问答题

These days both the motorist and pedestrian have similar stories to tell. (61) "We were just getting to the outskirts when we ran into the most terrible jam, and it must have taken us all of an hour to get as far as the Town Hall", says one." I must have waited the best part of an hour, and just as I was giving up, four of them came along," says he other.
The traditional reason for car buying is to acquire mobility. (62) But the modern motorist, moving at a snail’s pace in a jam, diverted from his desired route by one-way streets or driving round in a vain search for parking-space, is not mobile in the sense that he can go where he likes. Authority keeps him moving, but movement is not mobility, and planners have often confused the two.
The root cause of the problem is lack of space. Even with more road-building, road-widening, ingenious traffic systems and armies of traffic wardens, the increase in car ownership is going to mean less road-space for the individual motorist, and more delay and frustration all round. It is not only the motorist who is affected. Owing to the banning of parking in town centres, hypermarkets are built in suburbs, necessitating more car journeys. So the non-motorists are precluded from visiting the hypermarkets. (63) The owners of houses destroyed for road projects, those who have to endure excessive traffic noise, and the victims of accidents, are clearly going to grow in numbers, but the users of public transport make up the largest class of sufferers. As congestion slows up the service, passengers are persuaded to join the motorists, and as passengers diminish, the transports authorities have to reduce services and raise fares and thus alienate still more passengers. (64) This vicious circle results in loss of mobility for the non-motoring public, so that it is now more difficult to get out of cities by public transport than it was in the "depressed" thirties.
(65) Many believe that the answer lies in more pubic aid for public transport, and that the government should think more of the harm of the population likely to be standing in the cold and rain at bus-stops. The apparent alternative solution of universal car ownership is not on. If it ever happened in Britain, there would be a general seize-up. The pursuit of mobility would have ended in total immobility.