HUMAN CRUSH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 268, 12 November 1935, Page 5

HUMAN CRUSH.

DISGRACE TO SYDNEY. WYNYARD STATION CHAOS. DISCOMFORT AND DANGER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 7. The newspapers have been carrying on an agitation for some time past about the congestion of traffic at Wynyard station and with very good reason. Wynyard is the most crowded of all our I stations, as it stands at what may be i termed the junction of the northern and i southern suburban lines and feeds the I commercial section of the city from both ends at once. Originally designed to act as a sort of terminus for these two converging lines of electric trains, it has now had foisted upon it the traffic from the . North Shore train lines as well, and the results are very difficult to describe in restrained language. At "peak hours," i when the businese people are coming j into the city in the morning, and more ! especially between 5 and 6 o'clock I when everybody goes home the causeways, ramps, stairs and platforms are crowded with dense surging masses of humanity, in which people dart nervously to and fro endeavouring as best they may to find some opening that may lead them to their ultimate destination. For women, children and elderly men, there are times of grave discomfort, and often of actual peril— indeed the wonder is that serious accidents are not of more frequent occurrence under such really appalling conditions. It may bo said in general terms that the people of Sydney have never been compelled to submit to the management and control by which crowds are usually disciplined or directed in far smaller cities. The streets are narrow, and in all the business centres the side walks are far too small to contam the pedestrians during the busy hours of the day. It is said that between 4.45 and 5.45 p.m. an average of 123 trams go along George Street and 119 along Pitt Street

—a tram every half minute—and there are tens of thousands of people waiting eagerly at every corner to catch these trams and make the best of their way home. Multiply all this congestion and confusion tenfold if possible and you have what happens every evening as part of the established order of things at Wynyard station where scores of thousands are trying to find their way to distant destinations, and where the combination of trani and train traffic at one centre produces a densely packed maelstrom of humanity. Minister Not Impressed. The people of the northern suburbs suffer most and worst, because the tram accommodation which serves a great many thousands of them is necessarily limited; and it is from the northern suburbs that the first attempt at reforming this outrageous state of things has started. The local council of Willoughby, I one of the leading districts concerned, has attempted to stir the sympathy of the Transport Department by putting their woes before the Minister in dramatic, and, indeed, impassioned language. But Mr. Brunner presumably does not live on the North Shore lino j and he has apparently accepted the i assurance of the transport officials that if a few "Keep to the Left" notices arc put up and the directions for the departure of the trains are made a little more conspicuous, Wynyard station will become, in a moment and the twinkling of an eye, peaceful, comfortable and happy. This casual way of dealing with what constitutes not only a serious public grievance but a grave menace to the public safety has exasperated the North Shore local bodies and they are banding together to impress their views on the Government with united force. The newspapers which have been leading the crusade for reform in this particular— the "Sun" and the "Telegraph"—are naturally indignant; and they resent particularly Mr. Brunner's assunnce that the tramcars which generally lumber off with dozens of people clinging to straps, doors and platforms "frequently depart with seats unoccupied."' The "Sun" protests that the implication is that a score or more people on each car are blind or else they have grown so used to clinging to straps and bars that they have forgotten how to sit down, but it inclines to the view that "those who have to scramble, stagger and jostle each other six days a week in. the despairing

search for an undiscovered empty seat ,, are better judges of the situation than Mr. Brunner. Suggested Remedies. Of course this sort of thing could bo remedied. Present conditions at Wynyard station are, says the "Telegraph," "an insult to the requirements of passengers and to the intelligence of the transport administration," and there is certainly a way out. One chief reason for the awful congestion at this point is that the northern influx and the southern influx converge here in the morning and disperse here at night, and from this point there is no way of crossing the city from west to east except on foot. This astounding fact is due to the failure of our Governments to complete the loop line along the waterfront Which would link up the northern and southern railway systems and so facilitate transport through and across the city. Though the tunnels have been prepared, the connection remains incomplete, and public works that cost million* are piling up interest every year without hope of return. If Mr. Stevens carries out his promise to complete the waterfront loop the first step will have been taken to reduce the shocking congestion at Wynyard. Then something should be done to obviate the fearsome climbs up and down stairs that the tram passengers must negotiate. Medical men declare that these stairs are a permanent menace to public health, and it is strange that they have not been answerable for more serious accidents. When escalators are suggested Mr. Brunner tells us that they would cost £05,000, and sadly shakes his head. Still there are some already at work at Town Hall station, between lower and upper levels; and they seem to have gone some way toward solving that problem. Another suggestion of a different kind is that business ofiices should not all close at the same hour, but that the men and girls from the city business quarters should be drafted off at intervals by different batches of trains and trams. Of course when once the authorities are conviiiced that something must be done means and methods and money will be found to achieve the required purpose. Meantime the daily "traffic jam" in and around Wjiiyard station remains—a grievous danger to the health and safety of our people and a standing disgrace to thesecond city of the Empire.