TRAMWAY SYSTEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 8

TRAMWAY SYSTEMS

(To the Editor.)

Sir—lt is interesting to note from your'leader of the 16th inst. that the Wellington City Council, after waiting ten years, have now come to the decision that ten years of consideration and delay in 'tramway extensions was necessary to study forms of transport developed over ten years ago. For ten years the city has been retarded without any good reason, as nothing has been done until now, and now it has accomplished something by realising that something must be done. Therefore today the position is as it was ten years ago. Had the council te years ago definitely decided that the tramway system was obsolete its policy should have been to cease any further maintenance costs other than those strictly necessary, but we find the track and rolling stock is in firstclass order, almost as good as new. - However, Wellington, with its narrow streets and difficult outlets, is not so favourably laid out for trolley-buses or motor buses as Christchurch and some English and American towns, where newer methods are in use. The motor traffic in Manners, Willis, and Cuba Streets would never allow trackless vehicles a free run. The city cannot extend in any particular direction requiring a big milage of track, and as some suburbs would be quite well served with a short tram extension, it would obviously be a great waste of public money to duplicate the transport system or scrap the trams. The council has lost an inestimable sum in revenue in the last ten years by delaying these extensions, and has also lost a considerable sum by introducing motor-buses, with a limited and I costly life, to ward off the necessity of I coming to a decision. The council could not stand the condemnation of scrapping a satisfactory tramway sys-j tem that has yet many years of useful life and with an enormous debt to liquidate, until it is paid off. Therefore the policy should be to improve the tramway system and make all the necessary extensions, with a view to increasing the revenue as quickly as ' possible, when there would be some ; justification, after a satisfactory slate [ Is reached, to embark upon another system that would use the same elec- ; tiricity as our trams.—l am, etc., : TEN YEARS ISOLATED.