POINTS FROM LETTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 126, 30 May 1934, Page 11

POINTS FROM LETTERS.

BRIDGE OR TUNNEL?

Mr. T. Stone is hardly fair, for one might say because the Sydney bridge cost £10,000,000 the Auckland bridge ■would. The Mersey tunnel is the largest and. most elaborate in the world." Tp mention the St. Gathard, taking a mile a year to construct, docs Mr. Stone not realise we are not still in the Victorian age? Science has advanced; what took weeks to do then is now done in days. Mr. Stone errs re steep gradients. With approaches to a bridge one cannot "o where you like, but with a tunnel it Is different, for once underground one cau practically go where you like and make any grade you wish. The site mentioned is most suitable, for at the foot of AYizac Avenue I am on the original harbour front, all solid ground. Again imagine the enormous cost to unnecessarily take all the traffic for the north through, our already congested centres, wearing our roads, etc., as the bridge site would. Mr. Stone suggests 40ft; I only stated 22ft. Auckland is not Liverpool. The danger of fire is crude. I have not heard of a concrete tunnel catching lire. It is true that the roadway would require attention perhaps in 30 years, but this also applies to the bridge. Half the lighting is correct, but a person being spared the time of traversing the city wouldn't mind that; also the caretaker might demand a supply of safety matches, in case the lights went out on either a bridge or tunnel. Surely, Mr. Stone is not serious in suggesting we should disfigure our beautiful harbour by tying thoso old rusty hulks and scows together and string thein across; they should be placed out of sight and at one, too. One year to construct is doubted; certainly if the method, of one worker, two wheelbarrows and three overseers were adopted but with three shifts, working at both ends, it would not. . This job would circulate a million pounds in Auckland, badly needed just now. R. STEWART.