How to solve the traffic situation

COREY FORD

SCORE CARD

Sample Timetable of a Sunday Drive Along the Merrick Road

Time, 9:00 A.M. Distance 0. Our family has set out early to avoid other cars, which have set out early for the same reason. They soon find themselves in an interminable queue of similar vehicles, all moving forward by inches. All filled with pleasure-mad families, all staring rigidly ahead.

Time, 10:47 A.M. Distance 11 feet, 7⅛ inches. Gained when Father circles a small Ford and dodges back into line in the nick of time. Total gain, 11 feet 7½ inches.

Time, 12:03 P.M. Distance 6 inches. Gained when Father accidentally steps on the accelerator instead of the brake and shoots forward like a bullet, telescoping the rear end of the car ahead. Total gain, 12 feet, 1½ inches.

Time, 1:29 P.M. Distance 16 feet, 4 inches. Lost when Father turns around to eat a sandwich. When this is consumed, two other cars have sneaked ahead of him in line, and he is back where he started. Total loss, 4 feet, 3 inches.

Time, 4:37 P.M. Distance 13 feet, 9 inches. Gained when father steps on his starter and starts with such a jolt that Sister is dropped over the side. Net loss: 6 feet, 3 inches. Grand total loss since morning, 10 feet, 6 inches.

Time 6:00 P.M. Distance the rest of the trip. Gained when Father climbs out of the car in grim silence, removes the engine and hands it to Mother, hangs the four tires around Grandma's neck, and disappears down the rest of the road with the tonneau on his back. Total loss during Sunday: entire Sunday.

The scene is practically any well-traveled Motor Highway in America. It is Sunday afternoon.

And what a pleasant scene it is, to be sure! The broad highway, lined with the gay autumn colors of red and yellow! The smooth concrete road, unwinding like a magic carpet, who knows whither? The hum of myriad bees, the lowing of contented cattle, the gentle Sabbath breezes! The long line of pleasure cars, extending up and down the road as far as the eye can reach, filled with fortunate American families who have left the hot stuffy city behind them and driven out here into the peaceful countryside for a breath of fresh air.

Let us draw nearer. Let us examine this pleasant scene a little more closely. Things, it appears, are not quite as they seemed. The gay autumn colors of red and yellow still line the broad highway, it is true; but they are contributed by the red and yellow gasoline pumps in front of Ye Olde Hotte Dog Fyllynge Statione. The smooth concrete road unwinds like a magic carpet for five hundred feet, and then terminates abruptly in a deep morass of muddy ruts, red lanterns, steam-shovels and a gloating sign: "Construction Ahead: Proceed at Your Own Risk." What we took for the hum of bees is the grinding of myriad gears; the lowing of cattle is the honk of discontented horns; and the gentle breezes are laden with our standard Sabbath mixture of two parts gasoline, one part burning brakes, and the rest fresh tar.

And what of the long line of pleasure cars, extending up and down the road as far as the eye can reach? Here, too, something appears to be wrong. The cars extend up and down the road, to be sure; but they are not moving. They are, in fact, standing perfectly still. They have been standing still for the past three-quarters of an hour; and they are filled with as sour a lot of American families as ever deserted their comfortable rocking-chairs and paper-strewn sofas to spend their Sunday afternoon sitting out here in the broiling sun, waiting for the line to start forward again.

But stay! A ray of hope! Something is moving at last along the interminable file of halted cars. It is a motorcycle; and on the motorcycle, my pet, is seated a curious individual in a blue uniform with brass buttons, whose heart apparently was removed when he was very, very young. And what word of cheer does this lone messenger bring? His greeting is brief, but to the point; to each car in turn, as he chugs past, he tosses over his shoulder a single sunny message, squeezed out between his clenched teeth like sausage-meat through a grinder: "Keep in line! Keep in line! Keep in line!"

And the driver of each car sinks a little lower behind the wheel, his eyes glazed, his cigar drooping despondently, his gaze fixed stolidly ahead. He is humming to himself. He is humming a forgotten refrain. It is the Song of the Open Road. . ..

As matters stand, he hasn't got a prayer. On every thoroughfare and country lane, on highway and byway, up and down the length and breadth of our native land, America is spending its Sabbath Day on wheels. If all the automobiles purchased in xg3o were placed end to end along the Boston Post Road on a single Sunday afternoon, experts state, it would be just like any other Sunday. Bumper to bumper, fender to fender, they edge forward patiently three feet at a time, radiators pressed to spare tires like an interminable file of circus elephants with their tails in their trunks. Roadsters and sedans, touring-cars and trucks, limousines and coupes extend from horizon to horizon in a solid and immovable queue, hour after hour, mile upon wreary mile. Gears grind, horns honk, brakes squeak, the sun mounts higher and higher, the spirits sink lower and lower. The drivers stare ahead. As a form of Sunday relaxation, they decide, the automobile is not all it is cranked up to be.

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In order to settle the whole question a Traffic Commission was recently appointed to study the traffic situation in America. Its suggestions were:

1. Enforce the speed limit. This plan was later discovered to be impracticable, owing to the fact that the cars were already standing still.

2. Establish One-Way Streets. By means of this unique system, all the cars on the odd-numbered streets would move steadily east, and all the cars on the even-numbered streets would move steadily west, the idea being that with two lines of cars advancing continuously in either direction, one would eventually fall with a splash into the Atlantic Ocean and

the other would fall with a splash into the Pacific Ocean, thus disposing of hundreds of cars every Sunday.

3. Build cars with runways up the hack, so that other cars could drive up on top of them and park.

4. Invent a portable road.

5. Walk.

But the Sunday driver still sits patiently in line, hour after hour, his hands clutching the steering-wheel at the very top, his head lowered, bowed but not yet beaten. There is still a faint glow of hope in his weary eyes.

He is waiting, as a matter of fact, for the traffic problem in America to settle itself. Sooner or later, he knows, the roads will grow more and more congested, and the cars will move slower and slower, until that time is not so far distant when they will stop moving altogether. Then we can simply fill in the chinks between them with cement, pave the hoods, and start life all over again on top.