Untitled

Evening Star, Issue 15515, 10 June 1914, Page 4

We regret to have again to direct attention to a public service

The Roslyn Tramway.

which for long has been and still continues, as far as its

management is concerned, a menace to the lives and limbs of those who use it. The Roslyn cable tramway, wo imagine, is unique among the world’s hill cable services. We do not know of another system where the comfort, the safety, and the decency of the public who are compelled to use it are so little regarded. There are three such services in Dunedin alone, and two of them are conducted with some regard to the convenience of those who travel by them. But at certain hours of the day—which, being the busy hours, are the only ones that matter—the Roslyn tramway car at the foot of Rattray street presents a spectacle that '.s a reflection upon the company and on the community. For 20 minutes, and on wet evenings for much longer, there is at 5 o’clock anrl after the places of amusement have closed a wild and unseemly rush for places—seat* are never obtainable by many— oh the car. Owing to the absence of any regulation, passengers who wish to go up the hill starve to force their way into the car bitfore the down passengers have alighted • others again walk a good few yards up Rattray street, occasionally as far as Maclaggan street, and jump on to the car as it comes down, in order to make certain of a seat. Then, when a car, which at the outside cannot provide seating accommodation for more tha.n 32 people, has 60 and 70 human beings of both sexes and all ages sitting, standing, crushing, and clinging to it inside and outside, it stops where it is—not for more passengers, but because it is not time to leave. There is an utter and complete absence of supervision, the main object being for as many people to crowd on to the car as can find hand and foot hold. Through this jumbled mass of humanity the conductor has to make his way in order to collect the fares, with, there is reason to think, the certainty of missing one, two, or more. t It is then, too, that the rank injustice, as well as the discomfort, of the system is apparent. The tired male worker from the store or factory, who is hanging by two fingers and three tees, pays threepence for his ride to Highgate—the highest fare demanded (within our knowledge) for so short a journey—and the child who is permitted to occupy the seat that should be his, and whose dirt-covered shoes are being cleaned on the nearest woman’s dress, pays either one penny or, frequently, nothing at all. ’Men and women have to stand and pay threepence; small boys and girls sprawl freely and pay one penny or nothing. It is not the duty of the Press to say in detail what should or should not be done to remedy what is little short of ( a scandal and certainly is a public danger. Their duty is done when they direct the attention of the authorities in general terms to an evil which has too long existed, and to a policy that has called forth amazed comment from visitors, to whom the Roslyn tramway system has come as a revelation. We are aware of the stock arguments that are offered in defence and by way of excuse for the present state of affairs. Our answer thereto is that there is neither excuse nor justification for most of these things that are of daily pccurrenco. The company have no right to demand threepence in return for a service that they do not render; they have no right to permit the poshing and crowding that are dangerously common; they have no right to Compel the residents of Roslyn either to accept the service as it is now or to leave it; and the City Council, within whose jurisdiction the company operate, should long since have taken resolute action. Surely it is not sufficient to say “ The “ company have a lease, and we can do “ nothing until it expires.” Why not terminate it with the least possible delay, in a manner that can give the shareholders no legitimate reason for grumbling ? i