corporation built 2,000 tenements there pleaded with the hutment-dwellers to shift, with no result, and then gave them to teachers.

There is still a very large area vacant at Malawani. The authorities are prepared to provide lighting, water and sanitary facilities. But construction costs will have to be borne by the occupants.

But Malawani is too far away, say the hutment dwellers. Their argument is that it is over three miles from Malad station and it costs 15 paise by bus to reach the station.

They agree that their structures look unpleasant to the residents in the neighbourhood. There is dirt and squalor all around. Children commit nuisance on roads. Potable water is misused in large quantities from leaks in mains.

The newly constructed Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road is a thoroughfare with four lanes. But only two lanes can be freely used by motorists. The third one, coming downtown, is dotted with many huts in the middle of the road and motorists have to zigzag their way. The fourth lane comes to a dead end in front of some huts, a municipal sanitary block and about 30 fish-storage godowns. Such is what is called a "thoroughfare."

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Street Lighting

The Greater London Council will spend £50,000 on 38 lamp-posts at £1,300 a time, which will be erected along the South Bank in the near future. They will match in design the 18-feet high iron standards with dolphins winding themselves around their stems put up along the river wall of the Victoria and Albert Embankment about 100 years ago. The lamp-posts of classic design that grace the length of Waterloo Bridge are supposed to have been designed by the architect Cockerell in the twenties of the last century but were removed in 1904 and condemned to be sold as scrap metal. Public protest, however, was so vigorous at what the newspapers pronounced as vandalism, that they were recovered and re-erected.

Many of fluted and garlanded standards which enlivened the London streets have disappeared and one may wonder whether a like fate awaits the few ornate reminders of the Victorran era which still brighten up our pavements, here and there. In all probability it will only be a question of time until they, too, will be supplanted by stern, utilitarian concrete posts of a standard type. Collectors Items

Not so long ago a brisk trade was done in discused oil and gas lamp-posts. They were acquired by eager collectors for as little as a few pounds apiece and London antique shops had their regular customers for them, but the supply ran short and no standards have become available for some time. Let us hope that our city fathers will abstain from earmarking too readily the few remaining relics of past leisurely days.

The most flamboyant of all the London lamp-posts I know is the one that stands by itself in the centre of the road south of Trafalgar Square and facing Northumberland Avenue. It has ornate clusters of dosphins and cherubims and is altogether a gorgeous affair. The base of the standards in the same locality-the parish of Saint Martin-in-theFields-bears a quaint little relief illustrating

the legend of Saint Martin on horseback giving his cloak to the beggar.

How many of the thousands of people feeding each week the pigeons in Trafalgar Square realise that the stone lamp pillars are hollow and that one of them, at the southeast corner, contains a telephone and is registered as a police station? It is very useful in case of riots in the Square. The octagonal faceted globe on it is reputed to be one of the original lanterns from Nelson's Victory. The lamps were put up in 1927 with the idea that they were going to give vastly greater light after the pattern of lighthouses, but this did not prove to be the

case.

While some of the most exuberantly decorated lamp-posts date back to the early part of Queen Victoria's reign, others, erected at a much earlier period, show admirable restraint and functional efficiency in their construction. An excellent example is seen in the plain columns rising tall and slender from the barrels of converted guns captured from the French, which stand on the kerbstone outside No. 2 in St. James's Square. Equally notable for their simplicity are the two three-armed standards placed at the entrance of the London Port Authority building on Tower Hill and another carrying five lamps is placed outside the Law Courts in the Strand.

Ornamented Scrollwork

In some English cities lam-posts carry designs in ornamented scrollwork symbolical of their principal activities, or bear the heraldic arms of the boroughs in which they stand.

Outside Chatham House in St. Jame's Square, the former home of three Prime Ministers, Pitt. Gordon Stanley and Gladstone, is a very fine wrought-iron torch extinguisher, a necessity in the days when every gentleman was followed by his link-boy when being out-of-doors at night. Right (Continued on page 18)

City Transport

The Problem

Our cities have become difficult to live in and work in because they are difficult to move around in. The amount of time and energy wasted by our urban dwellers in commutation within the urban areas is alarming. The peak hour traffic completely paralyses the whole transportation systems of our cities. The mass transportation facilities are unfortunately in a deplorable situation because of their inability to cope up with the peak hour demand effectively and economically. But while the commutation situation gets worsened day by day attempts so far to solve the peak hour problem have not taken much stride and whatever rendom efforts are made, are piecemeal and unplanned with the consequence no concerted improvements are realised yet.

