TRAFFIC TANGLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 283, 3 November 1925, Page 14

TRAFFIC TANGLE

PRINCIPAL DANGER ZONES. CONGESTION IN PEAK HOURS. SYDNEY, Oct. 28. The question as to what is Sydney’s most dangerous part from the traffic point of view has arisen now that much thought is being given to Sydney’s traffic tangle. The entrance to "the populous eastern suburbs, in the vicinity of Hyde Park corner and Oxford Street is regarded as one of the most dangerous parts. At that spot, during the peak hours of traffic—between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., when there is a rush homeward—26 vehicles, on an average, pass to and fro a minute. Of the total number of vehicles that passed the spot in question in an hour, when the calculation was made, 281 were tramcars, 186 motor-buses, 804 motor-ears, 150 horse-drawn vehicles, and 75 bicycles. Not included in these figures, when they were checked, were a lonely horseman, strangely out of place in Sydney traffic to-day, a fruit barrow, and an ice-cream cart. But an even more dangerous point is the junction of King and George Streets, the bottle-neck for the eastern suburbs and tho main highway to the huge western suburbs. Neither of these streets, a\, this point, carries any motor bus traffic. In the peak hour, 723 vehicles pass this point, or 12 a minute. These arc looked upon as the two chief danger zones of Sydney. These figures gives one a hotter idea of the traffic problem which confronts Sydney in all quarters. The problem will be accentuated when tho city underground railway, now in progress, is pushed ahead. Temporary footpaths will have to bo found somewhere for pedestrians. Railway Square or Circular Quay are sometimes pointed to as very dangerous spots, but these are wide, open spaces, comparatively simple to negotiate, compared with the bottle-necks through which the traffic passes to and from the most populous suburbs.