We might think that Christmas is more commercial now than in the past - and the season certainly starts earlier - but when it comes to one key barometer the 1950s were pretty bad.

Though the 1950s had lots of cultural problems compared to today, economically things were much better, with lower taxes, less government interference, and most families having only one parent forced to work outside the home. And that meant spending money, but there were no malls or online retailers so everyone had to come into town to shop.

In December 1958, central London was so gridlocked by traffic caused by last minute Christmas shopping that questions were asked in parliament and the Conservative government of the day ordered the Ministry of Transport to take over the management of traffic in the capital.

“One consequence of the mega-jam was the introduction of traffic wardens and fixed penalties for illegal parking – legal practices still in use to this day,” said Professor Simon Gunn from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Urban History. “Another was the setting up of a high-level study group to investigate the growing problem of traffic in towns, resulting in the publication in 1963 of the Buchanan Report, whose proposals for pedestrian zones and urban motorways shaped the cities we inhabit today, including Leicester.”

The Leicester Traffic Plan of 1964 that followed claimed to be the first to ‘say no to the motor car’. Its most controversial proposal was to build a monorail from Oadby to Beaumont Leys, passing through Charles Street in the center of town – an idea rejected by the government on grounds of cost.

The history of traffic is the subject of a project called  Motor Cities: Automobility and the Urban Environment in Britain and Japan, 1955-1973, headed by Professor Gunn and Susan Townsend of the History Department at the University of Nottingham.

Gunn added, “Gridlock still occurs at Christmas, of course, as drivers head en masse to the shops to buy last minute stocks of food and presents. Yet despite the growing numbers of cars on Britain’s roads the problem has been eased somewhat by pedestrianisation and the rise of out-of-town shopping centres - and in London by the congestion charge which means that a much greater proportion of the population has come to use public transport.

“We are unlikely ever to rid cities of cars but we may at last be learning how to make them our servants, not our masters.”

Source: University of Leicester