TRAFFIC IN WELLINGTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18887, 9 December 1924, Page 5

TRAFFIC IN WELLINGTON.

A REMARKABLE GROWTH,

PROBLEM OF THE FUTURE:

The growth of city traffic in Wellington, as revealed by the remarkable figures of registration under the Hutt Road Act, has, says the New Zealand Times, raised anew an old problem. How is the city to control its traffic in a few years to come? A conservative estimate gives the figures of the motors now on the streets as 8000. In two years' time, € at the present rate of progress, they will be at least 11,000. And though the city engineer's department, with many big undertakings in hand, believes in cross-.: ing its bridges when it comes to them, the speculation "by a well-known engineer on the subject is of more than usual interest.

"In at least two years," this expert stated the other day, "tho problem would begin to bo felt as calling for ' immediate action. * In five years the action would have been taken. In 1926 it is not the moving traffic which will give the trouble, but the fact that the city; will have to make provision for storage: of an immense number of ' dead' cars. The 'parked' car in the business areas by day and the left car in the suburban areas by night, because of the lack of garages on the city outskirts, will be the problem. ' , •

The time may not have come when ' the American insistence that curs must. keeping moving in. the city will be felt .to be a maxim for , New Zealand, : though it may come by 1930. _ But the P°i"t will have, been reached where big parking places will have to-be provided at all the section ends of. the tramways, so that a mail may step . from • one ■vehicle to another. In the city proper the problem of control and of > route will have arisen," said the engineer.' "and the point .which, will - act as a pulse:, will :i be the 'bottle-neck' between tho Bank of' New Zealand and the wharves. Between these points traffic from one end of the " city to the other must pass.!'; '' ' -" ' ' - * * , /