Task of Transport Board

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 419, 30 July 1928, Page 8

Task of Transport Board

Profit on Trams Offset by Bus Losses

IF the recommendations of the Auckland Transport Commission are executed, the complete ownership and control of the city trams and buses will pass into the hands of a board as yet not constituted, and the council will be compensated iipon the value of the services at a given date. The new administration will take over a tramways account, which, at the end of the last financial year, showed a debit balance of £83,359, comprising £145,504 accumulated losses on buses, and £62,145 net profit on trams.

It has been decided after an extensive and an expensive inquiry that trams are safer, more reliable and cheaper than buses for the handling of traffic congestion within the city limits. The commission concedes the point that through bus services are

more efficacious for outlying runs than the combined tram and feeder bus, but insists that in slack times, when the through bus shows no reasonable prospect of returning sufficient revenue to make the system a commercial success, the feeder shall be adopted in the interests of economical running. The metropolitan transport board, which would acquire the complete

network of the city’s traffic machinery, will, if constituted, have to face an eloquent record of transport operation over the past few years; but as six members of the new board will be members of the City Council also, and the remaining four will be chosen from two specially-created suburban districts, the debit balance of over £83,000 in the tramways account will not appear in the light of a shocking revelation. Rather will it come in the form of tedious repetition of a story told long since. During last financial year the buses in Auckland lost over £64,000, and in the previous year, dropped £48,000, the estimated loss for * the current year is just over £49,000.

The trams, on the other hand, have ; been, returning a profit on working I expenses, and last year cleared ; £19,000 as against £9,000 during ! 1926-27. They are expected to return I just on '£59,000 to the city by March I of 1929. If the estimate works out in ac- ■ cordance with the optimistic expecta- , tions of the city treasurer, transport ; operations for the past four years/ will have cost the city £74,000, or j £18,500 a year—a net profit of • £121,000 on the trams, and a loss op , the buses of £195,000. , • In assessing the districts to be cov- \ ered by the transport board, the commission focussed its attention upon

the area served by the main metropolitan traffic, and disregarded an extension of the boundaries to embrace all termini of daily services to the city. Henderson, Glen Eden and New Lynn, and the Borough of Otahuhu, are mentioned in dispatches, but. their claims to inclusion in the metropolitan transport area were not considered to be sufficiently strong. HUNDRED YEARS BEHIND A sharp reminder of decadent muni-1 cipal outlook, as revealed by inter- j ested witnesses before the inquiry, j ; was ventured by the commissioners, I who possibly had the intense sec-! tional feeling in mind when they sug-! ■

gested that the first transport board J should not be established on the I popular vote. “In the present state of public feeling on transport matters,” they said in their report, “we think it would be a mistake to put this business con- i cern on the hustings. The board’s ! function is to take charge of a huge | undertaking as a going concern, and the local bodies, exercising the pow-: ers of election we propose to put into | their hands, will approach the selection of ‘members with a greater sense of responsibility and knowledge of the personnel than might be expected from popular vote.” The transport board, in the exercise j of its power, will have authority to borrow to meet operative costs, and is also empowered, for administra- j 1 tive economy, to impose levies of definite sums' upon benefiting local bodies in the individual proportion of each to the whole area, instead of collecting separate rates. NEXT BEST THING Buses operating within the board’s district are placed without the provi- ; sions of the Omnibus Traffic Act, and the governing body will possess authority to impose penal fares upon bus passengers for the protection of tramway revenue. It was almost with apology that: the commission, after dealing with, alternative proposals, dismissed every one—except the transport board —as practically impossible, and advanced the scheme outlined as “the next best thing.”