The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1926. WHY MAKE A MUDDLE OF HILL STREET?

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12527, 17 August 1926, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1926. WHY MAKE A MUDDLE OF HILL STREET?

A body unconnected with the ratepayers of the city has joined in the protest against the projected Hill street tramway deviation. The Joint Library Committee of the General Assembly it is which has allied itself (indirectly) with the agitation against the trams being diverted into Hill street. ' The committee’s recommendation was accorded a majority vote in the House itself, despite the representations of a Minister of the Crown. It is, of course, the users of the library, not the residents of Northland and Karori, whom the committee had in mind when it registered its protest. Nevertheless, it must be clear to the City Council that there is something wrong with a scheme which has created sharp division in the council itself and evoked widespread objection throughout the constituency of ratepayers. Nothing resembling a strong case has been offered in support of the Hill street diversion. In order to minutes in the route to the western suburbs, it is proposed to expend goodness knows how many thousands in laying a new track. It will be nothing short of a miracle if the time thus “saved” has the slightest effect in the further popularisation of the suburbs interested. Again, in a long run, a minute or two is neither here nor there. If the council is wise, or can pocket its pride in time, it will hesitate to authorise this work without a comprehensive reconsideration of the possibilities. We want no repetition of the bungle, or series of bungles, which saddled us with a hole through a hill which is as much a white elephant as an alleged tunnel well can be. The Hill street conception looks extremely like another municipal pachyderm which is destined to prove an expensive luxury. The “Times” stood alone among the metropolitan dailies in opposing the motor-’bus regulations. But the “Times” said on that occasion that the onus rested on the tramway authorities to put their house in improved order. One way of doing that, We pointed out, was to build no new lines which were not demonstrably essential from every aspect. So far as Hill street is concerned, such proof has not been supplied. The saving of time is negligible compared with the cost of making the Molesworth street-Tinakori road connection. At least there is no compelling urgency for the deviation. And if that be true, it is mere official stupidity which would perpetrate the blunder of transforming a street which has always been purely residential into a traffic-congested tramway ciross-sec-tion which is neither seriously desired nor provenly needed. However, it will not be long before another municipal election is held. If the council perseveres with this woefully doubtful enterprise, we predict that certain gentlemen, now civic administrators, will be posted missing when next the numbers go up.