TRANS-HARBOUR TRANSPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 276, 21 November 1928, Page 6

TRANS-HARBOUR TRANSPORT.

BRIDGE V. TUHNEL. (To the Editor.) Now that the excitement of the elections is over the question of the proposed harboar bridge will doubtless soon crop up again for further discussion. Your readers will recall that Sir Joseph Ward i% Parliament advised * going into the pros and cons of a. tunnel, and I hope that now he is the assured head of the Government of New Zealand the suggestion of a tunnel will be more systematically examined. The more obvious advantages of a harbour tunnel as compared to a bridge are as follows: (1) Xo interference with shipping during or after its construction. (2) Xo painting or expensive upkeep necessary. (Xote: Iα New York on the huge Manhattan Bridge aa army of painters is permanently engage*} scraping and repainting the steelwork, the cost of paint alone being enormous. Steelwork has to be constantly renewed). (3) A tunnel is better from a military viewpoint, being immune from bombardment. (4) The locality of a tunnel would be easier to decide than the bridge. (5) A tunnel would give no cause for opposition from the Harbour Board, as is the case with the proposed bridge. The cost of a tunnel, say, thirty feet wide, would probably be about the same as the proposed three-mile Morning-side-city tunnel ( £600.000). Perhaps it would be a good thing to get an engineer like Dr. Bradfield, of Sydney (designer of both the new bridge and the subway), to report upon the matter. The engineering difficulties would probably be less than would be encountered in trying to build a bridge. HARBOUR TUXXEL.