A constant and pressing problem today, especially in a greater conurbation like London, is the problem of transport. Crowded trains, buses late or cut out, the constant whine of jet planes, dirt, noise and fumes — the list is endless.
At the heart of to-day’s transport problems is the motor-car, loved and hated to an immoderate degree, transforming the very face of the country, as a century ago the steam locomotive was transforming it. Any tenth-rate comedian can get a laugh by just saying ‘Barbara Castle’, as if a change of personality at the head of the Ministry of Transport would make an atom of difference to the problem.
In an effort to ease the jammed-up roads, pleasant gardens and tree-lined avenues are cut up for wider roads, while parks and squares are ruined to make car parks, and even the humble pub garden becomes a little asphalt desert. Motorways run like a scar across the countryside, and winding lanes are ‘improved’ out of recognition. Worst of all is the ever mounting toll of accidents.
None of this is particularly new; it is merely a change of form. That profit is the only serious consideration, with human comfort and happiness coming a very poor second, is true to-day and has been true for as long as capitalism has existed. London, and all big cities, have for centuries been very noisy places. Iron clad wheels and horses’ hooves, clattering over cobbles, made a terrible din and congestion in London was notorious.
Rowlandson, in a typically unflattering series of etchings, drew a picture of traffic chaos in the early 19th century. In the late 1850’s the London General Omnibus Company alone had about six hundred horse-buses, and horse trams appeared on the scene in the 1860’s. Congestion in the City gave rise to plans for a pedestrian bridge over Ludgate Circus, and the first underground railway (imagine the “Met” with steam engines) was put through to relieve congestion.
By the 1890’s there were over 1,700 buses and about 900 trams in central London. Over it all rode the locomotive, a smoky monster that blackened the working class districts through which it cut into London. The childish squabbles indulged in by rival railway companies, as in 1884 when the District Line chained a locomotive in a disputed siding at South Kensington Station and three Metropolitan Line engines tried to pull it out, make the snarling of motorists at traffic light to-day seem very tame.
The protests at Motorways ruining the countryside echo the protests of a century ago when the railways were doing the same thing. No, the problem hasn’t changed, but the vast increase in population, and the much greater powers of production, have made it more acute.
Now, the canals that once drove men and horses hard for greater speed and profit are pleasant, green oases in endless suburbs, and the once hated steam engine a romantic memory. It is the internal combustion engine that dominates the 20th Century.
No other modern industry has had such a profound influence on the social and economic life to-day as the motor industry. Its development has resulted in the decline of once important industries, and has given an impetus to a mass of others that were unimportant at the turn of the century. It was one of the main factors in the migration of industries, from the North of England to the South and to the Midlands, that took place between the wars.
Like the steam engine that preceded it, the internal combustion engine began its existence as a static form of power, and was later adapted for locomotion. Steam cars had been in existence since the early years of the 19th century, but they were heavy and fuel was a problem. The internal combustion engine made possible a much lighter vehicle. More important, it could be run over existing public roads, unlike the railways which had to stick to a set route; this made for greater mobility. By the beginning of the present century the motor vehicle was with us.
Its application followed existing patterns, in the various forms of road transport in existence at the time—the private carriage, the bus and the wagon. In its early days the motor-car was still a luxury reserved for the type of people who could afford a carriage. The bulk of the population travelled by public transport.
The first motor buses appeared in Britain about 1898, and by the early 1920’s they had been joined by the long distance coach.
One of the selling points used by the promoters of coach travel before the war was that coaches took you through the heart of towns and villages, and gave you a better view of the country. Today more and more coaches trail along dreary motorways and by-pass towns and villages.
Slowly the motor buses pushed the railways into the background, and drove the tramcars off the road. The swing was first from the railways to public road transport; the golden age of the bus was the 1930’s.
But now, by changed production methods and a heavy reliance on hire purchase, the private car has become available to the mass of the people. There were four times as many cars on the roads in 1964 as in 1939 and the number is still growing. Furthermore, the number of people travelling to work from a fair distance away has grown steadily over the last 100 years. The resulting chaos has brought home the importance of the railways, with their much greater carrying capacity. Without their rail systems, cities like London woud seize up in the rush hour.
Since the war a favourite pipe-dream has been an ‘integrated public transport system’, with transport used in a balanced way to its best advantage. But capitalism doesn’t work that way. If profit can be made it will be made, however pleasant or unpleasant the result may be. If, on the other hand, something like the railways no longer pays, but is considered necessary to the general interest of capitalism, then it will be subsidised, but as cheaply as possible.
The grim railway arches that overshadowed the mean terraces of south and east London were held up as examples of the inhumanity of the Victorians, but the new fly-overs that overshadow houses to-day show the same contempt for the people who live underneath. Transport has changed. It will change again, we can only guess how; but one thing is certain. If capitalism remains the new transport will be as nasty as the old.
Les Dale
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