PASSENGER SERVICES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19471, 29 October 1926, Page 10

PASSENGER SERVICES.

Misgivings regarding the extension of the city's responsibilities for passenger services were reflected in the discussion at last evening's meeting of the City Council. Called upon at short notice to take over a fleet of buses operating on a number of routes, the Tramways Committee has decided to maintain all the services in which they were engaged. Some allowance must be made for the pressure of circumstances under which the committee has had to act, and credit is certainly due to it and to its officers for the smoothness with which the adjustment has been made. But part of its difficulties, and, to a large degree, the precipitancy of its commitments in regard to extraurban services, for which it was criticised by councillors, are directly due to the council's neglect to formu late a policy for its guidance. A suggestion has been made that the. council's representatives gave a general undertaking to the Parliamentary Committee to continue all services abandoned through the operation of the Act; Mr. Bloodworth assured the council that any promise was subject to financial provision being made. Surely a clear definition of the point should have been obtained by the council, and the committee is entitled to know what financial provision it proposes to make. The council is required to take over only buses "in substantial competition" with the tramways, and that provision, it was assured, has been observed. Its terms are, however, so vague that there is a grave risk of the council being loaded with buses which, upon a full investigation of the facts by the compensation council provided by the Act, would be excluded from its scope. Yet upon all these important points the Tramways Committee has been left by the council without any guidance, and, having a sufficient task in the reorganisation of services, has not unnaturally taken the easiest course of accepting every bus and every responsibility pressed upon it. Surely it is the duty of the council as a whole to review the position, and determine exactly what its policy shall be. Vague reference was made to the possibility of another transport authority being created, but it is not at all certain that the suggested metropolitan board would not confine itself to the management of the tramways, leaving the operation of bus services to private enterprise. Until the council has a clear conception of that proposal's implications, it is hardly reasonable to attach a mass of bus services to the tramways that may presently have to be discarded. Indeed, if the council allows itself to be committed to provide passenger services to all the suburban districts, it will probably find that they will be quite content to use them and leave all the risks of loss to be borne by the city ratepayers.