HARBOUR BRIDGE FINANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 829, 25 November 1929, Page 10

HARBOUR BRIDGE FINANCE

The special committee set up by the Northcote Borough Council to consider methods of financing the harbour bridge, on the lines of resolutions passed by the Auckland Harbour Bridge Association, has made its report. The committee is of the opinion that the ideal to be aimed at is a free bridge, controlled by the State, as the structure will form an integral part of the highway from Wellington to the North Cape. The construction should be financed as a Government undertaking outright, or by a gigantic national lottery, or partly by the proceeds of a lottery, and the difference found by the Government. If a free bridge could not be entertained. however, a toll bridge should be allowed, preferably financed and controlled by the State, which would receive the tolls as an offset against the interest and sinking fund and managmeent expenses. Failing this, a company should be allowed to undertake the construction, the expenditure to be recouped from limited tolls over a defined period, at the end of which tlie structure should be handed over to the State.