THE BURWOOD TRAM LINE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13597, 4 December 1909, Page 5

THE BURWOOD TRAM LINE.

TO TIIE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir, —'Old Resident," in your issue of Saturday last, has certainly voiced the opinion of practically all the. residents from Stanmorc bridge to North' Now Brighton. Many of the householders on tho road mentioned paid for their line years ago in hard cash, and. on the promise of a new and improved service they were hoodwinked into voting for a loan that has so far proved to be worthless, and may yet prove to be an evil. The present member representing the district on the Tramway Board has no doubt done his best under very adverse circumstances, hut it seems' to mc that tho other members, with electric tramways at their own doors. Consider that their only duty now is to quietly sit down and keep what they already have. The Burwood lino was in existence when Mr Recce, as chairman, promised that all existing lines should be taken over, and that no section then in use should b. abandoned. If it was intended to run the line in its present half-hearted broken-down style, he should have given the ratepayers to understand so. Mr C M. Gray prominently (with other membors of the Board), has done his best to decry tho district. To stand still is to.go hack, Mr Gray.

It can truthfully be said that there is no prettier route on the Christehurch Tramway Board's System, and there is no other district going ahead more rapidly than that surrounding the Rich-mond-Shirley-cum-Burwood sections; yet the Board considers that anything is good enough for the Burwood line. Now there is no excuse for this, for there Is ample traffic between the city and North New Brighton, if the management caters for it. The Board should certainly carry its passengers somewhere, cither to North New Brighton Beach —which many people preier to the townshiri —or else connect via Park or Racecourse roads with the Worstreet lino to the Pier. Jn short, tlip Board took our service, a service x>t least as good as, if not better than, thi> one we are now using, and after yeans of expectancy, they offer the people who paid for what the Board took from them, a service inferior in every respect to that obtaining on any of the new sections; notwithstanding that the liiirwood line was in existence long before either the Fendalton-Opawa or Edgeware road lines were even thought of. Jt is now proposed to give us ligtit rails, light -wires, cheap and nasty poles; altogether our line is apparently +•0 be made the dumping ground for old aad obsolete materials.

The district in the past has been saaiy handicapped by the Hoard, but with tne lif 3 that in the new sub-divi-sions at Richmond and Shirley, surely an indignation meeting could be held to compel the Board to give the residents what they have the right to expect, viz., a- system equal to anything in the new extensions, and a time-taolo with some show of catering for the comfort and convenience of the residents in a rapidly rising, pretty, but neglected district, so far as tramway matters are concerned. —Yours, etc., ANOTHER OLD RESIDENT. November 23rd.