BETTER CITY STREETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18889, 11 December 1924, Page 12

BETTER CITY STREETS.

NEXT WEEK'S LOAN POLL.

EXPLAINING THE PROPOSALS.

ADDRESS TO RATEPAYERS.

Arrangements are well in hand for the very important poll on city streets improvement works proposals, to be submitted to the ratepayers next Wednesday. In accordance with its custom in the past, the City Council has requested that a full statement on the council's operations in streets expenditure during recent years, together with details of the issues, be prepared for the information and guidance of ratepayers, and it will be placed before a meeting in the Town Hall Concert Chamber next Monday evening.

The progressive roading policy of the council, under which so much work has been dono and which has been responsible for the marked improvement in the main traffic thoroughfares and secondary streets, was instituted in 1910, and has been continued by the present, and previous administration without slackening. The ratepayers are now asked to sanction the raising of £710 000, the expenditure of which is to bri'-ig the whole of the streets in the city up to a thoroughly modern standard. The Mayor, Sir James Gunson, stated yesterday "that in framing the statement asked for by the council, he had gone back to 1906, when the present city engineer first came to Auckland, and the whole of the intervening period would be reviewed, covering reading expenditure, both from successive loan authorisations and from general accoui t. The evening would be devoted exclusively to this phase of municipal administration, but a general address dealing with policy matters as a whole and including all phases of ch-ic administration would be placed before ratepayers, just before the municipal elections next April. " The meeting on Monday evening." added the Mayor, " is designed to afford ratepayers the information they are entitled to, both in regard to streets expenditure and the council's policy on this point. The tables prepared will be found to bo full of interest, as .showing the remarkable growth of the city and the course of financial operations on streets during the past 18 years. Included in the issues is a lryin of £50,000 for the widening of Quay.Street, which will involve acquisition «f the Gladstone Buildings, arid widening of this street to the alignment of the Harbour Board Building. The financi.V side of this project will be fully set cut for the information of the meeting, and it will be seen tluiy contain much th it is favourable to the city."