STREET WIDENING

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 129, 4 June 1927, Page 11

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 latei notices referring to corner properties ii? 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 back on the southern- side only, is indicated by the frontage of a recently erected concrete-bulging on the corner of Ghuznee and- Marion streets.

Some surprise has-been expressed in connection with the announcement of tho intention "to devote no less • than 30ft of the 70ft to which Manners street is some day to bo widened to footpaths that so great a share of the width should be taken from the traffic ways, -but it is likely enough that Wellington will in a few years awake to the realisation that pedestrian traffic is ju:t as difficult to deal with as is motor and tram traffic. Vehicular and Jramw.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 as 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 th 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 1 illis street on one side and up Willis street on the other!

"Welli: footpaths are already too narrow for busy hour and special occasion traffic, and "Wellington is only just now embarking upon the six and se .-en story buildings phase, which will bring with it three, four, five times the footpath problem. '