To attempt to comment in detail on the Traffic Commi sion's report would mean writing another one almost as. long. For the labour they have -ex-[pended on their report the Commission deserve the sincere thanks of the community, the more so that some sarcastic comments have been heard on the apparent delay in reaching conclusions. The report sufficient answer to these jibes. Every imaginable and unimaginable factor in traffic, its growth, leongestion and control has been explored by the Commission an {their recommendations are detailed and explicit as their researches. It only remains now for the community to decide what fof the Commission's advice it will ind will not take, or xather what it can and cannot afford. Some of it frankly is a counsel of perfection, Take, for example, the list of street' widenings advocated. No great knowledge of land values is required to see that such a wholesale scheme' of compulsory purchase would be beyond Shanghai's means. The Commission say that they have counted the cost but withhold the figures, intimating rather grimly that omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs and that if the community want an earthly paradise, they will have to pay for it. "A further consideration is that traffic grows in all streets up to a point at which it becomes unbearable and then seeks its own remedy by going elsewhere. This means that by the time the community had paid for widening, say, Nanking Road to 80ft,, the traffic would have grown as dense upon it as it is in proportion to the present widths and we should be clamouring for a 100ft. road. The logic of the situation is to Jsee what can be done either to persuade people to go elsewhere or not to go at all.
With all respect to the Commission and those who appointed it. the traffic congestion of Shanghai is to some extent exaggerated. Residents returning, visitors arriving, from London, New York etc. tell us that we do not really know what traffic congestion means.—Where "in Shanghai it may take ten minutes} at a given time to traverse a given distance, in one of the big capitals of the West.a like journey would take half an hour. It is for these reasons that London, Liverpool and other cite are actually finding horses ches ver than motor. lorries, the injerease of which, with the different conditions of Shanghai, the Commission strongly advocate. Broadly speaking, the traffic of Shanghai falls into two main jclasses—the movement between house and office of the "black-coasted brigade" and the movement of goods and produce. Much of the trouble arises from the present intermingling of these streams. The map of the regional development of Shanghai, which accompanies the Commission's report shows how the enormous volume of heavy traffic from east and north to the mill district in the west must pass through a sort of bottle-neck. Much of it might go by water and the enlargement of the capacities of the Soochow Creek, is ardently to be desired. But so are more and wider roads in the northern district and if money is to be spent on road-widening, we think it is here that expenditure should be concen-At the same time we ly endorse all that the Commission say on the desirlity of coming to some arrangement with the Chines authorities for new linking up of eastern and western districts northwards of Shanghai and, as those authorities are as keen as any foreign body can be on the general development of the district, we do not doubt that they!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.