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Show T 1 i fail 0 SiHuS h Larcs Cifes May Disresr NEW HAVEN. Conn. - The "downtown'" business districts of American cities m:y soon become "ghost towns", a Vale University traffic expert says. ' The central business districts of our cities are conficnted with problems prob-lems of transportation which threaten threat-en their very existence," warns Theodore M. Matson. director of Yale's bureau cf highway traffi;. Matson says a city's business district dis-trict is dependent on the number of people which can conveniently shop in that area. "As traffic congestion increases, these business districts become harder and harder to get to," Mat-son Mat-son adds. I In a speech on "Yale Interprets the Niws" over Station WTIC, Hartford, the Yale expert said that merchants in "downtown" areas are losing their customers to accessible surburban shopping centers. Future Looks Dark "Nationally-knrwn brands, of course, are sold in all areas in business centers as well as in the suburbs," Matson said. "But non-standardized non-standardized and luxury items tend to remain in downtown shopping districts and for the moment, the centra area serves an important function in a community's economy despite the inroads of suburban competition." He warned, however, that the future looks dark for many of these downtown areas unless traffic congestion con-gestion is decreased. Matson said all cities exist largely, large-ly, because of their strategic location loca-tion on routes of travel and that while transportation alone cannot make a city, a city cannot exist without it. "Buses, street cars, taxis and subways are all vital to American cities," Matson said, "and when we add the fact that 70 percent of travel to business districts is made by private automobiles, we have genuine congestion." Districts Must Change Matson pointed out that congestion conges-tion remedy is costly and local governments are reluctant to make any moves. He doubted, therefore, that really strong measures would be taken to relieve the congestion apparent in more and more downtown down-town areas. "Central business districts, if they are to survive, must change their functions to serve a growing grow-ing population with an increasingly increasing-ly specialized line of goods and services," he said in offering one possible answer to the problems of the downtown business man. |