OPOHO CAR SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22609, 28 June 1935, Page 14

OPOHO CAR SERVICE

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —The letter from "Opoho" in your issue of the 26th inst. is timely, but does not go far enough. A decent tramway service to Opoho is long overdue. Property in that locality is valued pretty high, and rated accordingly. If the cheese-paring and short-sighted policy of the Tramways Department prevents it from keeping up to date and giving the ratepayers and residents a fair service for their money, it becomes obligatory on the City Council, as receiver of our rates, ,to remedy the position. It surely is time for an infusion of new blood into the Tramways Department. If it is beyond it even to make a slight alteration to a time table, it says very little for it. There is not an Opoho car arriving in town closer to the hour than 10 minutes before or 10 minutes after. This means of lot to residents, particularly at meal times. From" Frederick street to the Gardens at certain times the Opoho car is grossly and even dangerously packed, and the department permits and seems to encourage it. The tramlines of Dunedin from one terminus to another are in a disgraceful and even dangerous condition; and who is to say that the recent fatality at the City Hotel stop was not attributable to this? There is two gears' work for 50 men on the car lines to put them in decent order. The bumps are not so noticeable on the bigger cars, but on the Opoho type they are an abomination. If one of those cars got out of control on the hill the chances are all against its keeping the rails. This type of car was antiquated years ago, and is a disgrace to the service. It is a moth-eaten argument to say that these cars are the only ones which can safely and economically run on the hill. Overseas, for the last 30 years and more, heavy double-decker electric cars have been running on steeper hills and round bends compared with which the one on the Opoho line is scarcelv noticeable. In short, the Opoho car, car lines, and time table would not do credit to a modern bush tramway. Many substantial residences have recently been erected in Opoho, and rating values have consequently increased. It is a rapidly-grow-ing suburb, and the car stop, at present stupid and dangerous, should be half a mile further on.—l am, etc., Opoho Sufferer.