The street where the dustbin lorry is shown at 1:04 is the street I grew up in and the view at 1:11 even shows our front door. Thank you for posting this nostalgia.
It is ironic that when this film was being made and shown, they were ripping up the railways all over the country. One side telling us the railways were ancient and not necessary in this modern age.....another side like this film telling us that the car situation is already getting out of hand and we need to plan for the future.
The road lobby and the privatisation lobby ruined this country by ripping it up and selling it to the highest bidder to save a few pennies at the top by shorting everyone at the bottom instead of giving it the investment and care it needed to be useful again. What was done to our infrastructure and utilities was akin to scrapping an E Type Jag because the carburettors was playing up, or throwing away a whole china set because one of the saucers was chipped on the bottom.
I think town planning has done far more harm than good. It’s the opposite of organic development. It thinks it can see the whole picture but doesn’t know what it doesn’t know.
@@ReddsoldierI’m sorry but how an earth are you blaming privatisation when the closure were due to nationalisation the beeching cuts started in 1950 only three years after the transport act coming into affect and nationalising them, there were 100s of instances were government refused to sell the lines to private individuals and forced them to be broken up it was the centralisation that caused it. It’s also the plot of the 1953 film the titfield thunderbolt. Many of those regional lines were created by the aristocrats/majors etc of an area and weren’t intended to make money the state stole them, killed the aristocratic class and then destroyed them for not being profitable
A second Mersey tunnel? I went to North Wales camping with my last boarding school - we went via Liverpool and under the Wallasey Tunnel - there’s also a Birkenhead Tunnel - are there any others? No doubt that some Scouser could answer that - I’m from Middlesbrough originally - now live in Somerset!
East Anglia was known as the salesman graveyard because of it's old roads back in the 1960s. It didn't even have a motorway if you wanted to drive to London, A11all the way, and the trains took 4 hours.
Love the part about Liverpool, those flyovers have just been demolished and the waterfront is an even bigger mess, it's been dug up for over a year causing misery and delays for all.
Yes, and thankfully the vast inner ring road was never built or nearly all of the elevated walkways. Moorfields station though was built with the entrance 20 feet above street level. There was no need for the 2nd Mersey tunnel as the road traffic disappeared from the old docks moving to the Seaforth container base. The original tunnel is closed on Sundays showing this.
@@nevillemason6791 The old tunnel closed on Sundays? It's closed this Sunday 4/7/21 for maintenence only, 6am-13.00 one way and 13.00 - 18.00 hrs in the other direction. Nothing to do with lack of traffic, both Kingsway and Queens way tunnels are usually open 7 days.
The lack of and expense of public transport has turned many of us into four car families. Went to Cumbernauld once ,late eighties to see one of the shops about fixtures, china shop it was, security there eas tight, lot of pilfering etc, it was a grim grey windy place.
@@davidviner4932 The original mini was one of the finest cars ever built , please don't comment unless you have an actual clue what you are talking about ......
Traffic speeds in major cities remains constant at around 11 mph for centuries - quicker speeds leads to bottlenecks and traffic jams, more capacity leads to more demand leading to same. Was ever thus…
@@UA-cammessedupmyhandle Lots of different arguments and debates about ULEZ, but that aside, he's a race-baiting crime apologist, an insult to all decent, law-abiding Londoners.
They had no idea how things would be now!! People still prefer their cars to any other form of transport, despite the jams and delays, but ULEZ is the most despised thing ever devised, even transcending pot holes, poor road maintenance, road works etc.
LTNs are great - kids can play out in streets now, the air is cleaner, noise less and streets free of rat racers using neighbourhoods as short cuts. Like roads were supposed to be used, prior to that mid 20th century aberration they were meant for cars.
Beat up Jag at 6:02. Probably just another car to the owner of it. Wonder what happened to it over time ? Restored and still with us to this day or junk yard ?
Very prescient: now we have the congestion charge and the low emission zone to reduce the number of cars and their pollution. We also have families with two or three cars. And fuel duty +VAT as the major part of the petrol and diesel price. How did all that happen?
The recipe was :- Take a tiny over crowded island Allow millions of extra people in Concrete over as much as possible to build motorways,by-passes,housing estates. Offer the lowest ever interest rates in history so that we can all afford cars. Reduce the police numbers by 20,000 so that there won't be many traffic cops and no one is available to change the films in speed cameras Clamp down on anyone pointing out the daftness of these policies and call them " racists"
We knew we had an awful problem with our tiny island being so over crowded in 1964, and that steps had to be taken to tackle it. Begs the question, why did we allow millions of immigrants to come here over the next 57 years ? We are having to cover this little island in concrete to provide extra roads and houses.One day we might require that land to grow food and store water in order to keep everyone alive.We are quickly running out of land,and if the pound devalues substantially imported food will be too expensive.
