12 April 2012

Above Us, Only Sky... (Improving the Capital - part 2)

Recently I was reminded of a conversation I had a few months back. It was a conversation with a colleague in a public house (where all good conversations take place) in London's Soho. I can't quite remember how we got onto the subject, but I was challenged with resolving the traffic jam problems of the area. Initially my thoughts were to pedestrianize the whole of Soho, thus instantly solving the problem. Why would you need cars in the area.... in the day at least? Delivery vans could have limited access to certain main roads in Soho in the early hours of the morning, and any requiring a taxi during the day can easily walk to the nearest main road that surrounds Soho; You're never more than a 5 minute stroll from either Charring Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue, Oxford or Regent Street.

This explanation seemed unacceptable to my fellow-worker, as he insisted that traffic would still require access throughout the day. Fair enough. And with that brief, I mulled the problem over for a couple of seconds and proposed a genius scheme that if put into practice, would drastically alter the centre of London as seen from above. My solution would be a ridiculously expensive one (to the point that it would be cheaper to demolish all the buildings of Soho and build it again with better planning), but a solution that would ultimately work, none-the-less. What is required is that all the roads become pedestrianized, and new overpass roads be built above the main thoroughfares of Soho (Berwick, Wardour, Broadwick, Dean Street, etc.). With regular temporary parking areas and pedestrian access to buildings/streets below. This would enable easy delivery of goods and people alike to the very centre of the West-End, whilst keeping the original roads traffic free (with the exception of bicycles, push-scooters and hoverboards) for the safety of tourists, London trendies, media-types and sex-workers alike.


At this point the sharper amongst you may have spotted a problem with the above proposal (as did my slightly inebriated colleague). It was pointed out to me that with half of Soho's roads having roads above them, much sunlight will be blocked from hitting the streets. The obvious solution to this is a simple yet costly one. On the underside of every flyover, there will be special optical tiles. These tiles comprise of millions of optic fibres, the end of such fibres will run through the concrete to the road above to a corresponding tile. Light will hit the road surface above and be emitted from the optic tiles below. The ones above will not actually be on the road itself (otherwise the light would be diminished every time the shadow of a vehicle goes over it) but in fact on the side and central barriers, and on the top of intermittent posts that will double as lampposts after dark. The result of which is that during daylight hours, the sky will be visible from beneath the road. The road itself will not be totally invisible to look at, but at first glance it will be totally transparent. Also there will be no sight of any vehicles (and in the future when all are electric, no sound or smell of any cars either).

You may think this all sounds implausible, but the technology already exists to make such things 'invisible' by various means. At this point, my co-drinking co-worker seemed extremely happy with the solution that I'd given him; not only was he smiling throughout my description of a possible future, but the moment I said the word 'invisible', he laughed out loud and said 'Invisible roads'. Then he continued to laugh. He couldn't stop. Only to take a breath or repeat the phase 'Invisible roads!' to himself, which would get him started again. I can only summarise that either this man is also a genius and could not contain himself at the thought that no-one had come up with such an ingeniously simple solution to one of our capitals traffic problems, or that I had vastly over-estimated his cognitive abilities; this high-concept glimpse of the future was enough to short-circuit his brain, rendering him a simpleton. I fear the latter to be the case, as I've subsequently witnessed several outbursts of uncontrollable laughter from this man. Occasionally he can be heard to repeat the phrase 'Invisible roads' to himself, before laughing some more. Thankfully his basic motor functions do not appear to be affected and he continues in is occupation with seemingly no problems. But I can't help but feel guilty for the long term damage that I may've caused. A lesson has been learnt however: Ensure those seeking ultimate knowledge are ready for such, for to impart ideas on an untrained mind can have tragic consequences.
Oh, the woes of being a visionary genius.

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