ROAD TRAFFIC IN THE CITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21597, 15 September 1933, Page 10

ROAD TRAFFIC IN THE CITY

The report of the city engineer on road traffic in the city is a further contribution to the study of a vital subject. Topographical conditions in Auckland are not generally unfavourable to effective civic handling of this traffic, yet these conditions have created some problems, and the growth of the city has added others with the passing of the years. Economic circumstances have had recently a restraining influence on the normal increase of traffic accompanying that growth. Such conditions and circumstances provide the general setting of the facts covered by the traffic survey in February last, and they have to be taken into account at every practical turn of study of the facts. Advantage has to be taken of actual and potential routes provided by physical contours, in conjunction with developmepts of roads and buildings as the city has grown. These things decide the chief features of the problem, which cannot be solved in any piecemeal way, although certain localities have their individual portions of it. To conduct a survey year by year is highly desirable, therefore, in order to guide projects necessitated by further growth, intensive and extensive, of population and traffic. Care should be taken to make these surveys conform to a consistent framework, and so far this has apparently been done. It would be well, however, to make each year's survey equally thorough, lest some important facts escape observation and record. To be of adequate value in exhibiting trends of traffic this consistency of survey is essential, as is a conducting of it over a number of days sufficient to rule out the weakness of a "snatch" record. This is not said in criticism of what is being dono but in emphasis of the value of the census when properly conducted over a period of years. From the details now made public it appears that, but for adverse economic conditions, traffic difficulties at critical points would have increased seriously. To keep a watchful eye on the facts is a duty, in order to prevent the situation from getting suddenly out of hand at any point when economic conditions restore an average rate of development. From figures now available, localities of hampering congestion in the futuro can be roughly plotted, but the trends may alter and should be periodically and painstakingly investigated.