In Cambridge, at least, the proverbial fast-disappearing pedestrian may soon be joined by a fast-disappearing motorist if cars multiply at the present extravagant rate while parking and traffic facilities remain virtually static.

The phenomenal increase in student and local cars in the Harvard area has evoked much rhetoric from college and city leaders without reaching any feasible solution to the problem of where to put them. In fact, many responsible persons doubt that there is any answer, short of eliminating student cars.

Registrations of student cars to date are up nearly 1,000 cars over last year's early October total of 2,800 according to University Police Captain Matthew F. Toohy, who estimates that well over 5,000 members of the University operate automobiles.

Total Cambridge registration figures are in excess of 43,000 cars, or more than one car for every three residents. The national average is one car for four people, which in itself is astronomical. China has an estimated one car per 8,000 population, Russia one per 4,000 while England, Europe's leader has one for every 38 people, and Canada, next behind the U. S., has roughly one for every 20.

Blossoming Signs

Local auto density is one of the highest in the nation. Coupled with city streets some of which were well trodden during John Harvard's lifetime, and with 234,000 non-resident vehicles using them every day, a parking problem has resulted.

University officials have grasped some initiative by requiring all students to register their autos with the Yard police, and more recently by enforcing this rule. Lots handling over a total of 1,000 cars have been set up and little signs have blossomed in cement directing drivers please not to park here, there, and everywhere on University property, especially without permits. But the lots are full, the signs are ignored, and the streets crowded with thousands of illegally parked cars.

The situation is complicated by Cambridge's 25-year old ordinance prohibiting parking on city streets for longer than one hour between the hours of two and six a.m. or, in effect, banning overnight parking on streets.

Over half of Cambridge's streets are 27 feet or less wide, curb to curb. On many of these, parking on both sides and two-way traffic is permitted. The average car is six feet three inches wide, and, parked within one foot of the curb, leaves less than thirteen feet for two cars whose width totals twelve and one half feet to pass.

All this has gone unnoticed by the city fathers. Many people have proposed even more solutions. Cambridge Police Chief Patrick F. Ready, who affirms that he's "not out to get Harvard students," wants to ban all cars in the College except seniors' (and presumably faculty).

Chairman of the City Council's traffic committee Edward J. Sullivan, who says there aren't enough police to enforce the laws anyway, wants to ban them altogether for students. City councillor Joseph A. DiGugielmo '29 tends to agree with Ready; a sizeable number of local residents tend to agree with Sullivan.

Councillor John Lynch, last heard here debating Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38, professor of History, on the extent of faculty subversion--communist, not traffic--isn't exactly sure what to do.

City Manager John J. Curry '19 is sure. He thundered his answer across his massive desk in City Hall:

"Tear down the Fly Club's back yard and build a parking lot. So we do away with a bit of aesthetics. I'm not concerned with whether the Fly Club is willing."

Council candidates and Cambridge editor of the Boston Record American Edward M. Martin wants to build a combination bomb shelter-parking garage under Cambridge Common.