WELLINGTON AND AUCKLAND

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 105, 29 January 1924, Page 13

WELLINGTON AND AUCKLAND

rMPRESSIONS OF AN ' AUSTRALIAN

THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

Tin Australian, now resident in Wellington, made some interesting comparisons between this city and Auckland, during the course of a visit to the northern metropolis. “Tho first thing that impressed me on leaving the express,” he told a “New Zealand Herald” reporter, “was the island platform, in the middle of the street, for the safety of travelling pasaengons by traml Queen Street must surely be giving the city fathers a good deal of anxiety, for the volume of its traffic is greater, relatively, than that of Sydney or Melbourne, for the reason that yours is practically a one-street town. It is with much satisfaction, therefore, that one notices these island platforms. I sat on the end of one yesterday afternoon at the busiest hour for traffic, and saw what a boon they aro to your people. In Wellington, with its narrower streets, there is no such convenience for the people. Even at the widest part of Lambton Quay, that is oposite the Government Buildings, the danger to pedestrians is lery great, for there four streets converge, and motor traffic has not yet been disciplined to taking any distinct or definite passage through the press of people boarding or alighting from trams from this, the city’s chief road traffic terminal.

“Sometimes, when the civic administrators of Wellington are criticised for the slowness of modern development, as far as Lambton Quay is concerned, they point with pride to its historic significance, for it was once the beach, and its layout has been preserved. The same viewpoint is expressed in Sydney, about the famous George Street, which, in its primeval narrowness, still follows the track along which Governor Phillip’s bullock wagons lumbered 135 years ago. Even Parliament House, Sydney, retains its historical connection, for the Chamber is the same in which William Charles Wentworth made the first Government pronouncement, on the opening of the first Australian Parliament in 1855. Thousands of pounds have been spent annually in shoring up the historic building, while, alongside it, and across the way in Macquarie Street, lofty buildings are /reaching up to tho clouds. Melbourne and Auckland, on the other hand, aim at being dynamic, modern cites, in which the daily round of business may be conducted under conditions of civic administration that make for speed and efficiencoy, allied with the greatst degree of public safety.

“During the last twenty-four I have had the beauties and the improvements of Auckland put before me oy friends who are proud of their city. To their credit it must be. said that they are not one-eyed, for in the same breath as they told cf the magnificent ferro-concrete wharf at Prince’s Street, costing three-quarters of a million, they expressed their disgust at the hopeless mass of buildings that do duty for a railway station. Ono could not imagine anything more out of touch with the trend of your civic development as your railway station. Some of the old galvanised iron buildings remind me of the back-country station in the west of Queensland, whore they get a “mixed” train twice a week. Fortunately for you Aucklanders, however, the railway station is hidden from sight behind the imposing Post Office buildings. Wo are worse off in Wellington, for threequarters of the cty’s population live on the hilts, from winch they get an uninterrupted view of the disreputable station buildings at Lambton. and Thomdon, with their overlapping system /of trains.. The railway station is the skeleton in Auckland's cupboard. Just how many skeletons there are I am not for the moment aware, for the charm of Queen Street, with its delightful shops and cafes, kept me from wandering far afield. “A person making his first visit to Auckland to-day gets three pleasing impressions to one bad one. The train deposits him at tli'o General Post Office the HkJilirf and the tramway terminal at one time. Queen Street will retain his interest and admiration for as long as he may care to stay. And there are those island platforms. The one bad impression is the railway station. Aucklanders are noted for their public spirit, as witness the war memorial subscription. Some day, they will evolve a means of bringing the right amount of influence to bear in the right quarter, an-d get a railway station as good as the Central, in Sydney, or Prince’s Bridge in Melbourne. The capacity and importance of the city r certainly deserve it.’’