USE OF NEW TUNNEL

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 288, 1 September 1931, Page 8

USE OF NEW TUNNEL

Lighting Experiments BUS SERVICE FAVOURED As there will be none too much room to spare with two lines of traffic operating in the new Mount Victoria tunnel, it is intended to light it well enough to obviate drivers of motor vehicles switching on their own headlamps when making the passage and so creating glare trouble. Driving out of bright sunshine into a poorly-lighted tunnel would cause every driver at once to switch on his lamps as a safety precaution; while driving out of darkness into a tunnel so lighted might have the opposite effect upon a driver. It is the contrast in the intensity of light which makes the difference. On that account the new tunnel may have th be more brilliantly lighted by day than during the night. This matter Is among those claiming the attention of the officers of the city engineer’s department ’at the present time. It will call for a good deal of adjustment as to the number of lamps and their power before the tunnel lighting is finally decided upon. The work of flooring the tunnel in concrete, with provision for the laying of tramway tracks later, will be put. in hand this month. The task of installing the electric fans which are to control the ingress of fresh air and the egress of foul air, by way of the two ventilating shafts, is now An hand, so that as soon as the flooring is down the tunnel should be made available for general traffic. The question as to whether the municipality will run motor-buses through the tunnel has yet to be decided. If the council initiates such a service it will compete with the tramways running rta Hataitai and Crawford Road, but it is regarded as certain that a demand for such a service will be made by residents of the eastern suburbs as soon as the tunnel is opened for traffic. Many people living in the suburbs mentioned are opposed to further tramway extensions on the grounds that electric trams are slow and the capital cost of extensions is very heavy, and they therefore favour a faster and more mobile form of transport.