A BLIND END

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 108, 9 May 1930, Page 8

A BLIND END

IIUTT DOUBLE LINE ,

WHY DO -PLANS HALT?

(By "Practical.")

"When, tho policy of extending the Wellington-Petono-Hutt ' double track railway across the Hutt Biver, bo as to tap the populous side of that river, was initiated, no one believed that tho railway would stop at Waterloo road. To leave the double railway with a blind end on the busy side of the valley,, aud to peddle along with the old. single-track railway on the restricted and less populated western side of the river, was a possibility that was not entertained when the policy was framed. That policy clearly foresaw extension of tho double railway not only,* through Ava and Woburn to Waterloo, but northward through Taita and the Tait*-Silverstream Gorge to Silverstream, where the two routes (that of the old single line and the new double line) would como together, facilitating' the duplicating of. the whole Hutt suburban system right through' to Upper Hutt. But instead of development along those lines one sees the double railway-still'halted at Waterloo road. It has been truncated and given a blind end. Why has the plan thus failed to function? The reason generally given for this halt has been that the obstacle is prices of land. The Woburn-Waterloo section of the railway hinged upon, land-purchase options that were low: enough in price to enable (1) building of a double railway; (2) subdivision of tho land by auction of residence .sites, by allocation of workers' homo sites, and by sale for industrial purposes; (3) subdivision on lines of public convenience and community-benefit far superior to the average private subdivision; and (4) realisation of a profit approaching £150,000, which will presumably go to, the Department of Railways as betterment. To explain or excuse delay :n pushing the railway northward from Waterloo road, it has been said, or suggested, that the market gardeners and others were asking prices that would render it impossible for tho Government to build the railway, to make suitable subdivision, to settle people on the land on a reasonable cost basis, and make the whole scheme pay_. In contradiction of this, it is said on good authority that options have been secured and that a price.-basis has been reached that will enable the railway to bo built, and that will facilitate much. small-holding settlement. It is'said, moreover, that tho scheme will not only, pay its way, but will pay handsomely, after the manner of the practically completed subdivision south of Waterloo road.

A responsible committee lias inves* tigated tho options and the whole- economic basis of the northwajd continuation of the railway, and it is understood that its report is in the Government's hands. If that is so, tho silence of the responsible Minister on the subject is becoming somewhat difficult to understand. If the committee has been able to get down to actualities and to make constructive recommendations, the matter is one of prime public importance. But from official sources the public know nothing. Is it not time that the Minister took tho public into his confidence? From the standpoints of a small-hold-ing settlement that may soften tho annual blow of seasonal unemployment, of general development of the largest remaining area of land level with the Capital City, and of railway duplication, to the Hutt suburban limit, nothing is more- important to Greater "Wellington, The Government should have the courage to, say yea or nay to a scheme vhich, it is said, has passed all preliminaries a,nd is now only halted by the taiho.i atmosphere of a Ministerial apartment.

If the Minister does not emerge from his burrow,'the local authorities, ■without committing themselves to a decision for or against a plan the "details of which are little known, might hfWe to consider the necessity of taking me** sures to dig him out.