MOUNT EDEN IMPROVEMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 11 December 1923, Page 4

MOUNT EDEN IMPROVEMENTS.

To-morrow the ratepayers of Mount Eden will be aeked to sanction a loan of £140,000 for various purposes. It is proposed to lay the two chief roads in the borough in concrete, and to give the side roads a bituminous surface—at a total cost of £125,000; to spend £7000 in improving the water-main system; and to provide a new fire station and an addition to the swimming bath at a cost of £8000. It should not be necessary to say much about those smaller sums. Every progressive borough must improve its water and fire systems from time to time, and that Mount Eden needs a new fire station does not, so we understand, admit of argument. Most of the controversy that these proposals have raised revolves round the road improvements. The question is: Does Mount Eden want better roads? Katepayers surely cannot say "No." Mount Eden Road and Dominion Road are main thoroughfares that carry a great deal of heavy traffic, and are therefore marked out for treatment on the most modern lines. The concrete pavemeut that is proposed by the Mount Eden Council has been applied to the main roads of the city, and, whatever may be the permanent results of this policy, everybody knows how satisfactory those roads are now. These two Mount Eden roads should be laid down in permanent material, and the Council naturally accepts the method that lias been demonstrated close at hand. Moreover, the concreting of those portions of these two roads between the present tram termini and the points to -which the City Council proposes to extend the lines, is a condition of those extensions. Ratepayers cannot be indifferent to the need for taking tramlines further out. The question whether Mount Eden should join the city should not be allowed to complicate these issues. If Mount Eden joined to-morrow it would be just as necessary to. raise money for these improvements. As for the effect on the rates, it has been explained not only that the valuations are increasing, but that if the roads ure treated as proposed thousands of pounds will be saved in maintenance. The Council puts a sound improvement scheme to the ratepayers, and the ratepayers should endorse it.