THE HARBOUR BRIDGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19625, 2 May 1927, Page 12

THE HARBOUR BRIDGE.

Sir,—Mr. J. D. Alonson has rightly directed the attention of the residents of the North Shore boroughs (and of the hinterland generally, I presume) to the necessity for better and speedier communication with the city. The loss of time occasioned to the many thousands travelling to their daily businesses in Auckland is in itself an enormous and preventible waste. The time taken at present by the ferry system may be averaged both ways at 40 minutes daily for the whole shore, instead of, say, b minutes for both ways by buses across a bridge. Add to this the great waste of time and expense necessitated by the ferrying of vehicles and goods, adding materially to the cost of living on the north side of the harbour. A fast-growing population of at present some *!8,00u should not be penalised in this manner—we are apt to forget that the North Shore boroughs constitute the fifth largest city in the Dominion. For picturesqueness no part of Auckland south can compare with parts of this district; the roads generally are excellent, and there is no doubt that within a very few years the census returns will pass the 50.000 mark- Given the bridge people do not realise that practically the whole of the district for, say, three* miles inland, would be as near to, say, the chief post office as is Mount Albert or the Dominion Road. Putting aside the huge increment in land values that would most assuredly accrue, I would like to emphasise'that the annual liability incurred by building the bridge would be as nothing to the time and opportunities wasted, and increased cost of living occasioned bv the present manner of transport, Another fiubiect of interest to intending homo builders is the Net that south of the harbour four miles from the 0.P.0. land is costing at least, €3OO to £4OO a Quarter-acre, while at the same distance from the C.P.O. on the Shore it can be purchased at £l2O to £2OO per acre. SttVEHTON.