The Royal Commission on London Traffic was a royal commission established in 1903 with a remit to review and report on how transport systems should be developed for London and the surrounding area. It produced a report in eight volumes published in 1905 and made recommendations on the character, administration and routing of traffic in London.
The Royal Commission on London Traffic was established on 10 February 1903. It had 13 commissioners and was chaired by Sir David Barbour. Its secretary was Lynden Macassey and the other commissioners were: [1]
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The commission's remit was to report on London's traffic arrangements and:
(a) as to measures which the commission deem most effectual for the improvement of the same by the development and inter-connexion of Railways and Tramways on, or below, the surface; by increasing the facilities for other forms of mechanical locomotion; by better provision for the organization and regulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, or otherwise;
(b) as to the desirability of establishing some authority or tribunal to which all schemes of Railway or Tramway construction of a local character should be referred, and the powers which it could be advisable to confer on such a body. [3]
The area of the commission's scope covered the Metropolitan Police District, [lower-alpha 2] an area of 692.84 square miles (1,794.4 km2) and a population of more than 6.5 million in 1901. [3] In its report the commission described this as "Greater London" and the urban developed area at its centre as "the Metropolis". The area beyond the Metropolis was described as "Extra London". [4]
The commission held 112 meetings and interviewed 134 witnesses. Members of the commission carried out fact-finding visits to New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington in 1903 and to Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Cologne, Dresden, Berlin, Brussels and Paris in 1904. [5]
An advisory board of three engineers was appointed to give the commission technical advice. The board consisted of Sir John Wolfe Barry (also a member of the commission), Sir Benjamin Baker, former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and William Barclay Parsons, Chief Engineer to the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners of the City of New York. [6]
The commission's report, Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire Into and Report Upon the Means of Locomotion and Transport in London, was published in eight volumes on 17 July 1905. [7] [lower-alpha 3]
The report examined the historic development of road, rail and tram transportation and the current condition. It made recommendations for improvements to roads within London's central area and arterial roads; for improvements in tramways including new routes and for improvements in railways of all types including their connections to one another. Recommendations were made as on road traffic regulations and the commission recommended the establishment of a Traffic Board to manage traffic developments in the Greater London area and carry out preliminary reviews of bills for traffic schemes before they were submitted to parliament. [9]
The report identified that road traffic was constrained by the narrowness of many of London's roads which reflected the historic development of the city. [10] [lower-alpha 4]
The report recommended that a comprehensive plan should be developed to improve road provision and routing to be carried out over the long term and that new roads should be constructed to standard widths depending on their importance and that existing main routes should be widened when possible. [lower-alpha 5]
The advisory board recommended construction of two "Main Avenues". These would be 140 feet (43 m) wide between buildings with four tram lines on the road and four railway lines in a sub-surface tunnel immediately beneath. Two of the tram lines and two of the railway lines would be for express services and service tunnels would be provided for utilities beneath the 23-foot (7.0 m) wide pavements. [12] The Main Avenues would connect areas on the outskirts of the main urban area and tramways and railway lines would be connected to these at both ends: [13]
The Main Avenues would cross at Gray's Inn Road. [12] Definitive routes were not proposed, but the report recognised that the scale of the projects would require them to be carried out as a complete exercise. The cost of both Main Avenues was estimated to be £30 million (equivalent to approximately £4.07 billion today) [14] for the 9 miles (14 km) of new roads, tramways and railways. [13]
Other main road improvements recommended by the advisory board were: [15]
The report indicated that there were many other roads and junctions that required improvements including for main roads leading out of London. For the latter the report recommended that this should be a responsibility for the Traffic Board to report on when established. [18] Although it did not make any recommendations on the subjects, the report noted that submissions made to the commission, included suggestions for "making roads in different directions out of London", "constructing a circular road about 75 miles in length at a radius of 12 miles from St Paul's", "providing alternative streets parallel to crowded thoroughfares, and new streets" and "removing factories from London". [10]
The report identified that the existing tramway systems were fragmented and lacked connections. [19] [lower-alpha 10] Compared to other British cities, Greater London's tramway systems were significantly under-developed. [19] [lower-alpha 11] The report criticised the London County Council's (LCC's) policy of refusing to allow the privately owned tramways operating outside the county's boundary to connect to and operate over its municipally owned system within. It also criticised the failure of the County to join its three separate systems together and to allow trams in the central areas of the City of London and the West End. [20] [lower-alpha 12]
The report recommended that interconnection of the existing tramways be undertaken and recommended construction of many new routes in areas not served and that through running of services between different operators be allowed. The report recommended that vetoes held by the London County Council and the municipal boroughs within it over the construction of new tramways should be abolished. [21] [lower-alpha 13]
The advisory board recommended the construction of 23 new tramways to connect the separate systems and bring trams to unserved areas. It estimated that the cost of constructing double line tramways was four to five per cent of the cost of constructing a cut and cover line such as the Metropolitan Railway or 13 to 17 per cent of the cost of a deep-level tube line such as the Central London Railway. [23] [lower-alpha 14]
The new routes recommended by the advisory board were: [26]
With the exception of Route 8 and the southern end of Route 1 and the northern parts of Routes 6 and 23 which crossed the county boundary, all of the routes were in the County of London.
