One Way System, Newcastle

A new traffic plan for central Newcastle upon Tyne sparks chaos and confusion amongst drivers and pedestrians.

On the road to nowhere with Tyne Tees TV reporter Geoff Druett who speaks to baffled drivers in Newcastle upon Tyne negotiating the roll-out of a new one-way system. Local councillor Neville Trotter takes him for a spin around the black spots of the new urban transport plan as the congested historic city gears up for the projected growth of motor traffic in the 1960s. Druett thinks that motorists will need a navigator to help them read the road signs.

Newcastle upon Tyne reached traffic gridlock in the 1960s, spurring radical measures in a replanning of the city centre that began under the council leadership of T Dan Smith and his chief planner Wilf Burns. Smith envisaged a multi-level motor city with a disorientating “parallel world” of raised pedestrian decks and walkways, surrendering the streets to motor traffic. The east central motorway, which severs the east end from the centre and led to the demolition of its Georgian terraces, was one of a network of visually intrusive urban motorways originally planned, until national and local opposition grew in the early 70s, including the group SOC’EM! (Save Our City from Environmental Mess!).