CONTROL AT KEY POINT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 30, 4 August 1939, Page 11

CONTROL AT KEY POINT

EXHIBITION TRAFFIC

KIOSK AT KILBIRNfE

Traffic control during the Exhibition will be a full-sized six months' rush for someone, for on top of an increase ir traffic in the city itself, which will necessitate full staffing of regular control points and at least the same general supervision, will be the control and guidance of the four main routes to Rongotai over long hours each day.

The City Council has authorised the purchase of additional motor-cycles for moving patrols and an increase of the traffic staff by thirty temporary men has been tentatively approved.

Kilbirnie will be one of the several key points, for in the vicinity of the Post Office all tramway, bus, and car traffic, except that which runs round the Marine Drive from Island Bay, will concentrate. Road traffic from Evans Bay Road, the Mount Victoria tunnel/ and Hataital will be kept separate from motor traffic by Constable Street under the general routing plan agreed upon, and Nos. 2 and 3 trams will not take the same lines past the Post Office, but this area will still" be exceptionally busy: cars, trams, buses, and pedestrians would build into a fine jam without expert control.

Plans have been drawn for a traffic kiosk, in the angle of Kilbirnie Crescent and the causeway road, immediately south of the Exhibition Hotel, to serve as a clearing point for traffic men on duty in and about Kilbirnie and also as an office where information can be given the public. Overseas it has become not. infrequent practice to use aircraft and radio telephony to communicate with ground patrolmen to tell them how things are going along routes when big crowds are being shifted; that is not proposed for Rongotai, but a special system of telephones from the kiosk to booths along the routes will probably be installed, so that, though the general routing plan will serve as the basis of control, unusual circumstances may be met by rerouting traffic by the men on points control.

A parking barometer may also be erected near the kiosk, so that drivers can see at once how things stand ahead, whether to pull in at the first park they come to and walk, or. to go ahead to parks nearer the Exhibition entrances.