WAKEFIELD STREET

Evening Post, Volume 50, Issue 50, 27 August 1926, Page 9

WAKEFIELD STREET

NO CARS YET.

Quito a few people must have asked themselves, and others, the question why tramcars have not commenced running over the new tracks in Wakefield street, between Clyde quay and Cuba street, and thence on via Jervois quay, so relieving congestion in Courtonay place, Willis and Manners streets and Lambton quay. The tracks themselves have been completed for some weeks now, but permission to commence the running of cars has been refused the Tramways Department by the Public Works Department on the ground that the roadway on either side is not built up to the track level, and that consequently there is a risk of accident to vehicular traffic. Apparently that means that no cars will run over the new length until Wakefield street is jroved, some time next month, if all gooiT well with the weather.

The same point was raised in connection with the Wallace street extension, the Public Works Department, which exercises a general supervision over all tramway undertakings, whether track work or tunnels, raising strong objection to the commencement of the service before the final touches were given to the roadway.

Fortunately for the Tramways Department, the Public Works Department does not put its foot down so definitely when a roadway on either gido of an accepted tram track is excavated to almost precisely the present state of Wakefiold street in preparation for paving, otherwise Wellington's tramway services would have been sadly dislocated during the past two or three paving seasons. Wakefield street will receive its bitumen surface early in the season, and Clyde quay square, the last of the dust factories in the city area, has already been prepared for treatment.

Hunter street is also in the hands of the preparation crew, and will be another of the early lengths of the paving year. Presumably the Public Works' policy as to the commencement of tram services will apply also to Hunter street.