THE MORNINGSIDE TUNNEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20468, 21 January 1930, Page 10

THE MORNINGSIDE TUNNEL.

UNRELIABLE ESTIMATES.

COMMENT BY MR. FLETCHER.

"The decision to refrain from building the Morningside tunnel is not surprising, but it raises some important issuesissues to which I repeatedly drew, attention in the House of Representatives," said Mr, J. S. Fletcher, M.P., yesterday. "One is the unreliable estimates provided by 'our railway and public works engineers. Less than half a million was the estimate in 1924. To-day, in spite of the fact that construction costs arc lower, we are told that the cost would be about one million.

"The reference to the Westfield deviation is amazing. The one reason put forward was an economic one, the saving in haulage costs. Now wo arc told that this is not likely to eventuate. The country has spent well over a million pounds, and the only thing we find is that we have done the work, and the x-eason for doing it vanishes into thin aii'."

Would the country be justified, in face of these new estimates, in going on with the Morningsido tunnel ? Mr. Fletcher saicl that it seemed to him to go back to the question which he had also advocated both outside and inside Parliament, that was the necessity for a comprehensive review of the whole transport system. Coordination of all services was an absolute essential if we were to cut out the hugo economic losses on transport. A review of railway construction estimates and actual costs revealed that a large part of the railway losses was made up by interest charges on the excess c'ost over estimates.

The new Auckland station, from ai suburban traffic point of view, was now decidedly in the wrong place and revealed the weakness in the lack of continuity of policy, which, of course, could be satisfactory only when these undertakings were correctly estimated on definite engineering data,in the first place.

"There is no North or South issue involved in this decision," Mr. Fletcher added. ''The Government is going on with the east coast railway, which is, of course, in the North Island, although not in the Auckland Province. If the new estimates are at all reliable, I do not think it wise to load an already debtridden service with further liabilities."