ANOTHER POINTSMAN

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 54, 12 September 1928, Page 13

ANOTHER POINTSMAN

AT TAEANAKI STREET WALKERS STEP LIVELY The City Council has decided to placo a traffic officer on full-time points duty at the intersection of Taranaki street and Manners street, which has for a long time been recognised as a danger point and over which steadily-increas-ing traffic passes. Full-time day traffic control, 8 a.m. to 6 ] n., is now given at the Lambton quay-Willis street corner, the intersections of Willis and Manners streets, and Manners and Cuba streets, at Courtenay place, and at the Queen's Wharf gates, and'part-time control, during the evening rush hours particularly, at the Taranaki-Wakofield street intersection and at John street. Of these four are under police control, ro that traffic supervision, until recently in Wellington regarded as a job solely for the Police Department, is now shared half and half. Christchurch and Auckland

have taken over the whole of their traffic supervision, 110 doubt for financial reasons. Some months ago the council agreed to the installation, by way of a test, of an automatic control device at the Manners-Cuba street intersection, the signals to bo given by means of coloured lights, yellow, green, and red, on a system widely adopted overseas, but nothing further has been done as far as that corner is concerned. Though the crossing is at first sight quite suitable for this style of control, being practically a right-angled intersection, difficulI tics showed up when the locality was 1 iked into, and the company which proposed to make tho test withdrew its proposal. The trouble appears: to be that though tho light system could bo mado to operate successfully with motor traffic, by cutting out the righthand turn (and apparently this is done in American cities, only there, on account of the drivo-to-thc-right rule, it is the left-hand turn that is barred) but could not be applied, as trams must make this turn, and there cannot be one rule for cars and another for trams. It is possible that some adaptation of this system may be applied at Courtenay place, and that suggestion is being ing inquired into at the present time. NO CONTROL FOR THE WALKER. ■ Though more pointsmen are being appointed to control street traffic, the poor old pedestrian does not receive, any more consideration than he did quite a few years ago. Neither policeman nor traffic officers at intersections arc concerned with him, or her, and the several children who may, and frequently are, with her, for their job is to see that cars, lorries, and trams get past with the least possible delay. The pedestrian waits until a chance appears to bo opening up and manages somehow. Fortunately, very few accidents do happen, which is really rather remarkable. As a matter of fact, so long have Wellington walkers pleased themselves and managed without direction from points control officers that on the few occasions that an effort is made to control pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic, as at John street when a big football crowd is getting away, the pointsman is asked what he means by interfering when a man walks across a road as he has a perfect right to do. The question is generally expressed in much more picturesque fashion than that. NO ONE MINDS. There is a hopeless out-of-duto bylaw which says that pedestrians must cross the roadway only where cross-ing-places arc sot out, but no one has ever taken that rnlo even seriously enough to treat is as a joke, and in any case thcro are no crossing-place markings on the streets to-day. Two or three times white lines have been

painted, and have made a bravo show of it, for a few days, sometimes lasting even weeks, but they havo never worried anyone very much, for never lias the rule which they suggest been backed up by a traffic man to see that it is observed. Observing that paint lines cannot stand up to traffic wear, tho council quite a long time ago gave authority for the purchase of a special form of stud to be let into tho roadway and to stand up to any amount of wear, guiding the pedestrian all the time. Small porcelain studs were tried, and thero are some still to bo found at the Manners-Cuba street intersection, if one really looks for them, but their effect on the pedestrian's mind and feet was, and still is, precisely nil. It was then decided to try out a much larger steel dome, with a central tooth to be driven hard into the street surface. None of these have so far made their appearance. Their cost would probably be considerable, but it is doubtful whether they would be one whit more effective than painted lines, unless the walking public was trained by traffic officers to walk with;u the marked crossing-places. The worst of the danger-spots to the pedestrian are probably the square in front of Lambton station when morning trains conio in, tho main wharf

Tost" photo.

gates, the Willis, Boulcott, and Manners street junction, the Manners and Cuba street crossing, Taranaki and Manners street* and Courtenay place. Tho crossing of Willis street at any point is bad enough for a limber person, and ten minutes' hard work, maybe, for a woman with children. Still another risky point is tho newly-cro-atod open space in front of the Central Library. Bocauso the pedestrian is anything but amenable to direction, the control of foot traffic is always difficult, but some measure of supervision over and above vehicular traffic becomes steadily more necessary.