It did and I think - generally - people had greater pride in appearance then. However these films were made with artists and cinematographers who ensured the scene was 'pretty' and 'aesthetic' prior to shooting. There are plenty of documentary films made in the same era that show the poverty and filth many lived in, still residing in Victorian slums.
The street where the dustbin lorry is shown at 1:04 is the street I grew up in and the view at 1:11 even shows our front door. Thank you for posting this nostalgia.
Ha Haha happy days for you then.lol
And that truck is the same as we had in Liverpool, British Shelvoke and Drewery. Now we have Mercedes for some reason .......
When Cumbernauld was seen as Nirvana. The town centre on a deck turned out to be an epic eyesore!
It is ironic that when this film was being made and shown, they were ripping up the railways all over the country. One side telling us the railways were ancient and not necessary in this modern age.....another side like this film telling us that the car situation is already getting out of hand and we need to plan for the future.
Well Said
The road lobby and the privatisation lobby ruined this country by ripping it up and selling it to the highest bidder to save a few pennies at the top by shorting everyone at the bottom instead of giving it the investment and care it needed to be useful again.
What was done to our infrastructure and utilities was akin to scrapping an E Type Jag because the carburettors was playing up, or throwing away a whole china set because one of the saucers was chipped on the bottom.
I think town planning has done far more harm than good. It’s the opposite of organic development. It thinks it can see the whole picture but doesn’t know what it doesn’t know.
@@ReddsoldierI’m sorry but how an earth are you blaming privatisation when the closure were due to nationalisation the beeching cuts started in 1950 only three years after the transport act coming into affect and nationalising them, there were 100s of instances were government refused to sell the lines to private individuals and forced them to be broken up it was the centralisation that caused it. It’s also the plot of the 1953 film the titfield thunderbolt. Many of those regional lines were created by the aristocrats/majors etc of an area and weren’t intended to make money the state stole them, killed the aristocratic class and then destroyed them for not being profitable
that bashed e-type wow
The Bedford Lomas ambulance is epic,the headlights full on it looks scary.
The VW Beetle is an absolutely timeless design. Brought from the era of art deco and late post vintage they are still a very familiar sight today.
07:15 Peaceful coexistence between motorists and pedestrians.
Definition of pedestrian: A motorist who finally found a place to park his car.
Funny to see that big Yank Tank 1959 Ford in traffic among the little cars.
A second Mersey tunnel? I went to North Wales camping with my last boarding school - we went via Liverpool and under the Wallasey Tunnel - there’s also a Birkenhead Tunnel - are there any others? No doubt that some Scouser could answer that - I’m from Middlesbrough originally - now live in Somerset!
so interesting to see stuff like this thanks for uploading!
East Anglia was known as the salesman graveyard because of it's old roads back in the 1960s. It didn't even have a motorway if you wanted to drive to London, A11all the way, and the trains took 4 hours.
6:02 o man that poor whacked Etype
Love the part about Liverpool, those flyovers have just been demolished and the waterfront is an even bigger mess, it's been dug up for over a year causing misery and delays for all.
Yes, and thankfully the vast inner ring road was never built or nearly all of the elevated walkways. Moorfields station though was built with the entrance 20 feet above street level. There was no need for the 2nd Mersey tunnel as the road traffic disappeared from the old docks moving to the Seaforth container base. The original tunnel is closed on Sundays showing this.
@@nevillemason6791 The old tunnel closed on Sundays? It's closed this Sunday 4/7/21 for maintenence only, 6am-13.00 one way and 13.00 - 18.00 hrs in the other direction. Nothing to do with lack of traffic, both Kingsway and Queens way tunnels are usually open 7 days.
The lack of and expense of public transport has turned many of us into four car families.
Went to Cumbernauld once ,late eighties to see one of the shops about fixtures, china shop it was, security there eas tight, lot of pilfering etc, it was a grim grey windy place.
The Mini was here just 5 years old..
There's lot of Mini's on the scrapyard...
Look at the company that built them, the workers spent more time on the picket line than they did in the factory
They were s#it boxes
I think they were accident damaged cars
@@arunparkin2552 That is what the commentary implied...
@@davidviner4932 The original mini was one of the finest cars ever built , please don't comment unless you have an actual clue what you are talking about ......
That truck with a giant barrel at 3:00...
