WELLINGTON’S TRANSPORT PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 10

WELLINGTON’S TRANSPORT PROBLEMS

Pressure from the outlying suburbs is driving the Wellington City Council to consider its future policy of municipal transport. Hitherto it has been dominated by a strong tramway complex, and has given but lukewarm attention to developments elsewhere with other forms of transport such as petrol or trolly-buses. Ihe Mayor s remarks at the annual meeting of the Vogel town and Mornington Municipal Electors’' Association on Monday evening, however, indicates that the council’s attitude is veering in the direction of a bolder policy. “We have been dubious,” he said, whether to stick to trams or to take up the new things, but I think the balance of opinion is going to be for the new.” The difficulty would be the change-over from the old to the new. It is not as if the present tramway system and equipment were worn out and due for expensive overhaul and renewals. If that were the case it could, as Mr. Hislop says,, be scrapped to-morrow. The system has been kept in first-class condition, thanks to efficient management, and the substitution of another on anything like a comprehensive scale would undoubtedly involve a loss in discarded good material in addition to the expense of the new plant. Yet the problem has to be faced sooner or later, because the fixed tramway system imposes a serious inconvenience on other vehicles that, use the streets, and slows down the movement of traffic generally, this inconvenience will tend to increase, and eventually will compel the City Council to take steps to end it. Therefore, there is no force in the argument that because the present system is in first-class condition municipal transport reform should be deferred. On the same argument we should stop all maintenance work and run the system till it falls to pieces before buying a new one.