South Yorkshire Times  January 20, 1933

Here is a scene that may be witness almost any hour of any business day in High Street, Mexborough—a traffic jam. A traffic census taken here on four days during June (not a very busy traffic season), showed that in that period 16,221 vehicles passed this point, an average of 4,055 daily, and a large proportion of this traffic was represented by public passenger vehicles.

Just before the economy order, in 1931, the West Riding County Council had practically determined to deal with the problem by setting back the south side of High Street at a cost variously estimated at £250,000 and £300,000. That scheme is in abeyance, but the problem is not. It remains an abiding nuisance to all who have to pass through the street, and especially to those who have to do business in it.

Local Scheme Revived.

In view of the postponement and probable abandonment of the scheme for widening High Street, the Mexborough Urban District Council have been constrained by the urgency of the problem to revive their own scheme for the construction of an avoiding road to the south. The Urban Council first brought forward this scheme in 1924 but were met with opposition from the trading interests In High Street.

However they went carefully into the scheme, and prepared an estimate for acquiring the necessary property to construct an avoiding road parallel with High Street and along the line of the canal, so that through traffic might be passed from Swinton Road by Foundry Lane pass the premises of the Waddington’s Glass Bottle Works, the London Bottle Company, the Mexborough Development Company, and the fairground leased by the late Mr. G. T. Tuby, and into Station road, thence forward either into Bank Street or Oxford Road. Market Street and Church Street. This scheme would have relieved High Street of a great volume of traffic not of the slightest value to the trade of that thoroughfare. However when the Urban Council laid it before the County Council they were met with formal opposition by the Mexborough Chamber of Trade and that, so far as the county authority was concerned, was decisive.

The Direct Method.

At that time the County Council were strongly inclined to the more direct and heroic but decidedly more expensive method of dealing with the problem and the Urban Council found themselves over ruled.

Steps were taken to obtained valuations of the properties affected by the scheme for setting back the south side of High Street and these alone, we are told amounted to four times the total cost of the avoiding road scheme. However the County Council showed every disposition to go forward with the high Street scheme and had made some progress when they were pulled up short by the economy order which completely ruled out a scheme of this magnitude tor the present and probably for all time.

There is reason to hope therefore that the Urban District Council in reviving with some improvements their own scheme (particulars of which we shall give in a future issue), will find the County Council more disposed to approach the problem from this angle.

Advantages of By-Passing.

Meanwhile we would direct the attention both of the West Biding Highways Committee and of the local Chamber of Trade to the following extract from a recent lecture before the Institute of Structural Engineers by Colonel C. H. Bressey, Principal Technical Officer. Roads Department, Ministry of Transport. It. has a remarkably close application to the Mexborough problem.

“The question will often arise as to the relative advantages and disadvantages of widening the existing main thoroughfares of a town, or constructing an entirely new parallel route, sometimes by a slum clearance, sometimes by a pass, cut through more or less open country. It is remarkable how commonly a by-pass is denounced as extravagant while the widening of an existing street is regarded as an almost unchallengeable procedure on account, probably, of the respect due to hoary tradition—some high streets having been widened twice or more within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. The cost of widenings is often, however, ten times heavier than that of a by-pass.

“As against the formidable cost of widenings, experience shows that new by-passes, even when they measure as much as a hundred feet between fences, rarely cost as much as sixty thousand pounds per mile, even in the neighbourhood of busy towns. The by-pass, too, has the advantage of creating internally new frontages, stimulating development, and providing a second route, whereas, however much you widen the old road, it remains but one route, liable to be blocked by a riot, a fire, or a procession.

“When the relative merits of by-passes and widenings come under discussion in local circles the scales are apt to be weighted by the not, unnatural preference of the shopkeeper in the old street for a scheme which will add to the importance of his frontage, involve the payment of compensation to frontagers, and retain traffic in its old channels. But there are, however, instances where the construction of a by-pass has actually added to the prosperity of the old high street by rendering shopping there more convenient and leisurely than it could be when the narrow carriage way was crowded with dense volumes of heavy through traffic.

“In some built-up areas where a by-pass is not feasible, the remedy for traffic congestion may occasionally be found in the conversion and adaptation of two parallel lines of relatively unimportant existing roads and reserving one for up-traffic and the other for down-traffic. In many such areas the existing, roads are forty feet wide, with a twenty-five foot carriage-way: the roads, however, although running generally in the desired direction, are not entirely continuous, but are interrupted here and there by a cross road which North progress; another link in the road chain may be a cul-de-sac.

Obviously, the removal of barriers of this kind by the demolition of a few houses here and there so as to create continuous routes and await suitable for one-way traffic will be quite insignificant, compared with the outlay involved in piercing a great new traffic artery built-up area.”