“1973 saw the first local campaign to stop thru-traffic on Mill Road”
Before I start, just a quick reminder of the next round of events in my Great Cambridge Crash Course series which are coming up over the next few weeks. One of them will look at town and transport planning (see here)
This blogpost was sparked off by a speech at the Mill Road 4 People disco march earlier today. Given the cold rain, event clashes, and a seasonal lurgy going around, there was still a large turnout of people.
Before and after the march (which I didn’t go to because lurgy!) there were the traditional speeches. One of them noted that the first anti-motor-traffic demands about Mill Road arose in the early 1970s – half a century ago.
This was around the time of huge activity on the housing and transport planning front in Cambridge. A firm called R. Travers Morgan and Partners was commissioned to undertake a big transport study for Cambridge.
Above – you can read the study in the Cambridgeshire Collection in the Cambridge Central Library in Lion Yard.
Picking up on the comment about Mill Road through-traffic, the recently-digitised Cambridge Evening News titles from 1969-99 in the British Newspaper Archive online were bound to come up with something.
Above – CEN 13 Jan 1973 in BNArchive here, the proposed closure of Mill Road to motor traffic except buses and service vehicles
The previous August, the transport study from R Travers Morgan as reported in the Cambridge Evening News showed proposals that were much more pro-car than anything else – certainly if judging by the number of multi-storey car parks they proposed.
Above – CEN 08 Aug 1972 in BNArchive
In the map above you can see *five* multi-storey car parks proposed – of which three (Queen Anne Terrace, Lion Yard, and The Grafton were eventually built). Out of shot are Park Street Car Park (now being redeveloped into an apart-hotel) and the abandoned plan at Panton Street near where the Department for Chemistry is. (That area having been an area of slum housing that was flattened and used as waste ground parking until new homes were built on the site.)
Note similar issues to today were also prevalent:
Cars vs buses and bikes? Check!
Impact on the University? Check!
Impact on the commercial sector? Check!
Above – CEN 08 Aug 1972 in BNArchive
Which makes it all the more strange that the transport officers at the Greater Cambridge Partnership chose not to consult past transport plans even though they are dealing with the same issues and similar constraints/parameters that previous generations did.
A reminder that local history is very important when it comes to making decisions on the future of any village, town, or city.
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