Apparently this is a global problem seen in all the metropolitan cities of the world and not a peculiar phenomenon of our cities alone. But in a real sense this problem has certain unique aspects which have a bearing on the planning of our cities and especially their transportation facilities. And the concern for our cities arise now at a time, when development plans are prepared for most of our metropolitan cities and conscious developmental activities are being initiated within the framework of such development plans to improve the transportations aituation of some of the cities. The purpose of this paper is not however to draw conclusions out of such random efforts so far attempted, but to point out the following basic issues of mass transportation of our cities. What factors have led to the present day immobility of our cities ? To what extend the present efforts to improve the mass transportation situation could be successful? Can our cities think in terms of bringing out a radical change in the mass transportation systems? What long term measures can our cities take

The author is a Lecturer in Town & Country Planning in the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi.

up to face the peak hour commutation problem and meet the demand of mass transportation ?

From Mobility To Immobility

Much of the present day immobility of our cities can be attributed to their rapid growth. The phenomenal growth of population of our cities during the last two decades together with the development of transportation facilities, has changed the pattern of cities and the urban mobility. The advantages or rail transportation afforded in the early years of our cities to concentrate industries and business in them have later contributed to vast suburban speculation and unplanned development and consequently a high degree of commutation to the central cities from the suburbs, resulting in traffic congestion. Cities wherein this suburbanisation trend is less conspicuous are otherwise suffering from a peripheral sprawl of residential developments due to the accessibility arising out of a relatively well developed regional road network and the transportation systems within such cities are no less pressurised from the increasing_commutation to the centre of the cities. With a

system of paths and streets laid out before the advent of automobiles for the use of pedestrians, and slow moving vehicles like bullock carts, telas etc., the core of the cities present a stupendous task to accommodate the increasing mixed traffic now. Thus the cities, where railways, autos and buses had once encouraged the concentration of people and resources, have now paradoxically grown to a stage where they threaten to strangle the transportation that made them possible. Auto vs. Mass Transit

The greatest transportation problem, in our cities, is created while commuting from home to work and vice versa. With the development of work areas concentrated in the centre and residential areas stretched away from it, the commutation, problem

presents a picture of pendulum movement with a pyramidal building up of traffic and people in the peak hours. This means that the efforts to improve the transportation situation should aim to improve the peak hour demands which can effectively be met by only resorting to a well organised mass transit system. This is necessary not only because of the social liability on the part of our cities to provide a cheap form of transportation within the reach of the common man but also because only such a solution can save our cities from the 'traffic thrombo. sis' resulting of the auto-oriented commutation which otherwise if not imminent, is to come in the future.

But unfortunately the efforts in our cities today is quite disheartening. Attempts are being made in every metropolitan area to widen existing roads and to add to the road mileage at the risk of vast amount of valuable urban land, while little efforts are made to improve the mass transportation facilities. Schemes are put forward to clear portions of central areas to give room for moving and parked vehicles. But unfortunately no amount of widening and addition can effectively tackle the demand of road space in our cities, because the growth of traffic on the roads is a continuous process and never ending one. Unless positive measures are taken to tackle the basic problem of commutation and revise the auto-oriented planning of our cities, the problems cannot be solved effectively.

Monorails and Subways?

Necessarily due to economic reasons only a cheap and efficient mass transportation can solve the problem of commutation of our cities. At present, the mass transportation needs of our cities are facilitated by buses and suburban railways. But the operation of both these systems have proved to be of limited success. The unlimitted addition of buses in the crowded streets has proved to be a failure to solve the mass transportation problem, in respect of the demand for increased transport capacity and has added only to the traffic congestion on the streets, which in turn had reduced the bus mileage per day, thus bringing out diseconomy of operation and subsequent collapse of the whole system.

Though relative to the bus system, the suburban railways have much higher carrying capacities, the rigidity and built-in limitations have made them out of efficient operation during peak hours, as well.

Now if both the bus and suburban railways are not the principle answer what is the solution? Monorails ? Or subways? Many people have a feeling that an an overhead system like a monorail or an underground system like the subway could find a complete solution to all the problems of peak hour mass transportation demand. No doubt, in certain cases they could be effective, but they are not the universal answer to the problem. The structural and operational problems of both the systems are far more intricate and complex than any other system, with the result, they are not viable enough to be adopted in the thickly built up areas of our cities and with that the very purpose for which they are meant is not fulfilled. The Way Out

The problem of mass transportation is assuming alarming proportions in all our cities. On one side the facilities are inadequate and on the otherside the prospects of innovations are limited. What is the way out for our cities ?

One thing is certain. The mass transportation demand can be met only if the commutation itself is handled and shaped before tackling the facilities. Essentially in our cities, or for that matter of fact in any city, the peak hour problem is due to the mass flow of commuters during particular hours. Again this is mainly concentrated at certain areas mainly in the central areas of our cities where most of the work areas are concentraled. Unless and until this trend is reversed the commutation cannot be effectively hand,ed, A systematic dispersal of work centres in relation to the residential areas, apart from relieving the load on the transportation facilities, reduces the time and cost of journey-to-work. (This is the basis of Delhi Master Plan and perhaps this could be envisaged for other cities as well).

A considerable amount of control on the demand of peak hour transportation facili