PUBLIC SAFETY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 133, 2 December 1926, Page 13

PUBLIC SAFETY

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —If the Mayor had attended the .Kent terrace inquiry ho would not havo made tho statements attributed to him in your Monday's issue, where he is reported as saying:— I may say tho inquiry also revealed that the Public Works engineers, tho Lands Department officers, police officers, tho traffic inspectors, and a high authority on town planning believed that the work was essential in tho interests of public safety. Surely writers and readers of the local Press are prepared ■to accept this'as an evidence that tho council's ruling was based on sound evidence. The Public Works. Department witness said that his Department was concerned only with tramway' clearances and not with traffic; and'consequently was unable to express an opinion, adding that none of tho officers of the Public Works Department could bo regarded as a traffic expert. The Lands Department was not represented at tho inquiry, and the letter from the Commissioner which was read, did not deal with tho council's proposals from tho point of view of public safety. Tho only police witness produced a list of twenty-three accidents reported to the police since Ist January, 1926, of which the witness had to admit only seven occurred in Kent terrace in the last ten months,' eleven in Cambridge terrace, and five, in the .vicinity of .Courtonay place. Ha also admitted, under crossexamination, that the proposals of the City Council to run south-bound traffic on tho west side ,of the north-bound trams would' be more dangerous titan the present system. The City Council's own city traffic inspector (the only traffic inspector who gave evidence at tho inquiry) said he did not think the now strip of road would be used for vehicles; but though it might bo used for n footpath 15 feet 6 inches wicfe.

The Director of Town Planning, under cross-examination, mentioned, in spito of the persuasivo eloquence of tho city advocate, that the council's traffic proposal as submitted,to the inquiry was a most dangerous one. Tho Mayor is reported as saying:— As tho distance.between tho tram line and tho footpath is 15 feet, there is really not nearly ns much danger as exists in. Molesworth street, and quite a number of other streets where the same, circumstance . prevails. If tho driver of a vehicle were to do in Moleswortli street, what the City Council's proposal provides for his doing in Kent terrace, will tho Mayor state what fine would he have to pay when prosecuted by the City Council's traffic inspector under1 the Police Offences Act, section 4, clause "C," for not observing thc'rulo of tlio road? Does the Mayor seriously suggest that the council .would create conditions in Kent terrace such as exist in Molesworth street, and some other parts of the city, when there is ample room in such a wide double thoroughfare as Kent and Cambridge terraces to avoid such undesirable, and dangerous conditions? Is it not a fact that the council is spending a good deal of money in making alterations in several parts of the city to get rid of the saino intolerable . conditions . that the ' Mayor proposes to create in Kent terrace? —I am, etc., ONE WHO DID ATTEND THE INQUIRY. '30th November.