TRAFFIC CONGESTION

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 173, 19 April 1937, Page 5

TRAFFIC CONGESTION

Growing Problem at Lower Hutt PARKING IN HIGH STREET Traffic control in High Street, Lower Hutt, is going to present a problem in the very near future. With the evergrowing population in the district the nunilier of vehicles going into the town increases with a correspondingly rapid rate. Already the position is such I hat during exceptionally busy periods congestion becomes acute. Tiie Lower Hutt Borough Council realises the position that it has to face; this was manifest by comments at the last meeting of the council. There is no doubt that definite action will be necessary before long to relieve the situation. There is a growing body of opinion against the existing state of affairs. .Several local residents in the course of conversation with “The Dominion" recently have given it as their opinion that it was every bit as difficult to drive through High Street on a Friday night as it was to drive through the worst of Wellington's thoroughfares. Two people delinitcly contended that it was worse, and called for greater vigilance on the part of the motorist. One resident critieised the way motorlorries and delivery vans were frequently slopped well out in the roadway on the outside of another vehicle parked near the curb. “These big, heavily-laden lorries badly parked often leave only room for one wav trnllie.” he declared. He also commented on the way many motorists parked two feet mid more away from the kerb, an all too common practice that tended toward more serious congestion.

The provision of parking areas away from tile main thoroughfares is a problem to be faced. As was pointed out on Saturday, people coining into Lower Hutt will have to be educated into parking their vehicles elsewhere than in High Street, where there is only very limited aceomniodation. Motorists taking their ears into Wellington invariably were forced to park some distance from the area they wished to visit. The same, it was claimed, must, in time apply to Lower Hutt. High Street was too narrow to permit of diagonal parking, and this was n factor that made the problem more acute.