Alderman Norman Tiptaft wrote in 1944 about many aspects of the future Birmingham. This is what he had to say about "The Traffic Problem":
One of the most urgent problems of the immediate post-war world will be traffic..............
........Birmingham's one-way system of traffic has carried our reputation far afield, but it is hardly a favourable one. One harassed motorist, having arrived in Birmingham and made three or four attempts to leave the centre of the city, finally parked his car by the General Post Office, telephoned the Transport department and asked for a guide to get him out again. Certainly the one-way system, whatever its present advantages in moving traffic at a faster rate, is at best but a temporary expedient. In addition, it causes motorists to travel much greater distances, with consequent additional wear on tyres, the consumption of an appreciable amount of extra petrol, and a considerable waste of time.
As to the public service vehicles in Birmingham, they too are suffering from war-time strain. Some of the new utility buses now appearing on the streets may be necessary as an example of war-time austerity, but they are not the standard of vehicle the average ratepayer will expect when the war is over.
At present, the number of private motor cars is considerably restricted. Those restrictions will not continue when manufacturers are able to produce new ones. With the higher standard of living which has obtained during the war period, and which may quite well continue for a time afterwards, the demand for cars is likely to be far beyond the capacity of our present roads to carry. That will involve considerable replanning in the centre of the city.
The Public Works Committee has decided that most of the problems can be met by the construction of an inner ring road, which will encircle the city at a point approximately not more than half a mile from New Street Station. It is suggested that this road should have a width of at least 110 feet, should be constructed with appropriate carriage ways, adequate footpaths and have facilities for omnibus loading stations along its entire length. It will run from the junction of Great Charles Street and Snow Hill, via Snow Hill to Corporation Place, Stafford Street, Moor Street, at a point below Carrs Lane, be carried to the junction of High Street and New Street, and on to Worcester Street, Smallbrook Street, Suffolk Street - connecting at the other end of Great Charles Street near the Hall of Memory. Colmore Row will be widened to at least 80 feet, and will probably form the chief omnibus loading place of the city centre.
It is considered essential that New Street and Corporation Street should be free, both from through traffic and public service vehicles, because their main purpose is shopping. Shopping streets do not require wide carriage ways, although the footpaths may need to be wider than at present. The small factories in the neighbourhood of Snow Hill will eventually disappear, and the shopping and business area will spread outwards, at least to the new ring road. At present, the shopping area in Birmingham is too small, and an extension appears desirable.
If the local authority could start replanning from the ground up, it would be a simpler problem, but it has to take account of existing conditions. A patch-work solution is not worth while, but reconstruction cannot be as easy as when building an entirely new city. The construction of an inner ring road, plus some street widening, will - it is thought - solve most of Birmingham's central traffic problems for the immediate future. Most of the main arteries leading to the city will have to be increased in width......
.........One necessary condition of lessening traffic intensity is taking cars off the road, where they would otherwise be standing, and transferring them to car parks. A scheme has already been approved for a car park holding from 1,200 to 1,500 vehicles, underneath the gardens of the future civic centre at Broad Street, while two others are suggested, one in Digbeth and one adjoining Snow Hill.
What about air transport ? We have a civic aerodrome, which but for the war might by now have been in regular use as a means of communication between Birmingham and the rest of the country, and certainly the Continent, but could hardly be of much use for purely local service. How long it will be before personal aeroplanes become as common as personal motor cars is problematic. Some writers envisage a helicopter device, so steady and reliable that an aeroplane could land quite safely in the average householder's garden. If that method of transport became general, traffic on the roads might be considerably reduced. It would be considerably increased in the air, and another worry would be added to modern life, with the possibility of crash landings in the streets.
If such a device is perfected, it is hardly likely to be employed over great cities for some time, and it would appear that we can leave air travel out of consideration in dealing with the city's local traffic problem of the next few years.
Perhaps someone with an intimate knowledge of today's Birmingham might like to comment on the extent to which this was an accurate prediction (apart from the helicopters!).
Chris
