TRANSPORT LINKS WITH MANAWATU

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 133, 7 June 1919, Page 4

TRANSPORT LINKS WITH MANAWATU

Following on Mr. Hiley's statement that "the Wellington-Johnsonville-Pae-kakariki line could not remain any longer with its present means as a portion of the Main (Trunk) line," Mr. W. H. Field, M.P. for Otaki, has published certain views and speculations about road and railway communications between Wellington and. the coastal plain that begins at Paekakariki. Mr. Field's opinions are interesting, and even those who may not endorse them will / probably rejoice to find a member of Parliament who is prepared to propound original ideas on a subject so vital to the public interest. If we correctly understand Mr. Field, he declares the Paekakariki Hill road to be practically incapable of being converted into.,tt'firstclass motor highway. Therefore he proposes, for temporary purposes, to males on it improvements of a tentative and palliative kind; .and to divert motor traffic,' as soon as possible, to one of two alternative routes : (a) the railway route; (b) an un-surveyed road^ine from Pahautanui to the coastal plain, over a moderate saddle that forms a noticeable feature of the landscape. Many people toiling up the Paekakariki rise (nearly 900 feet at its highest point) must have wondered why the road-pioneers rejected the saddle referred to, and preferred to follow the present precipitous course. But as observation with the naked eye is not conclusive in a matter of roadengineering, it is premature to say anything further on this phase of the subject until more exact information is forthcoming. Perhaps Mr. Field's promised inspection will throw some light on the matter.

The alternative suggested by Mr.. Field, a road along the railway line, is' better known. Where the railway crosses an arm of Porirua harbour, beyond Paremata, it does so in the same way las the Hutt railway crosses the Hutt beyond Hiyward's—i.e., by a single width railway bridge. In each case the road fails to, cross the water; and, in the case under review, road traffic, which up to Paremata runs parallel with the railway, is diverted in a wide sweep inland, via Pahautanui and the now notorious Paekakariki Hill. According to Mr. Field, if the road followed the railway, its maximum altitude would be 300 feet instead of nearly 900 feet,, and between Paremata and Paekakariki the distance would be four, miles shorter than it is via the present road. These advantages speak for themselves. Mr. Field apparently interprets Mr. Hiley to mean that the railway—which now runs on the level from Paremata to Plimmerton, climbs up to Pukerua, and then descends to Paekakariki through a series of short tunnels—will be deviated to beach level; in which case, argues Mi1. Field, the abandoned railway line, with its single-width tunnels, could be converted into a motor road. The practicability of the suggestion is of course a question for experts. But if a lowlevel railway route can be found between Paremata and Plimmerton and Paekakariki—whether via Pukerua or not—it then ibecomes a reasonable proposition to put through a low level road at the same time. The day has gone by when it,was conceded to be good policy for railways to drive roads off their beat. And that fact has double force when the alternative to. a road parallel with the railway is a road so steep and circuitous as the Paekakariki section of Wellington's "main artery" to the Manawatu plain.

We agree with Mr. Field that, as a section of a real national highway, the Paokakariki Hill road is impossible. It is true that the capacity, utilitarian and destructive, of motor traffic , has made the value of good roads greater than formerly; and that the anomalous position of road and railway communication botweon Paremata and Paekakariki can--aoti continue- As part o£ the Main

Trunk system, the railway is national as well as provincial in scope, and its improvement rests on no parochial considerations whatever. And the same may be said of the Rimutaka deviation and of the arteriaK roads with which both these railway projects are ultimately related. } "We hope that the approaching Conference of local authorities will deal with these subjects in a manner worthy of their national importance.