TRAFFIC TANGLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20310, 19 January 1928, Page 10

TRAFFIC TANGLE.

SYDNEY’S BIGGEST PROBLEM. TEAMS, BUSES, AND MOTOR CARS. (From Our Own Correspondent.' SYDNEY, January 12. Yet another body, under the aegis of the Government, is attempting to solve the traffic problems of Sydney. Since the solution of them will involve a big outlay of money, of which the Government is sorely in need, it is hardly likely that its investigations will be any more fruitful of bold, practical results than those of its predecessors. Still, the public is hopeful. It has been suggested in some quarters that, in order to save public money and to relieve the street congestion, the non-paying tramcars should be removed from the city proper. Like most services of the kind throughout the world, they are something of a financial incubus. That the trams, because of their inability to follow a flexible course, like the buses and other free-wheel vehicles, are r.n obstruction to general traffic, is unquestioned, but their disappearance from Sydney’s streets 13 not an immediate possibility, since the problem would then arise of operating, in the narrow thoroughfares, a vast fleet of buses. The most manifest fact even to the Jay mind is that Sydney has outgrown its streets, that they are too narrow for existing traffic, and that a small fortune will have to be spent in street widening and in other drastic town-planning reforms. Not the least of the problems is that of the parking of cars in the streets. This, it seems, will have to be met by private enterprise, and by the erection of more garages, for Sydney has few vacant spaces for parking areas. One suggestion was that the whole of Hyde Park, except the portion used by the underground railway, should be excavated, and used as a municipal garage. The idea looked eminently practicable, until, the fact was realised that if the park were undermined for the stabling of cars there would not be sufficient depth of soil on top for big, shady trees. Sydney, in short, would have to be content with a public garden instead of a park. As it has all too few decent parks, the underground garage idea did not find favour in the right quarters. TIME IS MONEY. Traffic congestion in Sydney, and, as a natural corollary, waste of time, represent in money value, a serious loss. In order to get at that loss, a town-planning enthusiast. Sir John Sulman, who was chairman of the Civic Centre Commission in Auckland, and who has been closely associated with the lay-out of the Federal capital, made a traffic count at the corner of two of the city’s busiest streets. Taking the value of the time of every motor vehicle, with driver only, at 5s an hour, and that of every pedestrian at Is an hour, it is estimated that traffic congestion at that intersection alone means a loss of many thousands a year. In New York the estimated daily loss through traffic congestion is 1,000,000d01. As New York has a population of about 5,000,000 it is estimated that the daily loss owing to traffic congestion in Svdney, with its 1,000,000 people, would, on the same reckoning, be about £40,000 a day, or, excluding Sundays and holidays, the staggering sum of about £12,000,000 a year. This, in hard cash, is what the laissez faire attitude of successive Governments towards Sydney’s traffic tangle, actually means. This is apart from fatal and other accidents. Taking Now South Wales as a whole, and not merely the city, the total annual insurance premiums in respect to motor cars would not be less than £2,000,000 a year. A very big proportion of this is spent on making good injuries to property of persons through smashes in traffic. The position in Sydney to-day is eloquent witness to the halfhearted, academic treatment of the traffic problem. THE “ SKYSCRAPERS.” While the average height of buildings in the city is about 60ft, the tendency everywhere is to go the limit of 150 ft allowed by the ordinances. If Sydney becomes a city of ‘‘ skyscrapers,” as it threatens to do, and its traffic problem continues to be merely toyed with, the problem of congestion will become insoluble. The height limit, it is believed, should be reduced to 100 ft, from the standpoint alike of traffic and health. It would, it is felt, also have the advantage of making the city spread laterally instead of vertically. The new Civic Commission which now controls Sydney, however, is hardly likely to agree to this limitation of height, since, with an inevitable check on the soaring prices of land, it might mean less income from rates. The man in the street does not worry very much about these, or any other problems beyond his own small environment. That is often the trouble. Public consciousness on these matters is not wakened or stirred. Sydney is counting largely on the harbour bridge and the underground railway as factors that will relieve the position. The population, however, will be much greater, and the traffic congestion, infinitely worse, by the time those vast works are completed.