Tramway Matters.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 936, 5 December 1933, Page 6

Tramway Matters.

Dear Sir,—As several of the new board have rushed into print in respect to their future actions, may I be allowed to state a few facts? Ever since the five special areas repudiated the terms under which their respective additions to the original central area lines were constructed, laid down and worked, the board have had a difficult financial deficit to annually meet. The £BOOO a year which for one year the special areas paid by their special rate on their much improved value of properties would, if continued, have exempted the original central area from finding that £BOOO a year, and penny sections could have always been in vogue. It is to the deficit on those lines that the twopenny fare is due. The old board for many years struggled manfully with the problem and it has only been the recent three years’ disastrous slump in transport all over the world that has produced in Christchurch the present serious adverse balance in tramway accounts. But the most helpful reduction in the annual interest of £II,OOO a year which the old board has engineered will in two or three years of careful financial management enable the deficiency to be cleared off. If, under the old board, a deficiency owing to world-wide circumstances has arisen, they were able to provide a remedy. The board has a staff of which any city may be proud, the attention the conductors give to women and children, the regularity of the runs the motor-men make, the good state of the inspection of equipment, the consideration given to regular users of the trams, are greater than that provided by any other system. The Christchurch trams and their roadway have been well kept up to date. This is a widespread system which provides ten separate tram lines and three bus routes for a circle fourteen miles in radius and forty-three miles in circumference. It is sparsely populated, as it has less than 2000 persons to the mile of tram rails, as compared with 3000 in any other city of Australia or New Zealand. Ihe Labour Party have undertaken a very arduous undertaking which up to date has been managed largely by business men with experience of somewhat similar undertakings, and they have now the opportunity to display organising ability. So far as one can judge, the board has four old and new members who are moderate in their views and can be relied on to keep the two extremists from doing injury to the property of the citizens of Christchurch. It is no time for revenge or experiments; only careful, well-considered plans will result in good for the tramway system as a whole.— l am, etc., EXPERIENCED.