PAVEMENT PETROL PUMPS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 16 August 1924, Page 8

PAVEMENT PETROL PUMPS

SYDNEY’S KNOTTY PROBLEM

SYDNEY. July 21

Four or five years ago the City Conncil granted a motor garage permission to erect a petrol pump on the footpath.. Since then petrol pumps have sprung, up in the city like mushroom?, until the question of the continuance or abolition of them, .on the footpatns, is now agitating the minds ot many motorists, the Chief ■ Secretary s .department hawing informed the,, council that the erection of these pumps on the footpaths is a breach of the traffic regulations, and that, as the pumps are dangerous to traffic, the * council should say whether they should be re-j moved. The council imposes a fee.ofc, £5 a year on petrol pumps, installed I on the footpaths. • Opponents of the kerb puinps hold j that they are obstructions, and that } their existence gives petrol dealers a i privilege not accorded to other traders. J Why not, they. say. if the pumps are j to remain, allow produce merchants to J instal feeding bins on the footpaths, and traders to establish kiosks on the j footpaths? Motorists, on the other} hand, consider that (lie advantages of j the pumps outweigh their disadvan- j tages. and that a cur taking in petrol, from the footpath does not ..obstruct, traffic as much as a ear which has ..toswing out into the centre of the street to enter a garage for petrol, and cross, a footpath into the bargain. It is certainly a' knotty problem.