SAFETY ZONES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 2, 2 July 1929, Page 10

SAFETY ZONES

SOME DANGER. POINTS

HIGHER CROSSING SPEEDS

Three or four years ago Wellington talked a good deal of tho need for safety zones in city streets, and then decided that the busier streets wero too narrow to permit of them, and that to build up platforms for pedestrians in the roadway would increase the danger instead of reducing it. There arc, it was suggested to a "Post" reporter to-day, threo places which might reasonably bo considered by the council: Courtenay place, the junction of Wakeflold, Victoria, and Mercer streets, and the junction of Lower Tarauaki street, Jcrvois quay, and Wakefield street. The installation of the coloured light system at Courtenay place has given pedestrians a much easier crossing than they had when pointsmen waved on cars and lorries and paid no attention to people on foot, and there is some consideration for pedestrians at the Lower Taranaki street crossing, but at the library corner they have to take their chances, and guess which way drivers intend to turn. At each of these threo very busy crossings, it was remarked, there is ample room for the placing of sufficiently largo islands to give women with children a better chance, and the islands would at the same time divide the Hues of traffic and make tho crossing safer in that way. As there is a tendency on the part of drivers, now that tho old crossing bylaws have apparently been forgotten, in the face jnf the 15 miles per hour intersection speed under the motor regulations, to drive over such points at considerably higher speed, it was argued that safety zones or something of the kind, are all the more necessary. Two other danger-points were mentioned—Lambton square and the point where Grey street enters: Post Office square. Standing trams block the view badly in front of Lambton station, and a majority of drivers hold to their rights of'getting past the station as fast as seems reasonable to them. It is seldom that this area sees a traffic officer, but good fortune stays with the crowds who hurry over the roadway between the trains and the trams in the morning and afternoon rushes. The danger at the end of Grey street is that the view is blocked by trams standing almost on the corner, an arrangement highly convenient to the Tramways Department, but not so to others moving about there.