Roads Board subsidy up

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 4

Roads Board subsidy up

The Christchurch City Council will receive $4.2 million in National Roads Board subsidies for the coming financial year, a 13 per cent increase on last year's allocation. Although the general allocation rise to local bodies was 18.8 per cent, the city had received more than expected this year, the council's works and traffic committee was told vesterdav.

One disappointment was an $85,000 reduction in street cleaning spending from what the council had sought. The Roads Board was concerned about the apparent high cost of such cleaning. Councillors often receive complaints about the frequency ' and efficiency of street cleaning. Few 'com-

plaints are received about streets with flat channels. The city has about 600 km of flat channels and 700 km of the old-fashioned dish channels. About 10 per cent of the dish channels are still swept by hand. The council expects to gspend about $1.2 million on channel cleaning this financial year. About $500,000 is being spent this year on repairs and sealing of kerbs and channels, which work has allowed more mechanical sweeping to be done. The council has had problems with mechanical sweepers, including a garage fire which damaged two sweepers in October. One was back on the streets in three weeks, and the other- is

still being reconditioned. Another sweeper is being modified at Hamilton. Linwood meeting A public meeting will be held within two months to discuss council proposals for Linwood Avenue traffic management changes. The changes, between Hereford Street and Gloucester Street, would include a traffic roundabout at the Gloucester Street intersec-' tion. A petition signed by 206 persons has objected to changes that would attract more traffic to Hereford Street and Gloucester Street and require some land from three properties. A staff report has said that

traffic volumes in Gloucester Street and Hereford Street would probably increase slightly because of the work, but the streets were unlikely to reach their maximum traffic capacity earlier than originally estimated. Engineers said that traffic volume increases should cause no inconvenience for residents, since both streets carried only about 4000 vehicles a day now. Gloucester Street could experience the biggest change, since traffic could be attracted away from other east-west streets, such as Avonside Drive. But the traffic flow would still be “at the low end of the recommended range" for minor arterials.