STREET BEAUTIFICATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 142, 15 May 1930, Page 2

STREET BEAUTIFICATION.

(To the Editor.) Sir—Your correspondent, Mr C. S. Pickering, in your issue of the thirteenth inst., raises objections to the trees that’ line the roadway in Cuba Street, Fitzherbert Avenue and Broadway. These three streets are wider than those to be found in corresponding proximity to the business centres of our larger* towns.- Auckland, perhaps, has a greater traffic problem to contend with than any other city in New Zealand, vet we find an avenue of trees adjacent to the Town Hall, and that street quite narrower than those to which your correspondent takes exception. Yet the Auckland City Council has never been advised to order the removal of those trees, and let us hope it never will. Surely if Auckland motorists can restrain themselves from climbing sundry trees that line the roadside, then we can claini the same accomplishment for our own citizens. The average motorist turning down, for example, Fitzherbert Avenue is presented with a stretch of asphalt road both wider and smoother than any to be found in our principal cities, and, if in the face of these facilities, he cannot keep the road, he does not deserve a license. In Palmerston North we have a fair eity in which the founders showed a wonderful foresight in bequeathing to us the dowry of well-planned streets and public gardens, which have earned Palmerston North the title of “Garden “City.” That distinctive charm will be lost when we begin the ruthless cutting down of those trees that play such an important part in beautifying our streets. The trees in Fitzherbert Avenue, especially, present a magnificent spectacle, and it is this factor that _ has been directly responsible for its rise in recent years to the position of being the centre of one of our most select residential areas. Why divest a street with such lovely homes and fine residences of half its charm for the sake of a few careless motorists P I am, etc., TREE LOVER.