Royal Commission on London Traffic
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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".
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.
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][m] The advisory board recommended the construction of 23 new tramways to connect the separate systems and bring trams to unserved areas.
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).
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.
[40][u] 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.
The report recommended that the board partially replace the existing parliamentary process of scrutinising private bills for transport proposals in the Greater London area.
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.
