Time Saver Ceremonially opened by the MiNIsTER of TRANSPORT, and a quarter of a century late by international standards, the London-Dunchurch section of the London-Yorkshire motorway comes into use to-day. It is the first instalment of what must be in Britain the highway pattern of the future-and is in not a few countries the pattern of the present. Those who ply the roads to the east, west, south, and farther north will feel a little envious as they struggle with thickening traffic congestion. But their turn is coming, and by the time they are served who knows but what the traffic to the Midlands wiU be urgently needing something more to supplement the motorway and A.5 ? It is in the nature of motor roads to lag behind the traffic. Motors and roads have a Malthusian relationship. The motor population, MALT.us might have said, increases in a geometrical, but the highway system only in an arithmetical, ratio. And the population will increase up to the level of bare minimum mobility; it must be kept in check by bottlenecks and natural hazards or by costly licensing and insurance. Certainly the mere purchase of a motor car does not itself confer a right to be able to drive it at speed in any direction. The main trunk roads are now essentially a part of the motor trade, and they must be adapted to what motor vehicles can and should pay for speed and space. In practice they tend to be adapted to the political and budgetary problems of the Government of the day. For the moment any danger of the motor population getting more road than it pays for is remote. By any reasonable standard motor vehicles have paid for the London-Yorkshire motor- way, and much else besides, well in advance. To-day's opening, therefore, can be hailed-without any hind- thoughts about its economic justification -as the outcome of a vigorous piece of planning and execution which has been completed on the date forecast two years ago. After the experience on the Preston by-pass no one will hail too loudly until the teething period is over. Nor will anybody forget that the cost of highways and their ancillaries, as the controversy over the Chiswick flyover has reminded us, is not something immutable. But the motorway is ready and its cost will be repaid handsomely in the time that it will save. The beginnings of the present plan for a modern highway system scarcely go back beyond the early nineteen-fifties, when MR. C. T. BRUNNER was stumping the country with his analysis of the economic gains to be derived therefrom and was getting a growing band of news- papers and publicists to study his case. The impetus must not be lost. Nor must the equally important task of getting the priorities right be neglected. High priority must be given to the London- Bristol, Birmingham-Bristol, Birming- ham-Lancashire and Birmingham-York- shire sections of the network already planned. But there is a growing view that the relief of urban congestion is getting less than its due share of atten- tion. This needs more examination by the Ministry and by the independent bodies which study traffic questions- remembering always that a man-hour saved between Battersea and Watford and a man-hour saved between Watford and Birmingham are of equal value. Time Saver