STATION LAY-OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 66, 19 March 1943, Page 4

STATION LAY-OUT

GRASS TRAMPED BARE

The state of the lawn on the western side of the Railway Station lay-out gives all the proof that can be asked to the representations made by the Automobile Association to the City Council that pedestrians do not agree with the plan of paths and lawns and so make their own paths: the grass is tramped bare. The association has proposed that as pedestrians will not follow the side paths or the main broad footway from the main doors to and from the station, but, instead, either use the vehicular ways or take short cuts, the lay-out should be amended (a) by forming diagonal paths twelve feet wide across the eastern and western lawns, (b) by forming two paths, six feet wide, alongside each carriageway so that walkers will get along in less danger.

The Automobile Association was fully consulted when departmental and city officers, architects, gardeners, traffic people, and motorists talked over plans and finally decided on the present lawn, path, and road arrangements, but that is no reason, say officials of the association, why they should not admit a mistake when it is being pointed out by thousands of people every day of the week. The proposal was mentioned at the last meeting of the City Council, when the City Engineer advised that nothing should be done about it and that people should learn to walk at right angles.

Today a "Post" reporter watched people who should be learning, but they did very poorly. About 10 per cent, used the wide-paved footway in front of the main doors, mostly because they had business in the buildings immediately opposite. Of the rest, those making ior Featherston Street or Stout Street walked on the carriageway and jumped when cars honked (or declined to jump but did so on the second honk), and then jay-walked across Bunny Street because the marked pedestrian crossing does not fit by yards; and those for the Government Buildings, and the Quay in the great majority tramped the last stirrings of life from the grass roots, the rest being honked at.