone could actually safely land on one of his elevated spokes.

The estimated cost of Glover's dream was about 5 million - and that's at prewar prices - but even this staggering sum pales beside an 18th century plan to straighten out the bends of the River Thames. The instigator this time was another architect, Willey Reveley, who wished to carve out a new river channel almost a mile long. Linking Wapping with Woolwich to save sailing vessels the more than two hours needed to tack against the wind each time they wanted to round the Isle of Dogs, his channel would have rendered the existing river redundant. But Reveley had thought of that too - had he got the green light, he aimed to convert the remaining bits of river into three gigantic docks.

Incredibly, the authorities took him seriously at first and a special parliamentary committee sat for 25 days to consider the idea before finally rejecting it.

Reveley died soon afterwards but the river has since featured in several equally barmy schemes. As part of the ill-fated Thames Viaduct Railway, the respected engineer Robert Stephenson sanctioned a plan to erect a giant latticework structure supported by dozens of cylindrical cast-iron piers thrust down into the riverbed. Trains would then be able to run down the centre of the Thames instead of through the more built-up areas.

A few years later, in 1861, HR Newton - one of several visionaries who sought to liberate more building space within the increasingly congested city - took the concept even further. As part of what he called a "simple scheme", he wanted several massive traffic-free artificial islands to be constructed midstream between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges, each accommodating new government offices and dozens of private apartments away from the mid-Victorian throng.

Back on dry land, the so-called Abercrombie Plan of the 1940s at least sounded more realistic: five concentric ring roads routed in such a way as to divert heavy traffic away from the capital and onto a series of motorways linking up the major cities. But they also failed to materialise, not least because their creator, Sir Patrick Abercrombie, a professor of town planning at London University who should have known better, wanted to build a tunnel directly beneath Buckingham Palace.

Incredibly, his plan was still being discussed nearly 30 years later but was finally filed away for good in 1970 when it became apparent that his 400 miles of new roads would render at least 100,000 Londoners homeless, make life unbearable for many, many more and cost the country upwards of 2 billion - nearly five per cent of the country's entire GDP for the year. In fact, only the outermost ring was built - the one we know today as the M25.

Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.