ROADS AND TRAMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 22, 27 January 1928, Page 3

ROADS AND TRAMS.

AUCKLAND AND WELLINGTON. VISITING COUNCILLOR'S EXPRESSIONS. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. "Auckland and district had provided themselves with very fine concrete roads, and these are a credit to the great city." said Mr. H. D. Bennett, chairman of the Works Committee of the Wellington City Council, upon his return home. "Our Northern friends generously conceded' at least equal road facilities to the credit of Wellington, but what wo? ri<*d our friends up North- was the way Wellington financed her work. They could not believe that the cost of miles of concrete of the North which lay heavily on the breast of the Auckland ratepayer was in the case of the bitumen roads of Wellington not a burden on rates. "The other outstanding problem, one of the transport of the people, still remains to be grappled with. The position has gradually become worse, and the Auckland tramway system is really in a very bad way, due to the competition of buses. There has been insufficient revenue to enable the department to keep up the maintenance of track and rolling stock. New capital expenditure for extensions in Auckland trams is out of favour, and an impasse has definitely been reached. The Government has had to take a hand, and a commission is now being set up to report on the whole question. Civic matters are underjroinjr an interesting time up North," concluded Mr. Bennett, "and, not unlike Wellington on occasions, the City Fathers are getting it in the neck."