The introduction of the railway had two deplorable effects upon the economic life of England, each of which was grave, and one of which we must, if we can, immediately remedy on peril of decline. Neither of them can be remedied save at a new expense of energy: (1) It killed the canals, (2) It killed all the schemes for widening, straightening, and rebuilding the national road system; while upon the Continent, and especially in France, the great broad, straight roads of the eighteenth century formed the model continuously applied, so that the most recent examples to-day are in the same tradition as those of two hundred years ago and yet amply fulfil their function. Here the whole story of our roads from the middle and the end of the nineteenth century and on to the beginning of this century is the story of improving the surface while keeping to the old winding and narrowness. Here and there we have had extensions of space which create really new roads in the neighbourhood of towns, especially as exits from towns, but nowhere as yet have we a complete scheme for the remodelling of a road in the fashion whereby, a century ago, the great Holyhead Road was remodelled. CHAPTER XIV THE FUTURE _A New Vehicle Compelling us to Make New Roads: Arterial Roads for the New Traffic: The Five Necessities of these Roads: Ways and Means: A National Fund: Taxation according to Fuel Used: The Question of the Land Contiguous to the New Roads._ i We have come to the point where some great initiative is imperatively needed for the re-establishment of communications corresponding to modern needs. But while all feel this, no one as yet has, I believe, thought out the main elements of the scheme. We cannot remake all the ways of England, nor even change the main part of them to suit the new kind of traffic. We have been “taken aback,” as they say in sailing, and “caught all standing.” Our charming, narrow, hedged, tortuous lanes, our haphazard county communications, even our main ways, have suddenly proved grossly inapt to the new traffic; and our towns, unaffected by the great Continental movement (which I have heard called the “boulevard” movement) of the middle nineteenth century, are in the same case. If we cannot--and obviously we cannot--remodel the whole thing, what _can_ we do? So far as I can see, we can proceed upon certain main principles, with which I propose to conclude. I distinguish between the problem of the street traffic in the towns, with which I am not concerned, and that of the main road. As it seems to me, what we need is, and that immediately, a certain number--quite a large number--of great arterial roads very broad and straight with a special surface, confined to motor traffic alone.