The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1938. HOW MUCH LONGER?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 254, 27 October 1938, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1938. HOW MUCH LONGER?

For (he cause thai lack* assistance, I'or the icrong that needs resistance, lor the future, in the distance, A nd the good that ice can do.

New Zealand to-day, iiceordinpr to the .Minister of Transport, is "the second liiuhr-t niutnri-eil country in the world, nnd the coiintrv witli the lowest motor fatalitv

record." The second claim is one which uny country would lie proud to make, arid which New Zealand should resolve to maintain against all challenges. That such a claim can lie made is due to the fact that, under Mr. Semple's leadership, a determined and well-planned effort has been and is lieiuir made to cope with one of the consequences id' increasing " inotnrisntion." I > 111 there are other consecjuences, especially and increasingly apparent- in the cities. Kvery motorist knows how difficult the pridilem of driving in city streets at busy hours has become, and how. still more difficult is the taslc of finding, a parking place. Kvery pedestrian knows how difficult and risky is the crossing of streets in which one-half of the space is occupied by parked cars. These difficulties are the direct result of the increasing number of motor vehicles, and they will become greater —they must become <rrenter —as the increase continues. N'o one is satisfied with existing conditions, and no one can comnlaisnntly regard the certninty that they will become worse. liut is this dissatisfaction reflected in any consistent and organised effort to improve conditions, and to anticipate conditions in the future?

To-day's fast-moving motor traffic is accommodated in streets the majority of which were planned for horses. If the pioneers of Auckland had not had vision those streets would he narrower, and the development of motor traffic to its present density would have been physically impossible. As the chairman of the technical group of the Town Planning Institute, Mr. E. V. Blake, pointed out recently, we are not giving the serious thought to the wise planning of Auckland that was given by the earlier generations, nnd this despite the fact that we can sec, in the motor licensing statistics, the writing on the wall, while they knew nothing of motor vehicles. Has anyone calculated, even on "the most conservative basis, the number of motor vehicles that will be licensed in Auckland in five years' time, and wondered how they will be accommodated in the same streets that we have now? As Mr. Bl.ike related, proposals brought down ns long ago as 3929, including one tor a new outlet to the south and east, and others designed,to reduce the congestion at Grafton Bridge and Newmarket, were " shelved," because there was not then (nor is there now) any authority controlling the major regional affairs of Auckland. How much longer can Auckland go on without such an authority?