Customer Reviews

On Roads

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is of the genre that takes some physical feature of everyday life and subjects it to academic scrutiny. Motorways (on this side of the Atlantic, expressways or interstates) are a staple of daily life that we rarely think about. Much of Moran's book focuses on motorway service areas, which in Britain have restaurants and (occasionally) motels. There's no counterpart to this in the US or Canada, except along toll highways like the Pennsylvania Turnpike or Ohio Turnpike. Even along US toll highways, there's nothing quite as grandiose as the 65-foot-tall Forton Service Area, shown in one of the book's few photographs.

This book roams across innumerable road-related topics and is filled with scattered insights; for example, the author notes that criticism of service area eateries is grounded in class-based elitism, coming from people who rarely experience working-class food. Moran points out that for those whose basis of comparison is the local cafe or workplace cafeteria, the food at service plazas is quite acceptable. Or, how many Brits are aware of the origins of the road numbering system? (You mean there's actually a pattern?) The author also discusses how the notion of speed limits have evolved over time, and in a parallel manner, how attitudes toward speeding and law-breaking on highways have evolved over time. He has a keen eye for hypocrisy on the Left. For example, he notes the irony of people driving their cars to a meeting to protest a new highway, or how Liberal prime ministers have pursued Thatcher's road-building program, albeit cloaked behind progressive-sounding rhetoric.

Moran's greatest contribution is in emphasizing how ephemeral the criteria are by which we judge artificial changes to the landscape. Motorways were once regarded as objects of beauty that symbolized hope for the future, but now they are seen as scars on the countryside. It is quite possible, Moran argues, that motorways will once again be viewed as historical artifacts to be loved. Much the same has occurred to railways, as Moran points out -- once reviled for ruining the countryside, now associated with environmentalism and historical charm. Society's sense of what is aesthetically pleasing changes with each generation, and similarly, each generation has things it hyperventilates about. For example, it's hard to believe that when automobiles first became common, one of the biggest complaints was the ugliness of petrol pumps. To the people of 2020 or 2030, our current aesthetic values may appear equally out of date. After all, it wasn't that long ago that people regarded brutalist modern architecture, with its massive concrete slabs, as beautiful.