WESTERN ACCESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 78, 1 April 1936, Page 13

WESTERN ACCESS

SYDNEY STREET ROUTE

OBJECTIONS VOICED

PETITION PEESENTED

Opposition to any proposal to lay tram tracks through. Sydney Street without the ratepayers sanctioning the work was made by residents of Bowen Street and Sydney Street West in a petition presented to Parliament yesterday. The petition was signed by Edward John Stephens and 91 others. The petition states that the ratepayers vetoed the Bowen Street tramway proposal in 1929, and it is maintained that if the City Council desires to obtain sanction to proceed with the work, they must take another vote of the ratepayers. They ask that Parliament will maintain the resolve of the Public. Works Department—that the ratepayers should sanction the proposal. T»he petitioners advance twelve reasons in support of their petition. They say that £70,000 has been spent in widening the road sufficiently enough to take two lines of tram tracks, but if the tram route were sanctioned, there would be a traffic danger at the bottleneck—the junction where the two-way traffic meets near the main gates of the Sydney Street Cemetery. They say that it would be uneconomic to spend £100,000 in widening Lower Sydney Street and in the laying of tramways to save £2000 in running costs and four minutes in the journey from the Karori terminus to Bowen Street. NORWAY STREET ROUTE. In view of the future progress and development of Wellington, they advocate that the Norway Street route be completed. The cost of this, £66,000, was approved by the ratepayers in 1920. They claim that that route would bring all residents in the western suburbs nearer the centre of the city. This proposal was approved by the Access Commission. The petitioners claim that Karori and city residents admit that the Bowen Street proposal is only a makeshift, because the Karori residents have already determined that it is not the best route, but that it would serve the purpose of certain Karori residents for the time being, and would save one penny per trip of their transport expenses. Parliament itself vetoed the City Council's proposal four years ago, and opposition to the Bowen Street route had been emphatically pronounced. The Museum property had now become vacant and Mantell's property acquired by the Government, and if the Houses of Parliament were extended, the trams would be more objectionable still. The trams would also interfere with work in the Dominion Laboratory, through vibration. The only way to lessen the noise of trams would be to make the tram wheels and rails of rubber. The proposal to lay double tram tracks in Sydney Street, which is narrow would entail more expense in the purchase of property and street widening. The present road as prepared at a cost of £70,000 would do for motor and vehicular traffic, and the money so far expended would give an easier route for motor traffic to the western suburbs. The petitioners claim that at present Karori 'residents are well served with bus services, and a bus service in conjunction with the Kelburn tram. The carrying out of the Bowen Street project' would necessitate the setting back of fodtpaths, and with a probable encroachment on properties. The footpaths might be too narrow for traffic and the cost of property purchase had to be considered. The petitioners claim that as the Sydney Street route lies in a valley, the vibration from the trams would make the property in the vicinity untenantable. Property compensation would also have to be considered. TUNNEL PROJECT. The petitioners also point out that the City Council's alternative plan was by way of Bowen Street and through tunnel under the Sydney Street Cemetery in a straight line to the upTer part of Sydney Street West near Anderson Park. The additional expense of this route, taking into considwould amount to less than £10,000. _ Finally it is asked that before anyth£g £ done, the Government should survey the alternative route examine the plan prepared by the City Council. ' .