MOTOR TRANSPORT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18659, 7 April 1926, Page 14

MOTOR TRANSPORT.

TAXI WAR IN SYDNEY. STREAM OF TRAFFIC. [TWU. CTB O-xS COBBESPOHDtn.) SYDNEY, April 1. There is something o£ a taxi war on in Sydney just now, and as it is one of those few occasions when the public can afford to look cheerful, as far as their pockets are concerned, they are viewing with interest the fortunes of the various companies. The taxis in the city streets now are of almost all the rainbow's colours. You have your choice of yellow cabs, black and white cabs chequer cabs, and what-not other cabs' while before long blue cabs and green cabs threaten to give more splashes of colour to the crowded old city. This, of course, is apart from the taxis of all sorts ef distinctive colours run by private owners, who must be feeling keenly the extraordinary incursion of cabs controlled by big and wealthy companies, especially as not a few of the small men have probably bought their cars on timepayment. The few hansom-cab drivers who still linger about the streets cut lonely figures. The old days when they were the aristocracy of the transport service are gone. It only wants a few more taxi companies to come into the business in the city with cabs of distinctive trade colouring for a few of them to go to the wall, or avoid that catastrophe by a merger. It is estimated that one person in every 23 in New South Wales owns a motor-car or other motor vehicle. To see Pitt street at night, in the neighbourhood of the theatres, with motorcars of every hue flanking that narrow thoroughfare for the entire length cf several blocks, would leave the impression that not merely one person in every 23 but everybody in the placo owns a motor. Before very long Bydnoysiders, like the centipede, will want to bo mauy-lcgged to escape safely the ever-growing stream of motor traffic in their narrow city streets. Till recently the numbers on plates of cars in the State have been of five figures. To-day there are cars exceeding 100,000. The Traffic Department is issuing identification numbers at tho rate of from 700 to 800 a week. This applies only to ordinary private cars, and excludes motor-lorries and taxi-cabs. Incidentally, with the increasing traffic, the police, especially the new torment for motorists known as the flying night patrol, are exercising greater vigilance. On- one day alone recently 145 drivers, charged with various traffic offences, appeared at the Police Court; on another day. the magistrate had to cope with a rush of more than 200 cases. Motorists who do not know how to drive their" chariots are experiencing a bad time in Sydney just now.