ABOUT MOTOR BUSSES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 14205, 2 September 1919, Page 5

ABOUT MOTOR BUSSES.

It is good to see that the “Standard” is sitting up and taking notice about the motor ’bus question. It has discovered that there are (approximately) 7.2:53.306 people in London. (As the “Standard” people have hardly been outside Palmerston they must have got their statistics from Whitaker’s Almanac.) But that'doesn’t matter. The population of London may bo 7,233,306; that of Palmerston North, a very much more important centre (as far as we are concerned), is just over interest our contemporary to know that in Palmerston there are (approximately) seventy miles of streets. In those’7o miles of streets it is proposed to lay down 5% miles of tramways (mostly to Terrace End—where certain people live) and call it ‘ ‘ tramways for Palmerston North.” (Sounds like ,a bad joke, doesn’t it?) These “tramways for Palmerston North” for which the whole of the ratepayers are expected to pay, will serve only a very few people. Mr Black savs they are not planned to serve the people en route (“people,” says Mr Black, “do not like to live in streets where tramways arc” —noisy, headachy things which stir up the dust) they are meant to servo the people at the terminals and away cut from the terminals — mostly Terrace End. Well, this sVl> miles of tr.?ms which will not. and cannot, serve the majority of the people are going to cost the whole of the ratepayers (if they are /iv>ls enough) £IOO,OOO or over. If £IOO,OOO is spent on this service a good many other things will have to go by default and Palmerston will have a white elephant on its hands which cannot posswiv pay because it will not serve the people. What has the population of London got to do with that? But —it we spout £IOO,OOO or even much more on broad, concreted tree-planted boulevards (instead of grass-grown streets with the stumps coming through the crown of the roads) we should not only have something to show for the money . No-—we could have noiseless, clean electric motor ’busses running to the centres of population and delivering people where they want to go. That would be a paying proposition. And—further, all classes of vehicle traffic and motors could run on those roads constantly with, less tire wear and fewer visits to the repair shops. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr “Standard” man!