Fire Causes One Of Wellington's Greatest Traffic Jams

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 November 1948, Page 5

Fire Causes One Of Wellington's Greatest Traffic Jams

WELLINGTON. Last Night (PA). -—One of the biggest traffic jams Wellington has ever seen developed at Kaiwarra shortly after the arrival of the fire brigade at Levin and Co.'s lire on Saturday night. Within minutes motor vehicles had banked up as far back as the traffic ramp on the south side and almost an equal distance on the other side of the fire. Both the Hvtt Road and the Ngaio Gorge road were blocked by a tangle of hoses. The lire occurred at about the same time as amusements in the city finished, and patrons, seeing a vivid glow in the sky, rushed to Kaiwarra to get a closer look. Buies were packed and people, who walked, hitch-hiked and motored to the scene by the thousand, added to the normal Hutt and northern suburbs traffic. Cars and buses were five abreast down the Hutt road as far as the traffic ramp, packed side to side on the ramp itself, and three and four abreast down Aotea Quay for a considerable distance. Over the whole of this section of road there was only one car’s breadth free for use of the police and other essential cars. On the other two roads traffic was banking up almost as rapidly. Hundreds were on their way into the city from the Hutt speedway, and liuny deeds more from the Carterton show. Spectators and normal traffic on the Ngaio Gorge road soon jammed the narrow roadway, and there was no hope of traffic escaping in that direction.

A detachment of police drawn from all the city stations and from the Hutt soon arrived to try and disentangle the mammoth traffic problem.

Twenty-five constables and six sergeants were joined by eight City Council traffic officers, and lour officers of the Transport Department. The problem of clearing the roads of an estimated 3000 vehicles was made more difficult by the lack of room in which to handle them. Addressing motorists with loudspeakers, officers directed some of the traffic at the foot of the ramp on the Hutt Road to go via the Black Bridge road, through the back of Wadestown and Ngaio, into Khandallah and down Onslow Road. In this way it was possible to clear the passage sufficiently to allow vehicles travelling to the Hutt to get up the Ngaio Gorge road and reach the Hutt Road by way of Onslow Road. Vehicles travelling into the city were allowed to pass one at a time along the Hutt Road past the lire. Both the Hutt Road and Ngaic Gorge road were covered by a web of high pressure hoses, necessitating the use of separate ramps over each one. This fact alone held traffic passing through to a crawl, and though it started to get away about midnight many drivers had a wait of more than three hours to cover the distance from the ramp to the end of the crush on the other side of the lire.

Rail traffic on the main route north, including both the Wairarapa and Paekakariki lines, was severely disrupted. The falling wall and burning debris broke all communication and the electric traction wires, and the threat of a further fall made it too dangerous to send steam trains through for some time. However, traffic is now normal.