ROAD TO SUMNER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 493, 30 June 1932, Page 15

ROAD TO SUMNER.

Menace of Overhanging Cliffs. A suggestion has been made by a frequent traveller on the Sumner Road that some plan should be put in hand to fill up the pool between the tramway causeway and the cliffs near Sumner so that a road could be formed to give comparative safety from the risk of falling rock. The removal of rock from under the cliff, he said, was likely to increase the danger of boulders or slips coming down to the peril of pedestrians j and motorists. A motorist who comes into the city daily from Sumner said that he never travelled under the cliff without inward qualms, and he invariably put his foot hard on the accelerator. He was envious of the nonchalant manner in which pedestrians strolled along the footpath under the cliff. Any move to alter the alignment of the road would receive his enthusiastic support, especially if it would provide useful work for the unemployed. “Coroner’s Rider Needed.” Another critic of the present situation of the road was not optimistic over the prospects of a change. He pointed out that nothing had come of the agitation at the time of the work on the kerbing and footpath round the pool. “ Nothing will be done until there is a big fatality,” he stated. “ The question of whether the cliffs are a danger or not can generally be gauged by the number of years the road has been open and the number of accidents there have been,” declared Mr 11. M. Chrystall, a well-known city

engineer. “ However, that is no insurance that there will not be an accident to-morrow, and a very serious accident too. In view of the increase in motor transport and the fact that that road is the only highway giving access to Lyttelton, short of another route, it is more than likely that there will be a serious accident there some day/* Mr Chrystall said that he did not think the project would be worth the money. Yet as the Sumner road was the only route to Lyttelton, too much attention could not be drawn to the necessity of keeping it open, and the proposal might well be considered by the Sumner Borough Council or the bodies interested.