WESTERN ACCESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 83, 7 April 1936, Page 10

WESTERN ACCESS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The:, Mayor apparently assumes that because the tramways account has a sum of money sufficient to put the tramway up Bowen Street, the ratepayers have no say in the expenditure. His Worship knows that the ratepayers have turned down a loan for this scheme. Surely this should be sufficient to indicate that the ratepayers would turn down a poll to use the accumulated money in the Tramways account. The Mayor knows also that the ratepayers have sanctioned money to be spent on tramways to Karori, via Aro Street. The commission also recognised that the Norway Street route would be essential for the western suburbs. ,- ' . ,

a The main opposition to Norway Street route comes from / the shopkeepers on the Quay and from the city councillors who are afraid that council property along the Quay will depreciate in value. This will not be so, because the Karori tramways will come down Aro Street and finish at the railway station, so the traffic will still be taken along the Quay. No civil engineer can put a double track up Sydney Street as it stands today, without blocking the road traffic and taking away the legitimate rights of property owners in Sydney Street to park their cars outside their gatec. The city officials are not admitting that the footpaths on either side of Sydney Street will have to be set back and to do so means resuming property, so how can the City. Engineer do the job for £20,000? It will cost the city £70,000 before the job is done and then it will only be a makeshift, because the Norway Street route is the logical- outlet for the western suburbs. ,

Parliament should make the city officials give the ratepayers an. opportunity to vote for either route and have the facts .of each route to be fairly stated. The essential part of the Norway route is the tunnel, £30,000, and the road approach from Aro Street. The cost of widening Aro Street and continuing Aro Street through to Kent Terrace can be left for another fifty years. Motor traffic will still have Karoa Road, The Terrace, and Tinakori Road; to spread itself over. If any tramway money is to be spent, then, a tram traffic tunnel from Willis Street to Norway Street could be very profitably constructed out of it. Let us put in the western access to benefit everyone in Wellington and not only for a few whose property and businesses are located in one part of Wellington.—l am, etc.,

L. G. AUSTIN.