The Star. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1923. TRAMWAY COMPARISONS AND CRITICISMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17189, 5 November 1923, Page 6

The Star. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1923. TRAMWAY COMPARISONS AND CRITICISMS.

The chairman of the Tramway Hoard may or may not he right in saying that we are hopelessly at sea for tramway matters, but the Board itself is on a lee shore with a deficit for the half year of £11,532. This deficit cannot be reduced during the remaining months of the financial year, and it may be increased to £17,816, as we showed on the Board's own estimates. The chairman says that our estimate is too high, hut lie does net attempt to show why it is too high, simply because the Board is gambling on the latest increases in fares to straighten itself up in the remaining half of the year. Our main contention has been that the latest revision of fares is clumsy and inequitable, and that every rider should be charged for the service rendered him. The chairman replies to this with a lot of irrelevant argument about congestion, slums, high rents and inducements to people to live “ out in the open ” —all of which is an apology for the Board's policy of carrying concession riders to Sumner at less than half the cost of their transport, and saddling the short-distance riders with the loss. We pointed out as long ago as July 3 that the Board was not charged with the duty of inducing people, to live " out in the open,” and that any efforts it might make in that direction should be dictated by economic considerations as they affected the Board, and not as they affected the community at large—in other words, that concessions should be granted to the extent of making a line pay and not, as the Board was doing, making it lose. The chairman takes too much for granted when he says that of course Christchurch would lose £17,000 by reinstating penny fares. In the. first place, the increase of £17.000 to which he refers was not contributed solely by (lie penny section increases but by the general revision of fares, and Mr ,1. A. Flesher lias since shown, on the Board's traffic figures, that two million riders simply declined to pay the increase. It is not surprising, as the chairman remarks, “ that you never see the same seat occupied three or four times in the Christchurch central area as you do in other centres," for the whole tendency of a minimum twopenny fare, coupled with the vagaries of the central area time-table, is to make the short-distance passenger walk. As a matter of fact the bicycle problem does not enter very largely into the question of the casual central area cash riders. With them it is a case of tramming or walking. The bicycle counts with the householder on the twopenny and threepenny sections principally. But the Board, instead of fighting this form of competition, offers the least concession to the potential cyclist, and puts the price up on him so (hat it can carry others " into the open " at a loss. This little controversy, we must remind the chairman, did not start through a general comparison with Auckland. Auckland was mentioned merely to emphasise the advantages of undivided control in regard to road maintenance. Windy, hilly Wellington and steamy Auckland do not lend themselves to the comparisons that the chairman institutes. The frequency of the service, the system of management, and the hilly nature of the routes, in which no walking or cycling competition may be possible, all effect the position. The chairman, in his table of fares, simply takes lengths of line, regardless of such local conditions as the hills of Brooklyn and Wadestown and the tunnels of Ivilbirnie anti Seatoun, and then says that Christchurch would take £93,000 a year more under the Auckland rates, or would "gain” £BO,OOO a year by adopting Wellington rates for equivalent sections. The argument can be reduced to an absurdity by imagining such an increase in Christchurch fares as would make tram travelling altogether prohibitive and result not in a gain of £BO,OOO or £93,000, but in a hopeless loss. The fare must have a close relation to the service rendered in the light of operating costs. Mr Sykes seems to think that it is to the credit of his Board that operating costs are lower to the car mite in Christchurch than they are in Auckland, Wellington or Dunedin. They certainly ought to be, for Christchurch has the overwhelming advantage of absolutely flat tracks, permitting the use of trailers, while it also has the benefit of very cheap : hydro - electrical power. Possibly the Christchurch I operating costs could be cut down considerably, and I retrenchment might very well be commenced in the saving l of a couple of thousand pounds a year in the salaries of I surplus inspectors. There is one point on which the chairman misrepreI seals our position. On October 2we did not advocate a reduction in the fares to the beaches. We advocated " reduced excursion fares,” and we still advocate them. By increasing the week-end and holiday traffic to Brighton and Sumner, the Board would put these lines into a position in which they could stand a decrease in residential fares. The out-in-the-open policy is all right if applied with an eye to revenue, but in any case, there is much more reason in taking the poorer people for a week-end outing "in the j open," than in catering for the comparatively well-to-do I «nd even wealthy people of Sumner at a rate whitfla helps J io saddle the whole tramway area w ith a huge deficit. -