FOR THE FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 91, 17 April 1923, Page 7

FOR THE FUTURE

LAYING OUT A POLICY

MUNICIPAL WORKS AND PROGRESS

IDEALS FOR A CITY .COUNCIL.

(By -'.'Plain Citizen.")

The people of Wellington are face to face with the - task of electing a new City Council; and they know now just what material they have to choose from. It would be well if the electors for their part remembered that the City Council is a permanent institution and j not an ephemeral affair which dies every two years and is bom afresh. It is true that a new council might include no member of an old one, and consist of men sworn to remodel the world. But obviously no council should bequeath to its successor, such a policy that the most drastic reformer could find nothing good in it; on the contrary, the ideal should be to leave such a programme of works in progress and projected that a solid and scarcely callengeable basis is laid for any successor. That feat can only be accomplished by a body of men. who think of to-day's needs in the light of to-mor-row's; who truly appreciate "the greatest good of the greatest number"—lhe greater number who are not yet citizens. It is not an easily reached ideal; but i evidence of its importance can be seen on all sides in every town. INHERITED BURDENS. Badly-planned streets that came into being because they served for to-day, and remain a< costly and dangerous liability, only to be got rid of at enormous expense; and congested areas that seem to bear a charmed life under the attacksof the slum-hater will serve as examples. It can be pleaded, on behalf of those who did the first planning—or failed to do it—that they could not bave foreseen the conditions of to-day. But the city's rulers tO-day cannot be excused for not having a wider vision; the evil is before their eyes, and visibly growing. Each day the remedy becomes more costly. It does not require a genius to foresee that before long there will be hardly any horse-drawn traffic in Wellington, that there is very little now; and that it is utterly false economy to continue using roads that can produce mud. With traffic wholly or nearly confined to rubber-tired vehicles, the superficial wear on street surfaces is so slight that the money once required for continual repairs' can be diverted to the formerly starved purpose of building good roads' from the bottom up. The time has come to grapple earnestly with this problem in Wellington and its suburbs. REVOLUTIONISED TRAFFIC. It does not require more than ordinary commonsense to see, also, that the rapid transport of to-day and the more rapid transport of to-morrow will require important modifications of the city street plan in many details. The fact has probably escaped general notice, but it is a fact, that the speeding-up of traffic, especially the heavier and slower classes, has greatly relieved the congestion in narrow streets; but it has only postponed the problem of widening the main thoroughfares. ' * . THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. One of the chief tasks of a City Council is to see that the citizens are comfortably disposed on the land under its jurisdiction. Good roads and transport will take them to and from their homes; but of equal importance is the locality and condition of those homes. Wellington is a, very difficult problem for the town-planner; and just as its folded surface and tangled contours would confound the' Roman road-maker's straight lihe method, so the steep faces and rare easy slopes bring formal plans of subdivision to nought. No cut-and-dried gar-den-village system can be economically or sensibly applied where there is so much more surface than acreage. Ideals must be set up and followed to the utmost; but the conditions in Wellington require that it shall be done, as the French say, "with management." SOME USEFUL SUGGESTIONS. The well-known need in this city foi a comprehensive and long-sighted policy for the control of future residential oc- [ cupation has been well emphasised in a circular letter to candidates issued recently by the Institute of Architects. The aame letter referred also to the need for a revision of the present building bylaws. TFie rules that now hamper progress in building- methods act also as a brake upon the relief of the housing problem, and a reform in this matter is one of ths most urgent matters to be dealt with by the city authorities. A broad and sensible policy dealing with the whole housing question will meet future needs, and in this case even more urgent present ones. ■