The report noted that the commission considered that the purpose of railways was to bring passengers from the residential districts into the urban centre. A survey of traffic usage calculated the estimated total number of journeys for 1903 as 310,662,501 (27,364,209 from the west, 51,838,742 from the north, 89,224,298 from the east, 75,487,731 from the south-east and 66,717,521 from the south-west). [27] [lower-alpha 17]
Within the urban centre, trams and buses were considered to be the most convenient form of mass transport. [29] The commission excluded railway goods traffic from its consideration noting only that the distribution of most retail goods within the centre on London was by road as the railways could not compete due to convenience and cost. A desire was expressed that this was better organised to reduce its contribution on traffic congestion, but no solution was proposed. [30]
The report noted that most suburban and long distance passengers arrived at the same termini and that government policy of prohibiting railways from entering central London meant that the many railway companies then in operation had developed a messy network of lines in the periphery to connect to one another. [31] [lower-alpha 18] [lower-alpha 19] The report noted that the commission considered the way in which the termini had been located around the central area and the way that the railway companies' lines had been connected to one another were the main causes of deficiencies in the railways. [34]
The commission set itself three questions with regard to the provision of railways: were additional railways needed in the London area and should they be deep-level, sub-surface or surface lines; were the existing suburban rail services sufficient and was special encouragement or assistance needed for future railway construction. [34] [35]
The report noted that deep-level underground lines under construction (Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway and Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway) or planned would provide additional connections with many of the termini not already connected which would facilitate passengers' onward journeys into the central area. It considered that these new lines would mitigate many of the existing problems, but recommended that connections between north-south and east-west lines be provided and that connections between the suburban networks on the east and west sides of the central area be improved including by way of the Main Avenues proposed for the road and tram improvements. The only new deep-level line recommended was from Victoria station northwards to alleviate what was expected to remain a problem for passengers travelling into the central area. The report recommended that a north-south line be provided from Victoria to Marble Arch where the approved but unbuilt North West London Railway was to terminate. [35] [36] [lower-alpha 20]
To improve east-west connections, the advisory board recommended connecting Hammersmith to the City of London via Kensington, Piccadilly and the Strand either by an underground railway or as a tramway (routes 2 and 3 above). [40] [lower-alpha 21]
The other main recommendation was that construction of railways in London should continue to be funded by private enterprise, but that parliament should provide a favourable system of procedures to encourage bills to be promoted as easily as possible. [41] The commission also recommended that parliament should avoid imposing additional financial burdens on the proposals, such as the cost of reconstructing roads and should allow railway companies to buy land around their proposed new extensions in order to benefit from the increase in land prices and to profit from the new services they provide. [42]
The report identified the need for a unified system for the "general control of measures affecting locomotion and transport in London", but considered it inappropriate for any of the existing authorities within the region to fulfil this role or for it to be established as a committee composed of representatives of the multiple authorities. It, therefore, recommended that a new authority, a "Traffic Board", be established. The report recommended that the board partially replace the existing parliamentary process of scrutinising private bills for transport proposals in the Greater London area. The report's recommendation was that the board should have the powers for: [43]
With regards to the construction of new transport systems, the report considered that the Traffic Board might function in a similar supervisory capacity to the Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners of New York or the Rapid Transit Commission of Boston. [44]
The report recommended that the Traffic Board should have a chairman and two to three other members. Because of the small number of members, the report considered nomination by the local authorities within the Greater London area to be inappropriate as not all would be represented. Therefore the board's members should be directly appointed by the government. [45]
The costs of the board should be covered by a fees and a levy on the local authorities within the Greater London area paid from the local rates. [46]
Two of the commission's members issued their own reports; a third member issued an additional recommendation. Bartley felt that the main report did not go far enough in its recommendations and he wanted the full adoption of the advisory board's recommendation for the construction of a pair of grand avenues. Dimsdale, rejected the main report's recommendation for tram routes in central London. Gibb's additional recommendation was that part of the route of the then under construction Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway should be merged with a planned route from the Central London Railway to form a looping line. [47] [lower-alpha 23]
The report's recommendations were acted on in a limited manner. The recommendation for an all-encompassing Traffic Board was not adopted, although the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee was established in 1924 to oversee road traffic in the London Traffic Area.
