HILL TRANSPORT.

Evening Star, Issue 23175, 26 January 1939, Page 12

HILL TRANSPORT.

The trial service of buses during certain hours of the day on the Rattray street line docs not seem to be endearing itself to hill residents with increased experience of it. The council decided to institute a trial service of buses during hours of lesser traffic for six summer months of the year. The reasons which it gave for doing so were that buses had been run on Sundays and had shown considerably increased returns over those obtained from the trams, and again, that the cable service was operating at a substantial loss, and that the power iplant and rails would soon need renewal at a cost of £IO,OOO. It was obvious from the beginning that such a test would be very liable to be a misleading one. The buses might do well enough during slacker hours and in summer months, leaving unaltered the objections that they are not nearly so well suited as trams for dealing with a rush of traffic at peak periods, and not suited at all, in winter, to stoop, frosty and slippery hill roads. Even under their own conditions, however, the buses do not seem to have given satisfaction. The fact that there has been only a minimum disposition to make a case for them at meetings of hill residents held to express objections, and the obtaining of 2.256 signatures from the same hill residents, with more than a dozen forms still to bo returned, to petitions against “ any substitution for the cable car system by buses or other means,” do not suggest that they are winning their own way to esteem. In addition, one hears of “ disquieting experiences,” inconvenience caused to passengers when routes are varied from the Kaikorai Valley and confusion caused when buses unexpectedly are found to encroach A/

upon hours understood to he sacred to trams. The only case that was made for buses at last night’s meeting at Roslyu was a case for buses in general —not on hill routes, or in substitution for a safe and efficient service already installed. The idea that “ buses are a symbol of progress ” may bo the worst guide to policy. Buses are being substituted for trams in a great many cities of the world, but other cities, such as Glasgow, still prefer trams. In each case it depends on local conditions, and the conditions of routes concerned, which system has cause to be preferred. One can understand the desire, in highly congested cities, to get trams off the main streets so that two lines of traffic can run all the time along both sides with a clear space between, but that has no relation to hill roads, and small relation to any other roads in Dunedin. We presume that the wishes of those who use them will be the deciding factor with the City Council as to whether cable cars or buses are to bo the final form of service for the steep hill routes in Dunedin.. There is another argument which should have no small weight with it. The council has long been desirous of diminishing congestion in the centre of the city, at the Exchange, and a bus service for Rattray street at .peak hours, by tho amount of space for turning that it would require, would be the worst aggravation of that that can be imagined.