ACCESS TANGLES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 15, 19 January 1932, Page 8

ACCESS TANGLES

MANY SUGGESTIONS

SOME OF THE PROPOSALS

NO SOLUTION YET

Some fine day Wellington will have solved all its access problems,.some «f the suburbs will be satisfied, others will just have to put up with it, and the City Council will have years of rentfulness before it. But that fine day is not yet, by a long way.

Access has been Wellington's major worry for years past; all sorts of proposals have been put forward, some have been adopted, some commenced and left unfinished, and the most troublesome, and also the most needed, of all is in this last clasa, access to the west. - .

, The 1920 loan schedule, of £1,708,916, put before Wellington by a council in an expansive -mood, and accepted ■in toto by the ratepayers in an equally expansive ~ manner, proposed, .'to straighten out all access puzzles in one hit—improved access to Boseneath, a new road to Karori: via Barba road, trams to Kaiwarra, trams: to Melrose, trams to Karori and Northland, ; via Willis and Aro streets and Earoa road, and the new Mount Victoria tunnel,1 with a few city improvements also, in duplications, and new work: in the inner tramway system, some of which have been carried out and some not. So delightfully vague were the proposals and so general were the terms of the ballot paper that it was not till the ratepayers had approved the lot that they asked what they had voted for, and then nobody was sure about it. But it was a very famous victory.

ANCIENT HISTORY NOW.

For instance, what did "improved access to Eoseneath" mean? Some -were positive that it meant a lift, some more agreed with,that but disagreed oa the question of location, others were insistent that it meant trams uphill from Courtenay place and high above Orien-, tal Bay to Eoseneath. Eventually, of course, it meant the Carlton Gore road, and those who are not satisfied have given up complaining as of no avail. Earoa. road has always been a hazy proposition except to the, very few; great things were expected of it, but it is still of not great account, ; notwithstanding considerable . expenditure of loan and relief money. ■. ■ ' Trams to Kaiwarra were possibly never very seriously entertained,, and without a doubt in the world would have been a magnificently unprofitable undertaking. In their stead Kaiwarra people have their own and almost unique trackless car. It is highly unprofitable, but not magnificent. Trams to Melrose died with i% e folding of the ballot paper, and over trams to Karori and Northland via Aro street and Bafoa road there has been heartburning enough for the whole collection of problems. The ■ Northland tunnel is, of course, a part of this scheme, and now that the tunnel is a good; tunnel one may best regard it as such, without recalling in too great detail its sad pasti Of the Baroa road length of that proposal nothing is heard to-day, but it is seemingly agreed that it would be a disappointment,' far from as desirable as an Aro street, Norway street, and Horseshoe Bend tunnel, for instance.

The Mount Victoria tunnel,' figuring so splendidly on the 1920 loan sheet, hung fire for years because no one knew what was intended,, but to-day the tunnel is there, even if there are no tram.tracks' through it, nor money for them, nor a satisfactory approachfrom the city end. l

A MOST EXPENSIVE PUZZLE.

The minor access works—of first importance, of course, in their own districts—are either dropped or partially completed or amended out of sight from what were supposed to be the ideas of 19-0, the Mount Victoria tunnel is > a tunnel, but the western access problem is just as acute as,ever, and, unhappily in rather worse fix than before anything was done. About £70,000 has been spent in the hurried plan for a tram connection betweenLambton quay and Tinakori road via Bowen street, and now the Government has restated the position if took up; some years-ago, before.the expenditure of £70,000 was commenced. The Government says that it will- not 'permit' trams to run in Bowen street. ■ , •.'.''

Certainly that great expenditure has given benefits to the. city: the Bowen street corner is vastly improved, the erection of thecity 's war memorial has lifted the area from old-time dinginess to splendid dignity, the motor road through Sydney street is far better thin.it was, but £70,000 is a lot of money to spend without a penny of return in city savings. The City Council will not give'up the idea of trams by this costTy; route without a rare smuggle, but the council cannot move without _ Government sanction, move though'it did on special order authority in plage of the .ballot paper sanction for..gome, reason more acceptable to ratepayers. , - . •

PLENTY OF ALTERNATIVES.

If Bowen street is definitely closed against the council^ trams, then what are th<? alternatives,* say, after another ten or twelve years? There are plenty of them;-for here is-the little list which was before the Access Commission in 1928, and quite a few had been suggested before then or have been brought forward since:— .

1. Hill street and Tinakori road, road access and partly tramway access. 2. Cable car to Kelburn, thence by. road and tram.

3. AVidening and regrading of Hill street. ±q make provision for tramway access, .to .Tinakori road.

4.-Tunnel from the head of Sydney street- west under the northern end of Anderson Park to Tinakori road.

5.- Several variations of the Bowen street'route.

6. Tunnel from Mee's steps, Lambton quay;" under The Terrace and Bolton street cemetery to Tinakori road.

7. Duplication of the present Kelburn cable car.

8. A road from Boulcott street, near Plimmer's steps, by a tunnel under Wellington terrace and thence by a new road up a gully behind The Terrace to the junction of Kelburn parade and Salamanca, road.

9. Cable tramway from Church street, off Boulcott street, to Upland road, Kelburn.'

■10. Lift from. Boulcott street to The Terrace, and thence by train or bus along Salamanca road, Kelburn parade, Glasgow street, Upland road, and the viaduct to Karori.

11. Lift by Flagstaff hill to The Terrace and on ac above.

12. Cable tramway from the base of Flagstaff hill, near the corner of Willis street and Boulcott streets, by tunnel under The Terrace and thence to the Kiosk. -

13. Cable tramway from Willis street, near Ghuzneo street, by tunnels and viaduct to Upland road near Grove road. .

14. Eoad from the corner of Durham and Aro streets, following generally the line of Norway street, through a short tunnel to the Horseshoe bend.

15. Via Earoa road to the summit near Plunket street and thence to Glenmorc street near the eastern entrance, to the Karori tunnel.

16. Via Plunket street and Baroa road and via Highbury road to Highbury. 17. Boute from the tramway; terminus

at Northland along Northland road, "Woburn road, Albemarle road to Wilton road.

And those,are only some of the possibilities. There is thus sufficient material to engage the members of the City Council, the two central civic organisations, and of district electors' and latepayers* associations for some time to come. .