It's alright, don't panic, Ken Livingstone will solve the traffic problems in London of the future. It will get even better with Sadiq Khan.
I doubt Khan could drive a dodgem car, let alone a real one. An absolute joke of a mayor.
@@Hologhoul3 time mayor, very popular - we like the cleaner air
Traffic speeds in major cities remains constant at around 11 mph for centuries - quicker speeds leads to bottlenecks and traffic jams, more capacity leads to more demand leading to same. Was ever thus…
@@UA-cammessedupmyhandle Lots of different arguments and debates about ULEZ, but that aside, he's a race-baiting crime apologist, an insult to all decent, law-abiding Londoners.
@@Hologhoul lolz
Still haven’t reached 40 million cars in the UK, 57 years later. 35 million in 2020.
England was wonderful. Everything started to change in 1959.
Right around the same time the chickens came home to roost, funny that.
They had no idea how things would be now!! People still prefer their cars to any other form of transport, despite the jams and delays, but ULEZ is the most despised thing ever devised, even transcending pot holes, poor road maintenance, road works etc.
Such optimism that never happened now we squeeze cars & put large bike lanes with no bikes using & cars crawling along one lane
Toronto, Canada has entered that reality :(
LTNs are great - kids can play out in streets now, the air is cleaner, noise less and streets free of rat racers using neighbourhoods as short cuts. Like roads were supposed to be used, prior to that mid 20th century aberration they were meant for cars.
Beat up Jag at 6:02. Probably just another car to the owner of it. Wonder what happened to it over time ? Restored and still with us to this day or junk yard ?
Actually the prediction that in 2004 there would be 40m cars on the road was a fair bit out,2004 saw 29.4m cars on UK roads. Lovely video tho
33million ish today
Was this film narrated by Spotswood from Team America?
See a 1959 Ford Galaxie 500 at 3:23.
Very prescient: now we have the congestion charge and the low emission zone to reduce the number of cars and their pollution. We also have families with two or three cars. And fuel duty +VAT as the major part of the petrol and diesel price. How did all that happen?
The recipe was :-
Take a tiny over crowded island
Allow millions of extra people in
Concrete over as much as possible to build motorways,by-passes,housing estates.
Offer the lowest ever interest rates in history so that we can all afford cars.
Reduce the police numbers by 20,000 so that there won't be many traffic cops and no one is available to change the films in speed cameras
Clamp down on anyone pointing out the daftness of these policies and call them " racists"
2021 and we still don't have this dream lol
now here we are in 2019!
We knew we had an awful problem with our tiny island being so over crowded in 1964, and that steps had to be taken to tackle it.
Begs the question, why did we allow millions of immigrants to come here over the next 57 years ? We are having to cover this little island in concrete to provide extra roads and houses.One day we might require that land to grow food and store water in order to keep everyone alive.We are quickly running out of land,and if the pound devalues substantially imported food will be too expensive.
The UK will never ever tame the automobile. No room, no budget and no real will.
No BMW, Audi though there is a dkw, Nissan, Hyundai etc. The British motor industry was vibrant but strikes and complacency killed it.
And now we have 3/4 car families.
What’s the name of the music on this video
Shite recorded by Randall & Hopkirk
@@Sidneyyoungblood75 thank you
When dustmen used to take anything for a couple of quid 😊
wow they way over estimated how many cars would be on the road in 40 years
Well, there are now over 40 million vehicles in the UK so they didn't overestimate. 50 years might have been more realistic, though.
When British Cars Dominated The Roads Of Great Britain
Living with cars... let us know how you get along with that...
Instead of discouraging car use, we destroyed our ancient cities and tried to build a world designed for cars… now we live with the consequences … smh
Everything looked cleaner back then
It did and I think - generally - people had greater pride in appearance then. However these films were made with artists and cinematographers who ensured the scene was 'pretty' and 'aesthetic' prior to shooting. There are plenty of documentary films made in the same era that show the poverty and filth many lived in, still residing in Victorian slums.
Dustmun?
Binmen were called " dustmen'" in the UK up till the 1980s or thereabouts.
Oxford St development went well then
Happy days when cyclists in central London were regarded as nutters and no road planner gave them a second thought.
Enter Boris. 😂😂
All that wasted space set aside for car parking, making the places look ugly, cars cluttering everywhere spoiling views and just getting in the way
10 thousand million pounds. Lol
Cah...
Birth control is the answer.
Ten thousand Million pounds, hahahahaaaaa
Actually the prediction that in 2004 there would be 40m cars on the road was a fair bit out,2004 saw 29.4m cars on UK roads. Lovely video tho