| AdminHistory | The Traffic Control Committee was first established in January 1927, as the continued increase in ‘motor traction’ within the city had made the regulation of street traffic the most difficult problem the City was facing at that time. It was set up as a joint committee, originally consisting of thirteen members of the Council. These members represented the Public Works and Town Planning Committee, the Tramways Committee and the Watch Committee, whose task this had been up till now (see BCC/1/AC) and included the City Surveyor, the Tramways Manager and the Chief Constable. In December 1929, it reported to the General Purposes Committee that a full standing committee should be established to deal with traffic issues, and this was done as from February 1930, hence the new minute sequence. The committee was reconstituted again in January 1935, after the Road Traffic Act of 1934 laid more emphasis on pedestrian traffic, with new speed limits, heralding a new minute sequence.
The function of the committee was originally to consider the question of the control and regulation of traffic within the city centre, which would also include the provision of public car-parks, as well as investigate which streets should be open or closed to public parking. The committee was also to investigate the extent to which tramway and omnibus services should be altered, as to facilitate the flow of traffic within the city, as well as investigating other traffic control measures, such as the use of traffic islands, automatic signalling, and the introduction roads open only to one-way traffic. Finally, the committee looked at general road alteration, for example widening and signing, and improved pedestrian facilities, particularly on safety, as the committee began to collect accident statistics.
The first proposal for traffic regulation were to prohibit vehicles remaining longer than to set-down or take-up in New Street, Corporation Street, Colmore Row, Steelhouse Lane and High Street, under the Towns’ Police Clauses Act, 1847. This was followed by proposals for car-parks by the Public Works and Town Planning Committee, including land to the rear of the Hall of Memory and the Old Wharf Site in Broad Street, as well as roads suitable for on-street parking. Further proposals were placed before the committee for changes to stopping places and routes for omnibuses and recommendations for traffic islands at Victoria Square, Five Ways (Edgbaston), Corporation Street (Central Place) and the junction of the Lordswood and Hagley Roads, as well introducing one-way systems on Corporation Street and John Bright Street. |