SYDNEY'S TRAFFIC PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1913, Page 2

SYDNEY'S TRAFFIC PROBLEM

TRACKLESS TRAMS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, 17th January. Sydney's street problem krows worse and worse each year. Between 5 and 6 o'clock any evening, when the city workers and merchants and office clerks are pouring out from every building pile the pavements at the tram sections are packed and jammed with people waiting to gefc home, while in the narrow streets, besides the string of trams, there, are hissing taxis, cabs, and lorries all jostling each other for every available inch of road space. It has been calculated that over 40,000 vehicles move al»out the city streets every day. Until Sydney has tubes it will always be a noisy, crowded dangerous city, with death lurking at every street corner. 1 But the day of tunnels i« far off. The latest idea is trackless trams. These are bowdlensed .tramcars with rubber tyres instead of flanged wheels, which rim Upon the road instead of upon rails. The current is obtained from an overhead wire by. means of a pole, as in the ordinary electric tram. The pole is so hinged that the tram can run on a wide course underneath the power wire. Two trial installations are to be put in at once. The value of the new system has yet to be demonstrated, but nothing could be much wore than the present system, and every innovation brings at the very least some hope of improvement.