Tramway Deficit

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26026, 1 February 1950, Page 4

Tramway Deficit

The Christchurch Tramway Board’s

deficit of £71,345 for the first nine months of the financial year, an increase of £5367 on the deficit at the same date last year, shows that the operating costs of the city’s public transport system are still increasing at a rate which must eventually place a heavier burden on the ratepayers. For the existence of a deficit the Labour members of the board are not to blame; there was a deficit when they came into office. Except for increased power charges, the causes of the deficit are virtually the same. Nor can Labour members be blamed for an increased wages bill of about £ 25,000, although they might have been better prepared to meet rising costs if they had come into office with a definite policy instead of vague promises. They are to blame, however, for their failure to do anything positive to check the downward trend or to plan for a comprehensive, efficient, and up-to-date service at a reasonable cost to both users and ratepayers. The last board realised the deficiencies of the present transport system, and that operating costs would continue to increase until it was completely reorganised and modernised. Therefore it proa carefully prepared plan for

withdrawing the trams over seven or eight years and substituting buses and trolley-buses. This scheme, many authorities considered, would have provided an adequate, up-to-date service and saved ratepayers from the increasing financial burden of the present obsolete and decaying system. But the Labour members condemned it as unnecessary and too expensive, and promised before the election to reduce fares, keep down the rates, and provide a better service. Since then they have done little to redeem those promises. • For the better service they have offered trolley-buses, on two routes, and when faced with rising costs they have done little more than wring their hands. Other transport authorities have dealt with the same problem by asking for and receiving an increase in fares. The board could have done that if the Labour members had been willing to admit at the start that their promise of lower fares could not be fulfilled, and then decided to make those who use the public transport system pay for it. Instead, they first decided to raise fares, then reversed their decision, and finally increased the cost of Sunday tickets and race tickets, which, as Mr C. C. Holland said at the board meeting, is just playing with the problem. The opportunity remains for the Labour members to make some effort to redeem the situation. The application of a realistic policy on fares even now would help to improve the financial position of the tramways to some small exteht for the City Council, if or when it takes them under its control.