AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way



On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the interviews, I’ll just have to surmise the city planners of 1617 London had good reason to make the traffic of alleys by the River Thames one-way. Perhaps one of those city planners had a bad experience in one of those alleys with a another pedestrian. Perhaps he was walking one way and the other pedestrian was walking the other way and they got tangled in the ever awkward dance of trying to get around the other person only to get trapped in the perpetual circle of feinting and rocking but constantly unconsciously mirroring the other person so as to never actually get around him or her. Like a twisted, unscripted version of the Lucy and Harpo Mirror Sketch. If it happened on horseback, it would be even more annoying. It would certainly justify making a narrow alley where such an occurrence might happen frequently into a smooth running street full of people only moving in the same direction. Or maybe they just wanted more opportunities to give people DUI’s when they drunkenly turned their horses the wrong way down a one-way.

This Day has been Marked.

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