STREET WIDENING

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 128, 3 June 1927, Page 8

STREET WIDENING

FOOTPATHS AND COMING TRAFFIC

From time to time brief notices appear in the "Gazette" announcing the taking of small areas of land about the city for street widening purposes two of the later notices referring to corner properties in Ghuznee street which .is one of several streets in Te Aro Flat which is to be increased in width to accommodate the traffic that is coming. The new street line, to be set _ baclc on the southern side only, is indicated by the frontage of a recently erected concrete building on tho corner of Ghuznee and. Marion streets. Some surprise has been expressed in connection with the announcement of the intention to devo.te no less than 30ft of tho 70ft to which Manners street is some day to be widened to footpaths that so great a share of tho width should be taken from the traffic ways, but it is likely enough that Wellington will in a few, years awako to the realisation that pedestrian traffic is juit as difficult,to deal: with aa j g motor and tram traffic. Vehicular and tramw..y traffic can, by regulation or by force of convenience to the driver, be sent along back streets, but no regulation nor persuasian will tell against the pedestrian who is used to using a certain street in his own particular way. It is a recognised fact that aa a city doubles in population its traffic increases four or fivefold, and, though it will probably.be a' good many years before Wellington's population reaches the 200,000 mark, it will not be long before present footways along, its shopping streets are overcrowded during most of the hours of the day. Already during the rush hours there is a considerable overflow of pedestrians to tin roadway, and for the pedestrian there is no back street, none that he will use, anyway. Vehicular traffic can be dictated to in the matter of one-way routes, but imagine the outcry that would follow immediately upon an announcement that strollers, shoppers, and people in a hurry should walk down <rillis street on one side and up Willis street on t'le other! Welli-.jton footpaths are ..heady too narrow for busy hour and special occasion traffic, and Wellington is only just now embarking upon the tix and se^en story buildings phase, which will bring with it-three, four, five times the footpath problem.