The Road

by Hilaire Belloc

We have come to the point where some great initiative is imperatively needed for the re-establishment of communications corresponding to modern needs.

But while all feel this, no one as yet has, I believe, thought out the main elements of the scheme. We cannot remake all the ways of England, nor even change the main part of them to suit the new kind of traffic. We have been “taken aback,” as they say in sailing, and “caught all standing.” Our charming, narrow, hedged, tortuous lanes, our haphazard county communications, even our main ways, have suddenly proved grossly inapt to the new traffic; and our towns, unaffected by the great Continental movement (which I have heard called the “boulevard” movement) of the middle nineteenth century, are in the same case. If we cannot—and obviously we cannot—remodel the whole thing, what can we do?

So far as I can see, we can proceed upon certain main principles, with which I propose to conclude.

I distinguish between the problem of the street traffic in the towns, with which I am not concerned, and that of the main road. As it seems to me, what we need is, and that immediately, a certain number—quite a large number—of great arterial roads very broad and straight with a special surface, confined to motor traffic alone.

These, including circular ways round the towns to avoid the present unnecessary and congested passage through the towns, would act as ditches act in a fen. They would gather towards them the main streams of traffic, as such ditches gather towards them and drain the moisture of a fen. That having been done, the remaining difficulties upon the by-roads would be cut down to a quarter or less of their present evil.

I will develop this.

ii

It is clear that our new vehicle, the internal combustion engine, will compel us to new roads, just as the vehicular traffic for passengers at the beginning of the seventeenth century compelled the creation of the turnpike. Far-seeing men grasped this the moment that the internal combustion engine appeared in our lives. I have myself heard the details of an idea which very nearly materialized and which was on the point of becoming law—an experimental road to be driven from one great centre to another, to be reserved entirely to the new traffic and to be made specially for these new necessities. Private interest defeated the scheme, and in my opinion that defeat was a very bad thing for the general development of the country. But though the first attempt failed, the very fruitful and sensible idea underlying it is worth describing.

A very few great arterial roads joining up the main centres of population would have far more effect upon our present difficulties than their mere mileage would seem to warrant. There could be no question of stopping the new form of traffic upon the ordinary roads remaining, which in length might be twenty or fifty times those of the new roads. But it would be of such advantage for long-distance travel to use the great arteries that at the expenditure of greater mileage you would find the new traffic seeking them at the nearest point upon one side and clinging to them for as long as possible.

Suppose, for the sake of hypothesis, a simple case. Suppose a great arterial road to be built joining the heart of London and the heart of Birmingham in a straight line: it would pass just by Tring and Buckingham and then on through the gap between Leamington and Warwick. A man living at Windsor and desiring to reach Coventry, and using the new method of fast travel, would seek this main road at its nearest point and leave it again at the nearest point to his terminus. It would be a less picturesque, but a much safer and quicker way of doing his business. It would add a dozen miles to his total trajectory, but it would save a much more than corresponding amount of strain and expense of energy in following the series of narrow and winding roads most nearly connecting the two points. The same would be true of any other trajectory not directly served by the new roads. The advantage of safe and rapid travel on a first-class surface of very broad gauge, free of horses and pedestrians, would make people take a “Z” to include as much as possible of such a road rather than cling to the shorter line.