TE ARO RAILWAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 79, 30 September 1910, Page 3

TE ARO RAILWAY.

GOVERNMENT URGED TO RETAIN IT. J MIRAMAR COUNCILS DECISION. The proposal that Te Aro railway line should be abolished is not appreciated by the Miramar Borough Council, for the council claims that the line, as it is now, will be an absolute necessity, and in the f utiuo of the utmost importance to the south end of Wellington. At last night's meeting of the Miramar Borough Council, the Mayor (Mr. J. Brodie) moved :—: — "That the Government be urged not only to retain the Te Aro railway station, as a public necessity of the first importance to South Wellington, but also to make adequate provision for tho prompt handling of goods there, as well as the future extension of the railway itself, v.-hich will most certainly be required in the not distant future to meet the needs of tho very considerable- population that will be located to the south of Te Aro." The Mayor said there were many good reasons why this matter should be* urged on the Government. One was the natural expansion that must come in Wellington South. He ventured to say that in the course of a few years the population of South Wellington would be between 60,000 and 80,000. It would also be the home of all the large industries. Even now the want of proper facilities for handling goods and passengers was acutely felt. At present there was only one avenue (Jervoisquay) through which the industrial trafiic of South Wellington passed. Unless wharves and railways were provided that portion of the city would be crippled. He objected to the system of centralisation, which was not always conducive to progress and created prohibitive values. A goods shed was urgently needed at Te Aro, and in a short while it would be necessary to extend the line to Newtown, Kilbirnie, and Island Bay. Not so many years would pass when Lyall Bay would be the point of departure for the ferry-boats linking tho two islands. The motion was seconded by Councillor M'Leod, who said he could not understand that any sensible man could propose to pull up the Te Aro railway line. He also thought that South Wellington would be a great manufacturing centre, and that the Mayor's suggestion re Lyall Bay as the point of departure for the inter-island ferry boats would, in the not distant future, be an accomplished fact. The motion was carried. DISCUSSION AT KILBIRNIE. At last night's meeting of Kilbirnie ratepayers an opinion was expresed that the To Aro railway line will ultimately have to come out to Kilbirnie — perhaps not for two or three decades, but the rapidly-growing requirements of the suburb would render the step necesfaary. Disapproval of the Government's decision that timber should not be brought from Thorndon station and delivered at To Aro by rail, was expressed, and the meeting; decided to ask the Miramar Borough Council to co-operate with —c ratepayers in representing the inconvenience then caused.