SUBURBAN TRANSPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 264, 7 November 1932, Page 6

SUBURBAN TRANSPORT.

ATTITUDE OF THE RAILWAYS. (To the Editor.) "Ifi one form of transport can cope Tviyj the needs of the district according to a reasonable standard, the provision of two systems of transport is unnecessary and wasteful." The above is a quotation from the report of th» Railways Board and is a very admirable sentiment. Unfortunately it appears to be merely for public consumption and a policy to be put into force only so far as it affects the board's competitors. The board apparently cannot realise that there may be other systems of transport which may serve a district better than the railways system. We have a glaring example of this in Auckland and its suburbs. We have a very efficient tram service which can obviously more than cope with the needa of the district it serves, and yet a year ago the Railways Board "cut" its fares to less than one-half of the tramway fares in order toinduce some of the legitimate tram passengers to patronise the railways. What is the result? The railways for the year ending March 31 last took the sum of approximately £23,000 from the stations in the tramways area, such as Remuera, Green Lane, Mount Eden, Mount Albert, etc. This would not be so bad if the railways were making a profit on their suburban- traffic. On the other hand, they are making a very substantial loss, as the figures in their last report show. The result of this uneconomic- competition is that th© taxpayer ihas to pay the loss on the. railways suburban service and the ratepayers have eventually to stand any loss on the trams. Such a thine as this would not be allowed to happen were the railways under some sort of licensing control such as their competitors are. With all the talk about co-ordination of transport, competition such as this between two publicly, owned transport concerns is scandalous. They should be the first ones to show an example of co-ordination. The passengers represented by the £23,000 mentioned above could all he carried by the tramways, without extra expense, and the fares paid by them would amount to at least double the amount taken by the railways. This would result in an increase of the tramways revenue -by at least £40,000. RATEPAYER^