Amongst the recommendations for road improvements, the new east-west and north-south Main Avenues were not constructed. A number of the proposed road improvements were carried out:
The tramway system was gradually improved into a more integrated system. By the mid-1910s, the three independent tram companies were owned by the London and Suburban Traction Company which was jointly owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) and British Electric Traction.
Review and approval of all new railway lines or extensions to existing lines continued to be carried out by parliament. The three underground lines under construction at the time the commission sat opened in 1906 and 1907 and were owned, along with the District Railway, by the UERL. From 1913, the UERL also controlled the Central London Railway and the City and South London Railway. Extensions of all of the lines were proposed and built during the 1910s to 1930s. From 1910, the UERL also owned the largest bus company in London, the London General Omnibus Company.
Consolidation of the mainline railway companies continued and under the Railways Act 1921 they were merged into the Big Four in 1923. [lower-alpha 24] Under the London Passenger Transport Act 1933, the UERL, the Metropolitan Railway, the municipal tram operators and all bus operators in the London region were amalgamated under the single control of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1934.
Further studies that considered the improvement of traffic in London were carried out. Sir Charles Bressey with Sir Edwin Lutyens considered road improvements in The Highway Development Survey (1938) and Sir Patrick Abercrombie's County of London Plan (1943) and Greater London Plan (1944) included recommendations on rail and road transport.
The Circle line is a spiral-shaped London Underground line, running from Hammersmith in the west to Edgware Road and then looping around central London back to Edgware Road. The railway is below ground in the central section and on the loop east of Paddington. Unlike London's deep-level lines, the Circle line tunnels are just below the surface and are of similar size to those on British main lines. Printed in yellow on the Tube map, the 17-mile (27 km) line serves 36 stations, including most of London's main line termini. Almost all of the route, and all the stations, are shared with one or more of the three other sub-surface lines, namely the District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. On the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines combined, over 141 million passenger journeys were recorded in 2019.
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The Metropolitan Railway was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex suburbs. Its first line connected the main-line railway termini at Paddington, Euston, and King's Cross to the City. The first section was built beneath the New Road using cut-and-cover between Paddington and King's Cross and in tunnel and cuttings beside Farringdon Road from King's Cross to near Smithfield, near the City. It opened to the public on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, the world's first passenger-carrying designated underground railway.
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The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London, England, from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an "inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first part of the line opened using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. The Metropolitan Railway operated all services until the District Railway introduced its own trains in 1871. The railway was soon extended westwards through Earl's Court to Fulham, Richmond, Ealing and Hounslow. After completing the inner circle and reaching Whitechapel in 1884, it was extended to Upminster in Essex in 1902.
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The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR), also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London, England. The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR) and the Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR). It also incorporated part of a tube route planned by a third company, the District Railway (DR). The combined company was a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL).
The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR), also known as the Bakerloo tube, was a railway company established in 1893 that built a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The company struggled to fund the work, and construction did not begin until 1898. In 1900, work was hit by the financial collapse of its parent company, the London & Globe Finance Corporation, through the fraud of Whitaker Wright, its main shareholder. In 1902, the BS&WR became a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) controlled by American financier Charles Yerkes. The UERL quickly raised the funds, mainly from foreign investors.
Edgware Road Tube schemes covers a number of proposals to build an underground railway in London, UK at the end of the 19th century. Each scheme envisaged building some form of rail tunnel along the Edgware Road in north-west London towards Victoria railway station.
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Christchurch tramway routes have developed from lines that were first established by a troika of private tramway companies in the latter part of the 19th century, through to a significantly expanded system under the municipal Christchurch Tramway Board, to the City Council-built heritage circuit. These routes have been worked by all three main forms of tramway motive power and have significantly contributed to the development of Christchurch City in New Zealand's South Island.
Tramways in Exeter were operated between 1882 and 1931. The first horse-drawn trams were operated by the Exeter Tramway Company but in 1904 the Exeter Corporation took over. They closed the old network and replaced it with a new one powered by electricity.
The Royal Commission to Investigate the Various Projects for Establishing Railway Termini Within or in the Immediate Vicinity of the Metropolis was a royal commission established in 1846 with a remit to review and report on railway termini in London.
