MANNERS STREET

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 124, 30 May 1927, Page 10

MANNERS STREET

WIDENING TO 70 FEET

80 FEET AWKWARD AND EXPENSIVE -

Some weeks ago it was decided by resolution of the City Council that Manners street should be widened to 80 feet, that is, the building line Was'to* be set back on - the iiouthern side by approximately thirty feet, the present street width being 49ft 6in. This decision has now been amended, and the widening will be to 70 feet instead of eighty. A "Post" reporter who inquired the reason for the change, which Was adopted by the council without comment was told by the Mayor that from a traffic point of view no great advantage would follow from an 80ft street as compared with the facilities which would be given by 70 feet. Modern practice, said Mr. Troup, was to widen streets in which trams run by jumps i of 20 feet. A 70ft street would give a central tramway reservation of-20 feet two 10ft traffic tracks' and two 15ft footways. A 90ft roadway would give the same tramway reservation and footway space, but would allow for a double traffic width on either side of the tramlines, but an 83ft :roadway would give only one and a half traffic lanes on either side, thus not adding greatly to the capacity of the carriage" ways. ; . . • • . ■.-■•...' In view of the difficulty of cutting back certain of the property, areas. fronting Manners street, several of the sccti'ons already being fairly shallow, it was not considered economic to proceed with the widening to 80 feet, while tlrt same difficulty put the 90ft proposal out of court. The 70ft widening would obviously be considerably less expensive than the cutting back of- the building line to 80 feet. ■ , The resolution, Mr. Troup continued, did not mean that the widening would be commenced, at once. It was a means whereby the council had; safe-^ guarded the position, for as new buildings were erected the. frontages would be set back to the new alignment. The same procedure was being followed, in several of the move important city streets. ■ : ■'.•'.