CITY TRANSPORT—OLD AND NEW

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 8

CITY TRANSPORT—OLD AND NEW

Since the last extension of the Wellington tramway system —to Northland about ten years ago—developments have occurred in urban passenger transport elsewhere in the world which have given the local authorities here reason to pause before constructing any further- lines on the old model. Chief among these developments have been automotive petrol or Diesel buses and the electric trolley-bus which uses the existing supply of electricity from overhead conductors, but dispenses with the costly permanent way needed by the ordinary tramcar. These new methods of road locomotion, have revolutionised transport in many cities of the Old Country. Long stretches of rails have been torn up or left to lie disused, and the motorbus and the trolley-bus ply where trams once ran. New Zealand in general and Wellington in particular have been more conservative, and, apart from the introduction of motorbuses, have been content to follow a waiting policy. In Wellington the big programme of tramway extension authorised after the War has not I been carried out, with the exception mentioned.

Meanwhile, the suburbs have grown apace and are today insistently demanding better service than they get from comparatively infrequent Corporation buses. The time seems certainly approaching ripeness when the City Council must decide on its future transport policy. This the Mayor. (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) admitted—-for the first time, we believe, definitely—at the annual meeting of the Vogeltown and Mornington Municipal Electors' Associa: tion last night. He staled then that it. was very much open to question whether the system of tramways, as known in Wellington, was going to survive very much longer, and expressed his own opinion that the trolley-bus was the thing of the future, being cheaper than the tram to install and using the existing source of . electricity. It had also the great advantage of being absolutely noiseless. The dilemma of the authorities in the face of these modern developments, with an existing system which has entailed a heavy capital outlay and is expensive to maintain in first-class order, must be apparent to citizens, and the consequent delay in tackling the problem merits more indulgence than criticism. But we agree with the Mayor that the balance of opinion is in favour of the newer methods of transport. That being so, we feel that it is useless to try to force on the ratepayers such schemes as the proposed tramway extension through Bowen Street as a means of better access to the western suburbs. The better plan would be to study the whole city and suburban transport system from the new angle, taking all aspects and factors into consideration, and present a reasoned report for the ratepayers to consider.