THE TRAMWAYS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13935, 18 December 1905, Page 5

THE TRAMWAYS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The ways of our Tramway Board are like those of Bret Harte’s Heathen Chinee, peculiar. A month or two ago, when the Board was discussing the blocking of the Manchester Street line, several members freely expressed the opinion that a Railway Station service would never pay, • and this view was, if I remember aright, fully" shared by the chairman of tho board himself, and yet now, only a few weeks later, we have two Railway Station services, one from Papanui and the other from the Square. The puzzle is, if on© Railway Station service won’t pay, how two can be expected to do so? Her© are two lines of cans actually competing against each other, and 1 protest as a ratepayer myself and in the interests of other ratepayers, -against such an utterly absurd state of tilings, and one, moreover, calculated to involve certain financial loss.

The special service of cars from the Square is wholly unnecessary, for the Papanui ‘ cars are quite sufficient at the present time to cope with the Railway Station traffic. All Papanui and Bealey, Avenue cars should run.to the station via Columba Street, and return via Manchester Street, and vice versa. And the Ricoarton oars, instead of standing idle in the Square for ten or fifteen minutes, as they do now, might run on to Fitzgerald Avenue, .and so almost double their present earning power. To return to Manchester Street. There appears to have been a strong disposition all along-on the part of the Board; or certain of its members; to pass the claims' of this thoroughfare by in favour of those of Colombo Street. But Manchester Street is, as everybody knows, the shortest and most direct route to tho station, and the pedestrian, traffic ill Manchester Street is ten times as heavy as that in Colombo Street, but , this and all other considerations 'have apparently been swept aside owing to the determined attempt that has all along bqen made to boom Colombo Street at the expense of Manchester and High Streets.,

Whilst Manchester and High Streets remained closed to tram traffic excuse existed, of course, for runnning the cars up and down Colombo Street, but now tho Manchester Street line is opened, no valid reason can he advanced why the Papanui cai-s should not follow tho Manchester Street route. And the establishment of the special service of cars from We Square to the station certainly bears the. appearance of being a desperate attempt to still run Colombo Street against Manchester Street, ©von though the pockets of the ratepayers have to suffer. Somebody, it would seem, must he workingvery hard in tho interests of Colombo Street, but it is a little surprising to find the Board willing to sanction 1 such a state of things. To return to the double service and the Railway Station, The absurdity of that arrangement becomes more.'apparent when one stands for a while and watches rival cans, for in- many casco the Papanui care and the cars from the Square arrive -and depart almost together. I trust for the credit of the Board it will speedily take steps to alter the existing arrangements in connection with the Railway Station oars. We want no special service from the Square to the station, but Hie other cars should be continuously on tire move, and thus the congestion of our city streets would be avoided. And instead of delaying in the Square, the cars should proceed onwards without stopping anywhere on route longer than .absokrbsly necessary to take up and set down passengers, and in that way we should have a constant succession of oars traversing the very heart of the city where the pedestrian traffic is thickest and passengers most readily picked up.

To those who have watched local tramway matters keenly throughout, it appears plain that a very deliberate effort has been made to divert tlicMjan-che-stor Street traffic to Colombo Street. And as the Railway Station has stood at the foot of Manchester Street for some thirty years now, vested interests have, of course, been created all along

High Street and Manchester Street line of route, and the persistent attempt to take the Railway Station traffic away from this route in order to benefit another section of the public, possessing no special rights whatever, can only be characterised as grossly unjust.—l am, etc., ‘ RATEPAYER.