BRIGHTER FUTURE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 287, 31 August 1935, Page 24

BRIGHTER FUTURE

Plimmerton as Seaside Resort CUTTING OUT DISTANCE Witli Mie letting of the contract for the erection of a traffic bridge at Paremata a new vista opens out for I’liinmerton, a seaside resort which has not. progressed co-equally with its

merits since the war. -At one time Plimmerton enjoyed wonderful popularity as a holiday resort. Of more recent years, since the advent of the motor-car, the place has not flourished noticeably. That long drive round ’he I’nbautanui reach of the Porirua Harbour and then the narrow high-cam-bered road, which does not always allow for the passing of another car, scarcely appealed to motorists, who preferred keeping to the highway and continuing on over the hill to Paekakariki, while the developments at Waikanae, Paraparaumu and Otaki stole some of Plimmerton’s beach-bathing thunder.

But a change is coming. After some ten years’ talk the Hutt. County Council was induced at last to appeal to Caesar (the people in the case), and Caesar spoke out in uncompromising terms.’ A loan was sanctioned; plans were drawn by t*he Public Works Department; road lands on the Plimmerton side were given and duly dedicated by generous owners; and, finally, a contract has been let for the construction of the bridge. This bridge will reduce the road distance from Paremata (or Wellington, for that matter) to Plimmerton by about 61 miles. Not the whole of that distance is gained, as the distance from the take-off of the new bridge at Paramata to, say, half-way along Steyne Avenue, is perhaps a little over a mile. This is going to beckon motorists to Plimmerton in a way that has never occurred to anyone iii the past. So far as road traffic is concerned, the motorist has never been invited to visit the place. Usually he has sped past the road junction where the Plimmerton road branches off the main highway (a little to the north of Pahautanui) before the road or the mean little sign which announces its existence has been noticed. But if the motorist knows his way he has at present to follow a one car road, with a hump back, cross two or three old wooden bridges at nasty angles, and then climb a stiff roughly-metalled hill before be reaches this pretty seaside resort.

A year hence all that will be changed —possibly less than that. Motorists will then be able to carry straight on from Paremata over the new concrete bridge, which is to be erected inside and close- to the existing railway bridge; and, in two or three minutes, will arrive at Plimmerton by a perfectly level and permanently-surfaced road. Steyne Avenue is already being prepared for ■ the new era, • Not only is Plimmerton to be catered for by better and shorter road access, but before the end of 1936 it is hoped that electrified trains will be travelling from Wellington to that resort by. way of the new tunnels between the Hutt Road and Tawa Flat. These tunnels are already in use, for goods trains, but it will be over a year before the complete electrification of the service is effected. That milestone in progress will effect a reduction in the train time between Wellington and Plimmerton and vice-versa to 28 minutes.