PETROL RESTRICTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 23497, 10 February 1940, Page 12

PETROL RESTRICTIONS

PUBLIC GO-OPERATION 6000 CITY COUNCIL'S BAD EXAMPLE BUS SERVICES NOT WARRANTED IN WAR TIME CHEAP ELECTRICITY AVAILABLE With a blithe indifference to the will of the people, and in defiance of their expressed views, the city authorities have substituted motor bus services over various sections of tramway service routes. This was done at a time when municipal economy was clearly indicated. From many quarters a warning note was sounded because of tho acute international unrest and the likelihood of war._ On top of the council’s decision, which subsequent events have shown to be adamantine, came the war which far-sighted people envisaged, fn its train, too, has come a Governmental restriction on the use of petrol. If economy in the consumption of petrol is justified, and the Government says it is, it needs no great flight of fancy to envisage tho time iu the not too distant future when all fuel oil will also be restricted. What then of the Dunedin City Corporation’s fleet of Diesel buses? Admittedly a number of the council’s licet are oil burners, but a large number are not, and tho monthly consumption of petrol must bo very heavy. The introduction of bus services could not be wholly justified in a city such as Dunedin under the best of peace-time conditions, in that the city itself owns the only independent electric power station worth while in the Dominion. That is AVnipori, which successive councils have developed into an asset of considerable value. According to tho latest corporation ‘ Year Book,’ tho amount borrowed on expenditure for development work at Waipori exceeds £1,000,000. DEVELOPING WAIPORI. Since those figures were authorised, the council has sought and obtained authority to borrow another £150,000 for the construction of a duplicate tunnel at Waipori and other developmental work, the reason being that additional power is wanted. Avith this further expenditure of borrowed money, for which the ratepayer himself is liable, it is estimated by tho corporation’s experts that Waipori will develop more than sufficient power for all purposes. Iu the face of this expenditure to increasing motive power in one direction, the council on the other hand authorises the expenditure of tens of thousands of pounds in the purchase of petrol and oil fuel-driven buses. By the expenditure of the sum involved l in the purchase of buses the City Transport Department could have put much of its tramway rolling stock into reasonably good condition. Apart from the uneconomic aspect of buses and trams running in competition, the entry of the buses to the main streets causes traffic congestion. Bus stops have been marked off at various points in Princes and George streets, in many cases at acutely congested intersections, thus adding to the woes of the already harassed motorist who pulls into the. kerb for a moment, only to find that he has transgressed the laws —parked or stopped on a sacred area. Tins is only one of the many aspects of the situation of bus versus tram; another is the traffic chaos created by these huge vehicles coming down (Rattray street, for instance, discharging passengers, and then turning within the very circumscribed space offered by the intersection. The same applies at the foot of Pitt street. Ratepayers’ protests notwithstanding, buses have been substituted for trams on tram routes! Down streets where rails and all necessary overhead equipment in reasonably good condition still exist wo see corporation buses replacing the trams, as on the Logan Park route. The ratepayer who faces an ever-in-creasing rate demand every year asks himself why, when tracks .are still down, when trams are lying idle in tho sheds, and when locally-produced power is available, it .should be necessary to turn to fuel-driven vehicles at a time when rationing of fuel is in force. COULD BE REMODELLED. The first knock to the trams was the removal of the tracks on the RoslynMaori Hill route and the substitution of buses, with their nauseating effluvia polluting hillside suburbia. Now we find these vehicles running over the cable tram routes, but to soften the blow those responsible bow to public opinion to the extent of running them only at periods of the clay when they cut out the cable carsl Kaikorai Valley cable trains were purchased by the citizens at a figure some consider well in excess of their value, and while tho council' was contemplating the purchase it considered shutting the line down and substituting buses. No great amount of mental agitation is needed to visualise a period, if not before the war concludes, then shortly afterwards, when this lino will also go by tho board and the effluvia of Diesel exhausts will become an abomination around the Octagon and the city’s Town Hall. COMPETITIVE SERVICES. •Reasons have been advanced for the introduction of buses to tho hilly streets of Dunedin, but no logical one can bo found for their introduction where established cable services exist. This applies just as forcibly on the flats—on week-days and on Sundays. Service after service has been jettisoned for the sake of the buses, and we see the anomalous position of buses running ahead of trams on the flat, beating the latter to their fares. In Cargill road, for example, buses swoop along ahead of trams from the Caversham-Dayid street route. Georg© street to Pino Hill is another example. THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC.

Ono reason advanced why buses should take tho place of trains was that they were mobile, and could pull into the aide of the road, thus tending to a more oven and uninterrupted flow of traffic Tho principle of .pulling into tho kerb, rigorously enforced upon private motorists, is more honoured in the breach than in tho observance by corporation buses. Their abuse of the privileges of the road is frequently seen in Cargill road. ...

The Green'lslnnd-Dunedin service furnishes an example of buses run in competition with trams rather than furnishing a feeder service. Green Island and Fairfield buses run the full length of the Cavcrslnun tram line from the centre of the city, instead of conducting a feeder service from the Caversham tram terminus to Green Island and return. If buses were used as feeders to trams

concession tickets could be used for both types of conveyances, but strangely enough on some routes, where one is in competition with the other, concession tickets are not available. In the radical swing away from, the old form of transport ho half measures have been accepted by the city authorities. TROLLY BUSES IGNORED, No [dace was allowed in the scheme of things for trolly buses, although on some routes this type of vehicle would appear to be eminently suitable, especially as nearly complete overhead equipment already exists. Comfortable and fast, and capable of carrying a largo number of passengers, they are also very mobile, and_ can swing into the side of the road with the same ease and facility as an ordinary motor car. More important still, they would not be burning restricted fuel oil or petrol, but cheaply generated electric energy from plant already in existence. In September of last year no less an authority than Mr G. U. Stecrc, the former general manager of Brisbane (Queensland) tramways, expressed the opinion while on a visit to this country that while mo hard and fast plan could be laid down for any particular city, he still held to the view that for the conveyance of largo numbers of people from any given destination, electric trams were the safest, quickest, and most efficient, Sydney, on race days at Randwick, he said, moved 30,000 people from the course to the city in half an b our, “ Can yon imagine what confusion there would be in the assembling of a sufficient number of buses to move such a crowd.” be stated. London, he added, carried 1,000,000.000 people annually to its outer suburbs by electric tram. Transport problems exist in most cities, but in Dunedin, in time of national emergency, when the conservation of overseas funds is essential petrol and oil-burning buses should surely be confined to providing feeder services.