CITY STREET LIGHTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18171, 17 August 1922, Page 6

CITY STREET LIGHTING.

The bright prospect of all the city streets being adequately lighted by electricity within five years is presented by the Mayor as the object of proposals now awaiting consideration by the City Council. Such a programme deserves the most cordial encouragement, for it can fairly be said that the street-lighting of Auckland—including the independent boroughs—is the most unsatisfactory of the public services. Within the last ten or fifteen years remarkable progress has been made in almost every other direction, but the energy that has built town halls, established an electric-power system, swept up slums a.nd enlarged park areas, laid concrete roads and improved the city's sanitation has not been unlimited. Much that was antiquated and inefficient has been swept away, but a system of street lighting that was wonderful in its day remains as a relic of conditions that are almost forgotten. Whether gas oir electricity is the best method of public illumination is beside the point. Except in a few streets with modern equipment, the present system is obsolete because generally the lamps are too low in lighting power, too far apart, and in many instances placed in wrong positions. Next to the condition of foot and carriage ways it is the lighting of the thoroughfares that most impresses visitors, and the impression given by Auckland is distinctly unfavourable. There is in the darkness of many residential streets an element of danger, and citizens meet inconvenience and discomfort whenever they venture abroad after nightfall. And in what other city of equal size is the midnight curfew applied to the lighting of public highways? To remedy these conditions will take time and money, but the expenditure will be well justified and citizens will look to the City Council to press forward its programme with the vigour that ■ has marked its policy in other • I directions.