CITY HIGHWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 129, 28 November 1923, Page 9

CITY HIGHWAYS

NORTH, SOUTH; EAST/AND WEST

"NO BOXING OF THE COMPASS"

ROADS AND THE TUNNEL.

The suggestion made by Mr. A. E. Batt, while addressing the Civic League on Thursday night, that the Acting-City Engineer had "boxed the compass" in regard to the building of main highways through the city was not soundly founded, stated the Mayor, Mr. R. A. Wright, M.P., to a "Post", reporter this morning. Mr. Paterson had not boxed the compass, nor had the suggestion made by him. and approved by the councilj for the driving of a road from east to west, had the effect.of relegating to the late Mr. W. H. Morton's plans for a main north and south road to the pigeon holes of oblivion. To those who closely followed City Council affairs it was patent enough that the norlh-»outh main highway had not been lost sight of, and that the suggested "Appian Way," as ; it had been styled, was in addition to, and not in substitution for, the late Mr. Morton's general plan for providing better .communication from one .section of the city to another. The resolution adopted by the City Council a little over a month ago in regard to the widening to 66ft of Buckle, Arthur, Aro, Ghuznee, and Taranaki etreets should surely have been understood to mean that Taranaki street in its new form, probably many years ahead, would be the main north-south road, just as Buckle and Arthur streets, Tonka grove, and Aro street, when widened to 66 feet width, again probably many years ahead, when the need would be more urgently apparent, would form a main east-west thoroughfare. A FUTURE WORK. '• There appeared to be an impression that the new east-west road would be built almost at once, as one part of the tunnel scheme, as it were, but that was not so, any more than it was that Taranaki street, the destined main northsouth highway, -would be widened to 66 feet within the next month or two months or two years. If the council was to carry out streetwidening, as proposed by the resolution adopted, that is the opening out to 66 feet of Buckle, Arthur, Aro, Ghuznee and Taranaki streets, in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act and the Wellington City Empowering Act, then those streets could be widened only step by step. The Act provided that the land necessary to allow of the widening could be ted to the Corporation only when it stood clear of buildings, and nothing but the passage of time, with rebuildings and the demolition of buildings by fire, would bring about that state of affairs, which made the widening financially possible. If of course, Te Aro flat went np in smoke in one tremendous blaze, then the streets named would be widened at once, but that was not in the least likely. ■ . WHY NOT NOW? ... . .... As time went on the need of wider Btreets, both north and south and east and west, would become-pleasingly urgent, and the year would come, when the City Council in. power would necessarily arrive at a decision to throw back the frontages along the full; street length; even though there still 'remained some buildings upon the old line, in respect of which- buildings compensation additional to that for the land actually required would have to be paid. It might be contended that the widening should take place immediately, bufc the enormous cost oE such a programme placed an absolute prohibition upon it, whereas the City Municipal Corporations Empowering Acts enabled a middle course to be sti-V'c—the programme would be gradually carried out as ■ time went by at a minimum coßt to ratepayers. Put shelly, the position was that if the council undertook an immediate widening of the streets listed it would have to pay for buildings as well as land,- but if it waited it would pay—that is, ratepayers would pay—for the strip of land required only. ■ . ■ A FINANCIAL IMPOSSIBILITY. Many'schemes had been drawn up for the making of a north and south road, One, for instance, had been for a road which would lead oS to the south from Courtenay place at practically the point where His Majesty's Theatre now stands, and would arrive through. the crowded Te Aro area to abut upon Mount Cook. Had it been possible to carry that scheme out, Wellington would have been almost a new city as regard* traffic communications, and. furtherwore, that fine roadway would have been planned on lines of beauty as well a» of utility, and would have made of the Mount Cook hill something very much more than it is to-day, but the cost had ruled it out as iV possible, the estimates ■ varying from hau a million to a million pounds, with the likelihood that the million-pound estimate would not be too great a sura NORTH-SOUTH ROAD PLANNED. Taranaki street would in future years become a north-south highway such as the late City Engineer had advocated, but its utility as such was again largely dependent upon the state of Wallace street as a traffic thoroughfare. At the present time the City Council was reconsidering the plans for the tram track extension from Wallace to John street in order that the traffic-killing pinch in Wallace street might be avoided, and with ona section of that street ewung away to avoid the steep grade the north-south road to relieve Kent and Cambridge terraces and Adelaide road as far as John street would be practically provided for. No other north-south roads were possible by reason of the configuration of the land, but that natural bar to additional main thoroughfares did not operate in regard to east and west roads across Te Aro Flat. Thanks, however, to the original bad layout of the city, but one east and west thoroughfare had been given the city south of Courtenay place and Manners street, Vivian street, and such was the subdivision of the city town acres, and the nature and location of buildings in the flat, that a roadway parallel to Vivian street was now economically possible in one line only, Ellice, Buckle, Arthur, and on to Aro street. WESTERN SUBURBS ALSO. The need of an east-west thoroughfare had long been recognised, and the council, under Sir John Luke, had adopted a scheme to widen Vivian street, and so make it fit for the great volume of traffic it must—and already does—bear from east to west and vice versa, that scheme] being bound up with the widening of Upper Willis street as well. . The Vivian street plan had now, however, been abandoned, as the council and officers had considered the other scheme a better one. An east-west highway must be provided for, for thel time would very shortly come when heavy lorry traffic

would have to be kept out of the congested city streets. Manners street could never be widened for two reasons : Ijirst, the city could not afford to do the work; and secondly, so narrow were Manners street sections that any catting back of their frontage would take away tremendously from their utility, (jrhuznue street at one tilne offered Ja good route, but.t,he way was now blocked, the Abel Smith street line would mean a vast expenditure, and the council had decided that the Buckle street line offered the most natural and most economical east-west road. Tunnel or no tunnel, such a means of communication from side to side of the whole city would have to come, and, ■moreover the steady growing western suburbs, Brooklyn, Vogeltown, etc., must be considered- m the planning of main thoroughfares. There was the broad plan for the future as adopted by the council.