NEW TRAM TRACKS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 7

NEW TRAM TRACKS

IMPROVING THORNDON QUAY.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.

A commencement of the duplication of the Thorndon quay .tram tracks is tobe made on Monday morning, the existing lines, now past their prime these several years, to be relaid as well as^upliI cated. Following upon the completion ; of the track work the quay will be given i a bituminous paving similar to the Hutt road surface, a, work for nest summer apparently. Ultimately, though no decision has yet been reached upon the point, the quay may be straightened out considerably over part of its length, which realignment will mean that the tramway track work and paving at present planned will in part have to come up again, but as the straightening out, like the carrying out of the 80ft widening scheme in. its entirety, is not likely to be brought about for perhaps ten or fifteen years, the new work put in to-day will then have just about served its efficient life.. It lias been estimated that the present ■ cost of straightening Thorndon quay in" its most awkward length would be about £100,000 or £120,000, an expenditure, say those who are opposed to the work being undertaken at present, which the city is not in a position to face just now, or for several years to come. Lower Tinakori road and Molesworth. street, at present used quite as much by motorists coming into town from the direction of Petone as Thorndon quay, will, when the quay is at long last put in good order, lose. a very great deal of the fast motor traffic* which they carry at present, and probably enough will not even serve as a- by-pass way to or from the Hutt road since both are narrow, and are stiffly graded, both going and coming :p town. Estimates were some time a s o prepared for ,tha widening of the Molesworth street.road surface (which, by the way, is the one concrete foundation, tar macadam surface, street.in the city) by the setting back of the footpath Hue, but the work has not yet been commenced. In view of the fact that an 80-foot Thorudou quay properly surfaced will rob Molesworth street of much of the traffic it carries at present, the widening may not be so urgent a'work, but the fact" that Hutt road traffic will follow Thorndon quay makes only slightly easier the dif- ■ ficulties which face tho driver who must take Moleswort'i street to reach his destination.