BUS TO KELBURN

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 3, 5 January 1926, Page 8

BUS TO KELBURN

BY ROUND-ABOUT ROUTE

EESIDENTB DO NOT LIKE BOWEN STBBET.

It is probable that the Corporation bus service to Kelburn will be inaugurated within a week or ten days, the route being from Bowen street via Wellington terrace, Mount street, Salamanca road, Kelburn parade, Upland road to Baroa road, terminating at Fairview crescent. The sections are to be: (1) Bowen street to the junction of Salamanca road and Kelburn .parade; (2) Salamanca road to Fairview crescent. The fares will be threepence per section (fourpence per trip by concession ticket), children one penny per section. No workers or school tickets are to be available.

It docs not appear that the route decided upon for the service to Upper Kelburn is hailed with any vast enthusiasm by residents of the district, who, in fact, express themselves as distinctly disappointed. To bring a bus from Kelburn down Salamanca road and Mount street and from there right along The Terrace to Bowen street, they maintain, is a very roundabout business, and when passengers have arrived at the junction of Bowen street and Lambton quay they still must either walk or tram for a considerable' distance to business or to shopping in the centre of the city. Further, they maintain, the fares proposed are such that bus travelling on any but bad days will be unpopular, though it is recognised that low fares and hill travelling do not go together happily as a rule.

An arrangement has been made, it was remarked, by which passengers reaching the Thorndon tram terminus by trackless car from Kaiwarra maycontinue their journeys by tram upon tho tame ticket, and it was suggested that such an arrangement might commend itself to the council in respect of the bus if it is to run to Bo wen street, otherwise it would simply mean that the fare from the Kelburn terminus to most business places in the city would not be sixpence, or fourpence by card, but sixpence, or fourpence, plus a tram fare, which would certainly reduce the' patronfcge of the bus considerably. Upon paper the more convenient run from Salamanca road and Mount street, would be via the southern length of the Terrace and Ghuznee street, but between Mount and Ghuznee streets there is a rather severe | grade which does not show on paper; j that route is still a p> liblc route. BABOA BOAD STILL WANTED. Many of the residents of. Kelburn, Taitville, and Mitchelltown contend that no really satisfactory service will be given until the Baroa road route is opened up. Apparently there is very little prospect of a tramway service over that route in the near future, notj withstanding that the, construction of a tramway waß authorised by the ratepayers in 1920, but that should not, they argue, hold up road improvements —also authorised in 1920 — which would render possible a bus service via Baroa road and Aro street. That suggestion does not appear to be a popular one with the city authorities.

Even were Raroa road opened to bus traffic, by grade improvements and the cutting back of bad corners, it would still not be possible to give a direct, bus service to the shopping and business centre, for Willis street is by bylaw closed to bus traffic; so also is Cuba street, and the machines could only reach the business centre by running across Te Aro fiat to Taranaki street before turning northwards to Post Office square, or thereabouts. That same prohibition of bus traffic in Willis and Cuba street would not enable the department to give a direct service to the mid-city area even if the buses ran via Ghuznee street instead of northwards along the_ Terrace. Whichever way the service is tackled there are difficulties.