A HARBOUR BRIDGE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 177, 27 June 1938, Page 8

A HARBOUR BRIDGE.

According to' the Prime Minister the Auckland harbour bridge is inevitable—“it must come —and not ill ten years’ time, either.” There is in this statement a hint that the Government is quite ready to give its approval, to the building of this bridge if it can be satisfied that it does not supersede more important undertakings and. that the materials are available. But a Government that is prepared to spend a million pounds tunnelling the hills between Wellington and the Wairarapa when other and much more pressing works can surely be found may find no difficulty at all in deciding that a bridge across the Waitemata- Harbour is a project of sufficient urgency to win its support—especially in election year. Yet it can safely be said it is no more required at ’this time than the railway tunnel between Wellington and the Wairarapa. Eight years ago a Royal Commission . investigating the proposal to build a bridge across the Waitemata came to the conclusion that the time for it would not arrive in less than twenty years. A review of the position after ten years was, however, regarded as advisable. Early this year the Auckland Harbour Board, convinced that changes which had taken place since 1930 warranted action, . fruitlessly sought another Commission. The 1930 Commission took a long-range view. It regarded the time as inevitable, just as the Prime Minister does, when the increase in ferry facilities would not adequately cope with the traffic, but, and the distinction is important, it concluded that “for a considerable number of years” it would be possible to make adequate provision “by a progressive increase, both in size and numbers, in the ferry fleet, plus further landing stages at each end.” Since then the campaign for the bridge has been revived at intervals, but the fact remains that the Commission’s conclusions regarding ferries and landing stages, if given full effect, must ensure an adequate sbrvice for a “considerable number of years.” To pledge any part of the taxpayers’ money at the present time for a bridge across the Auckland harbour would be as extravagant a proposal as the Rimutaka tunnel.