The "speedway" runs the length of Avenue Edward VII from the Bund to Thibet Road, When the odoriferous and unsightly Yangking-Pang was culverted and converted nto the broad avenue, the City Fathers and the police, the most exalted of the visiting Shriners of that year and the towel coolie at Hongkew swimming bath, the manager of the Hongkong Shanghai Bank and the No. 1 Taodah tk the Rowing Club, and everyone else in Shanghai deco that it was a wonderful improvement and that the outward and inward traffic problem was solved. Handsome and mighty buildings wore'to line the new road on both sides throughout its length and most of the traffic would be attracted to it. It has a few fine buildings, but more that are not quite so'fine, Until recently the oad surfnee was in part used as parking place for motor-cars, and for the res '2 shove: halfpenny and "tag" rink for young China—thus early asserting its sovereign rights to that with which the imperialists had covered up what undoubtedly was China's, for no one else would want to claim the Yangkingpang.
Motor-car owners would not drive down this avenue because of its unattractiveness and its dangers. Chauffeurs on their own would not along, it because there was nothing and no one for them to admire, and no one to-admire them and their equipages. Thus the great highway proved a failure.
'A Beautiful Plan Then came the plan to turn it into a speedway, motorists to have beautifully surfaced central strip entirely to themselves, down which they could scorch at top speed, with nothing to impede them. There would be no traffic blocks, no question of going too fast, of passing other cars, or anything like that, and in two or three minutes they would be out in the broad, clear roads of the Western District where normally everything is pleasing. So up came the avenue and down went a superb racing track. Tt really is a well-Laid road, and credit can be given for that at least, but nothing else has been done.
1 The only suggestion of an ouse thut could be obtained was that the road is not yet officially opened. But it is being used and the consequences will not be affected by 'a formal opening, however exalted the opener. People using the road now in the manner for which it was designed could be prosecuted for breaches of the by-laws if the police insisted, because there must be several special alterations and additions applicable to this particular stretch. 'The investigator was given to understand that, up where the big things come from and where Traffic. Commissions abide, such altertitions and additions "are being considered", And the' roadway is being used meanwhile!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.