A SEARCH FOR A POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 142, 19 June 1922, Page 6

A SEARCH FOR A POLICY

A reopening of the Raroa-road question is recommended by the Tramways Investigating Committee, in the following paragraph of its recent report:

Shorter route to Karori.—The committee considers this matter one calling for a great deal of consideration, involving a. review of the whole question of a better route to Karori. The committee and departmental officers are by no means unanimous on the Raroa-road proposal. It recommends the council to authorise a • further general examination of the subject before a final decision is made.

It is to be hoped that the "further general examination" will result in a report making public the issues and the central facts. One question that should be answered is whether the proposal to construct Haroa-road can stand on its own merits as a road proposal, or whether it heeds a tramway in order to justify itself as a desirable artery of Communication. Considered as a road alone, the claim of the proposal appears to be that it provides better communication between the Northland-Karori section of Wellington and the Te Aro-Wel-lington South section. The respective populations, it is claimed, are big enough to need load connection with better grades and curves than the present connection offers ; and arterial communication of these higher suburbs with the central, southern, and south-eastern city is no longer to be neglected,-, since the interest of the suburbs is not confined to Lambton-quay.

Whether this road claim will stand if a tramway is hot provided, and whether the route offers sufficient inducements to incur a considerable expenditure on a tramway, ate the two main questions outstanding. Councillor Luckie argues that, from the tramway point of view, the work on Earoaroad would be expensive, that difficult grades and curves would remain, and that the route would not be the shortest route to Karori. He favours the Upland-road route to the Kelburn cable tramway—which would certainly appear, to be the shortest way to Lalnbton-quay. Other City Councillors seem to fear that, if the existing proposal is disturbed, the quarrelling districts may get less or nil. A " further general examination " would result in a public benefit if it made clear the quality and quantity of the un^ improved building land affected by the Earoa-road work. Councillor Chapman's plea for betterment has justice behind it, and if a workable scheme of levying on betterment, so as to obtain contribution to the cost of public works, could be adopted and applied all round, developmental communications would no doubt be of higher efficiency than they are to-day. The incidence and scope of a betterment tax provide, however, a complex calculation. The construction of a tramway is generally a betterhient to property, but is not the reduction of a tramway fare equally a betterment ?