NORTH BEACH BUS ROUTE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21710, 18 February 1936, Page 16

NORTH BEACH BUS ROUTE

to T/a suit ok or th» fbiss. > Sir,—Space, if you. please, in which i to accuse this morning’s correspond--5 ent “Trolley-bus User” of the very t charge he lays to- the door Of our • Mayor, namely, taking it upon himself to speak for the people ol North t Beach. I will wager that a referendum I would show that the opinion of North 5 Beach residents is overwhelmingly in t favour of the Wainoni road petrol bus ' service. ■ The possibility or otherwise of readI ing a paper while riding is surely the • limit in trivial argument, but if comt fort is a consideration, give m€F the > petrol bus every time. If we take our ) daughter'iu the trolley-bus she‘is ins variably sick from the bouncing of the • seat and the 'sudden braking and acceleration of the vehicle, but has never i so suffered on the petrol bus. I might t add that to my certain knowledge she ' is not, alone in this. i There must be some other reason • than mere comfort, however, for the ■ popularity of the Wainoni road ser- • vice. Some years ago the - Inter-city s Bus Company lost two buses by .fire : in its garage, and had to Operate the - North Beach service with one small ■ bus Only. This was a hastily and ■ cheaply-built body mounted on what ■ I have always understood was a truck > and hot a bus chassis, while the seats • were hot quite what seats In modem t- buses are. If memory serves correctly, ! this conveyance was licensed to carry ■ 23 passengers, but I remember one ■ occasion When -it carried 52 on the last s trip from town," when men stood on the running board with their aims > through-the windows and sat wedged ’ between' th,e front wings and the bon- ! net The driver had no hope of col--5 lecting all fares,: but he got- people, 1 home, and that was one only of the ■ reasons for the ihiccess of this company; it provided a service. Please read ’ that word “service” with an accent. 1 The company was compelled by law ! to charge a higher fare than the ’ trams, but still it survived and in- ' creased- the fleet of buses, besides ’ speeding up the time-table. In spite of higher operating costs, it carried passengers’ luggage and push-chairs free, a thing the trams never did. .Overcrowding took place on every trip ! in the early days, but was jokingly enr dured. The explanation of all this > must surely be that the public pre- • ferred a reliable service to the-.chop : arid change uncertainties of the Tram- ’ way Board. - ,* ■ i 1 But will your correspondent please ; tell us why the letting values of North ; Beach properties will slump if the trolley-bus is withdrawn in favour of 1 the petrol bus, and why people should be carried round by way of the back lands of Burwood and through Shirley to reach the city, arid just what excuse'there-is for running, any ser- ; vice beyond Burwood Church. Bassett street is not . thickly populated and • Travis road properties are swampy > cow pastures and will never be anything else.. ... ' i • The Tramway Board cannot operate enough trolley-buses, on this route to carry, the passengers. offering on race days,’ so conveys them by. .tram down Page’s road ,to New Brignton central, along -tne esplanade to North Beach, tranships them to trolley-buses, arid delivers'them to the course. This procedure is reversed, after the’ day’s racing, and besides being clumsy and i roundabout, keeps a. number of trams and trolley-buses, with,their crews,. • standing'idle for far too-many hours. , 1 realise that this position- was. not created by the present board, but was ■ a legacy left by the previous one, butthe board should'be bold enough to scrap a dud sendce. The'presenf board 'paid a nuge sum for the'inter-city interests and then abolished a definitely paying'service. for a definitely jaonpaying obfe. in an attempt, to bolster up the letter so. that it could say, “See, we have ’-done what, our.ptedecessors ]in bffifie cOuld not do, we have made this ;ilrie pay,” quite’ losing.; sight :of i tne fact’that itsfirst dujty is to.provide > adequate tranfport faculties for the by^adph’naeens,;;as'w;u, fallow. ,prijvisioi%:to; be made ■ from revenue for depredation and-renewals. f :t Will.- • stai&:?gbour vote neat. having" ri* all the varying - systems in ■ road:>i»ewstf.'.yre have been WMHP***-''*

| xnther flam endure the trolley-buses, i l am," buying another bicycle lor the and the board will lose family of cash, riders.— “ . IZ, 1936. ' : 7 jJtj f, *\ *}* ‘ s/ ' J V <’ \ &'Y %*a f V*r