ENORMOUS CROWDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 77, 1 April 1939, Page 10

ENORMOUS CROWDS

A MILLION PEOPLE

EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA

A PARK FOR 40,000

Mr. John Aston, who arrived back in Wellington last week after a visit to the United States, told a "Post" reporter today of two experiences of vast crowds and the handling of traffic in California, though, he said, he did not suggest that Wellington's transport problems during the. Exhibition period were going to be comparable in the numerical vastness with what was done in the United States, yet the route and public transport shortcomings here were so serious that they would have to be faced boldly if traffic to and from Rongotai on the more important days was to be directed successfully. :

I "The method of traffic control in the States for national events is marvelllous," said Mr, Aston. "Tw,o events are outstanding, and thrilling to look back upon. On New Year's Day Mrs. Aston and 1 attended the Tournament [of Roses at the city of Pasadena, held each year on January I—mid-winter: in California—-for nearly 50 years. Such an experience is beyond me to describe, I can only give the figures. The papers of the following day gave as a conservative estimate. that the attendance at the parade was over one million two hundred and fifty thousand people. That vast crowd gathered from many miles about the city by car. Police, and traffic officers, on foot, horseback, motor-cycles and cars with loud-speakers operated as a machine, with guidance by radio from aeroplanes flying overhead." ' START AT 5 a.m. "How did you get there?" Mr. Aston said that getting there was easy—for them. They started from the home of their daughter and "son-in-law, 24 miles out, at 5 a.m., and because they made- an early start they parked their car and reached the sidewalk near the end of the procession route at 7 a.m., and waited till 10.30, when the floats, a marvellous show indeed, and 30 bands,: moved past. The cars, even at 5 o'clock, were "fairly thick," said Mr. Aston, and later-comers were not able to get nearer than five miles of the route, and latest comers ■ did not get there at all. There was absolute control throughout the traffic movement. Getting away from Pasadena was a still greater problem: one simply moved with the crowd. For three-quarters of an hour they drove in an unbroken stream of cars, directed and urged on by traffic officers at every intersection, but often the speed was down.to 10 miles per hour.. or stopped altogether. Pedestrian traffic was less of a problem, for the pavements are very wide and the crowds just moved ahead. Street cars (not trams in the United States) passed by, in trains of three, crammed to the^ast inch, in the early morning and all the morning. Yet, said Mr. Aston,' that vast, crowd was handled without one serious accident. 40,000 CARS IN ONE PARK. Mr. and Mrs. Aston saw traffic again on Washington's birthday, at the Golden Gate Exposition on Treasure Island, in San Francisco Bay. ' "On that day," said Mr. Aston, "over 40,000 cars were parked in the great car area on Treasure Island. When ; I say that we parked our car and left our section as easily as is done in^ambton Quay, that will give some impression of the thoroughness of traffic organisation." The park, he said, is worked in a series of long lanes marked alphabetically in one direction and numerically in the other. Again control was more effective by the direction of a great force of traffic and parking officers. The two bridges leading to the Exhibition, from San Francisco and Oakland, carry six lanes of car and bus traffic on their upper decks and electric railway and heavy transport on a lower arch. Pedestrians are not permitted on the bridges. Ferries carry thousands of people across the bay, and while they were there flying-boats were operating to Treasure Island also, but not, of course, as a major means of transport. How many were taken to the Exposition on Washington's birthday by public transport, buses, electric trains, and ferries, he did not know, but their transport was as huge as the car transport. . PARKING BAROMETERS. The 40,000 car park was too small for the greater days, said Mr. Aston, and a .clever system of ' indication warned motorists that it was useless to drive further. At key points on the main thoroughfares 'great.parking barometers were exhibited, the parking line rising as the enclosures filled. "Here is a suggestion, say, for Clyde Quay, Ellice Street, or Adelaide Road, for I think that such a system willbe as necessary and as convenient here as it is proving at the greater San Francisco Exposition." FERRY TRANSPORT FROM WELLINGTON. Mr. Aston said that he agreed that to regard the transport problems of the Centennial Exhibition as though they would right themselves would be well-nigh fatal, for the few routes available could not take the car traffic that must be anticipated; trams and car routes were not separate or intersected, and the completeness of direction and control applied by very large traffic staffs when great events took place overseas had no parallel in New Zealand. A ferry service, capable of handling a big share of gala attendances at Rongotai, as proposed by articles in "The Post," Mr. Aston considers the only solution in sight.

"I am not suggesting Rongotai and Wellington are to be compared with Treasure Island and California," he said, "but I say that, having regard to the few routes between the city and Rongotai, the • certainty of far greater motor traffic than has ever centred upon a New Zealand city, and the physical impossibility of trams and buses to carry more than a fraction of the non-motoring public, other means must be provided. The success of the Exhibition will depend upon those who return many times. They canrtot return if there is not sufficient transport and they will not return if the difficulties and inconvenience of transport balance out the pleasure of the outing."

Mr. Aston said that he had never thought that Rongotai was the most suitable location for the Exhibition, and he had proposed a, central site during the early discussions. That, however, was now beside the point, and the Exhibition at Rongotai had to be made a full success by making a special effort to provide essential transport.