TRAMWAY BOARD ELECTIONS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18238, 24 November 1924, Page 11

TRAMWAY BOARD ELECTIONS.

TO THE TPITOS OF "THE TPESS." • —Seeing that our tramway system is being severely—and I think unfairly ■ criticised -by certain aspirants fnr office, I beg you will allow me to put before your readers certain facts which emerged when. I recently made an investigation on the subject at the request of the Citizens' Association. I.'ln the firpt place Christchurch lead.i all places in New Zealand and Australia m its low-priced concession tickets for the average one-mile ride. The price in our city is, for all classes, .66 or twothirds of a penny per mile. In Auckland it is exactly 33 per cent, or our rate extra, or .SSd; in Melbourne the rate is •99, jn Dunedin .77, in Wellington (all classes) the rate i 3 .95, with workers paly at .79. In Sydney the concession is to 'workers only at. .53 per mile. 2. Our Christchurch cash fares on weekdays per mile on the average are Tycll under those of Auckland and Wellington, being 1.03 per mile, against Wellington 1.22. and Auckland 1.17. If our trams had charged the average per mile of, the Auckland and Wellington rates they- would have taken £13,000 more out of our pockets last vear t'>au they did.

3. If we take the average cost per mile on adult fares, cash and concession, weekdays and Sundays, w'e come out under one penny, or .97, which is better than-Auckland (1.07), Dunedin (1.10), Wellington (1.13), Melbourne (1.20), and is the same .as Brisbane, and not quite so good as Sydney, with its huge population.

Yet Mr McCombs and his colleagues say: "Judged by the standard of service our tramways are a comparative failure." They make reserves their criterion. ■ I fancy the plain man will judge the system by the comparative cheapness" of his ride. "

With regard to "service,' l the Tramway Board has gone far .beyond ordinary commercial prudence in laying down 53 miles of tramlines (against Wellington's 28 and Auckland's 30), and Christchurch is at a-great disadvantage in this being necessary. She is at a further disadvantage because the city is flat and easy and pleasant to cycle in—so that we have 40,000 cycles daily competing with the system. Now let us look at Mr McCombs's criticism about the reserve funds! We have just over half a million of reserves against a capital expenditure of £1,179,843 (Why. does he go back four years, and .put our present reserves against the three-quarters, of a million expended to 19207) Tho main reserves are: Depreciation fund (wisely invested outside the undertaking), £292,551; renewals fund (invested in the system free of interest), £131,466; and sinking fund (invested outside), £77,760. Tho system is 19 years old, and it is understood that the whole of the renewals fund, and possibly more, will be wanted within the next fow years, or, alternatively, more capital must be borrowed. 13-the remaining reserve an extravagant provision, bearing in mind that within the next 20 years we may see rail cars obsolete, and replaced by some newer and more up-to-date system? If that occurs before sufficient reserves have been accumulated, who will repay the borrowed million of money falling due in 1934 and 1944? It will be the ratepayers' liability! \

Stripped of all the ingenuous comparisons used by Mr McCombs, the crux of the argument is that we have practically tho cheapest fares in New Zealand and Australia, and despite this.we are putting away reasonable reserve funds. ' The' Board has lately reduced the rate of these reserves from 4 per cent, to 3 per cent., as the result of actual experience, and users of the trams will get the benefit of this, but 3-per cent, is a,-long way below the reserve allowance .considered necessary by some of tho finest tramway systems in tho world, and by its leading traction authorities. However delightful the Labour slogan of "service before profit" may sound to unsophisticated ears,'everybody knows'that we cannot eat our cake and have it, which is what the new aspirants for office are trying to prove 'we can do. ' I rocently ventured to make a few criticisms and suggestions to tho Board, but I could not get away from the facts, .which 6how a sound policy, if, perhaps, a slightly conservative one. In view of the highly risky and shortsighted policy suggested by tho Labour candidates,' I think the Board should circulate as widely as possible during the next, few days a full statement regarding the city tramways—of which, in general, it has every right to be proud. It would be disastrous if the ratepayers —its shareholders —were to buy unreasonably cheap fares to-day and have to make up the loss out of the rates in a few rears' time. —Yours, etc., " WM. MACHIX. November "2nd,