EARLIER PROPOSAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 24, 29 January 1942, Page 8

EARLIER PROPOSAL

CITY ENGINEER'S SUGGESTION

Mr. Clere's proposal, though made quite independently, is similar to a suggestion . put forward by the City Engineer (Mr. K. E. Luke) in 1937, after his return from a visit to Australia, where he studied traffic problems.

His proposal was that at some future date consideration should be given to the driving of a tramway and traffic by-pass of the Lambton Quay-Willis Street traffic throat by a tunnel running under Wellington Terrace from a point approximately opposite the Occidental Hotel and emerging at St. John Street (a small side street at the western end of Abel Smith Street) with approaches at intervals. This tunnel would connect directly with the east-west main access, from the Mount Victoria traffic tunnel through Buckle Street and across the-Te Aro flat and Upper Willis Street area.

Even earlier, the late Mr. W. H. Morton, when City Engineer, proposed a tunnel or tunnels under Wellington Terrace from near Boulcott Street to the Salamanca Road gully.

The construction of the main city sewer in the last two or three years may or may not have added a complication to the through-tunnel proposal, for at one or more points it may pass through what would be the line of a traffic tunnel. It would not preclude the provision of tunnels or chambers which could later be used for public garaging.