Australian Letter Buses To Ease Traffic Troubles In Sydney
(Australian Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.)
SYDNEY, April 28. With Easter and Anzac Day holiday traffic snarls vividly in mind, the Sydney public has welcomed wholeheartedly plans announced by the Government, City Council and Police Department to ease traffic congestion in the city and inner suburbs. The State Transport Department will replace trams with buses in two main city streets (Pitt and Castlereagh streets) by next November. This is seven months ahead of schedule in the departments tram-bus switchover scheme.
The commissioner for Government transport, Mr A. A. Shoebridge, said that the changeover date had been brought forward to help reduce traffic congestion. Mr Shoebridge said that he would press for the removal of parking meters to support the department’s traffic speed-up programme. At long last it seems likely that the City Council will have fruit barrows removed from the main streets. These barrows cause bad congestion both in the streets and on the footpaths. The Lord Mayor, Aiderman Jensen, said this week that he was in favour of removing the barrows to side streets or lanes.
Finally, the Police Department a plan for the complete reorganisation of Sydney Harbour Bridge traffic. This scheme will affect all traffic on the northern side of the harbour. It divides the nrrthern suburbs into four traffic zones. Traffic from these zones will take eight different routes to the bridge. Traffic experts have been predicting for years that Sydney traffic would seize up. They have foreseen the day when the inadequate main roads would be unable to cope with the demand made on them.
A world authority on highway engineering, Dr. Dennis Orchard, surveyed Sydney’s peak hour traffic last week and was appalled. Dr. Orchard, who has just arrived from England to take up a postart the University of Technology in Sydney, was emphatic that “something will have to be done” about the harbour bridge traffic which becomes worse every month. Every other major highway leading to the city is only slightly less distant from crisis point. That is why the public’s reaction to the proposals made this week is solidly favourable. A Railways Department plan to ease peak hour congestion on suburban trains has, however, been widely criticised. An American efficiency, organisation, which has been investigating the New South Wales railways at the invitation of the State Government, has proposed that some seats be removed from railway carriages to permit more standing room. The Minister of Transport, Mr A. G. Enticknap, said that a completely new type of suburban train with more standing room will be built for Sydney if the Government adopts the recommendations of the American firm. He also revealed that the newdesign suburban trains would have different type doorways to allow for quicker entrance and exit. # 2jS Jfc
The Commissioner of Police, Mr C. J. Delaney, has called for an urgent report about the service of four summonses for parking offences on a patient in a Sydney Hospital. After the summonses had been handed to him, the patient, who had been seriously ill, saw a police note on one of them which read: “Not expected to live.” The summonses were against a real estate agent, Arthur Michael Walker.
The Medical Superintendent of the hospital said that police first called at the hospital to see Mr Walker six weeks ago. Mr Walker was then very ill and not expected to live, and the police were refused access.
A policeman called at the hospital again last week and told a nurse he “just wanted a few
words with Mr Walker.” He then served four summonses for minor traffic offences on Mr Walker at his bedside. Mr Walker was shocked to find written on one of the summonses: “Not expected to live,” and he later asked his wife if it was true he was going to die. His wife quickly assured him that he was not. Mrs Walker told reporters that the summonses were a dreadful shock to her husband. “It is the most callous or most careless piece of official stupidity I have ever heard of,” she said. The hospital superintendent said that he was most disturbed that the police should walk into the hospital and not have the courtesy to obtain permission to see a patient. Mr Walker is expected to be discharged from hospital this week. « « « A Sydney writer of mystery stories. Michael Hervey, believes that he can make hair grow on bald heads by hypnosis. “People lose their hair through worry and frustration,” he said. “The way to get it to grow again is to remove the worry and the frustration—it is as simple as that. And the simplest way to condition their minds against worry is by hypnosis.” Mr Hervey said that he has solved the mystery of baldness through a study of psychosomatic medicine. Now he is ready to begin an experiment, and he has called for half a dozen bald volunteers. “The reason baldness is so prevalent today is that people have persisted in looking for physical causes when in fact it is psychological,” said Mr Hervey. “This is borne out by that fact that you find more baldness in countries where there is great stress. Look at America—more bald men there than anywhere. . . And look at the number of criminals who are bald.” Mr Hervey said that he had been through Scotland Yard files and was surprised to find how many murderers are bald. He admitted that the old argument that baldness is hereditary was quite true. “But remember the children inherit their parents’ mental outlook as well as their physical characteristics,” he said. ❖ * * Private insurance companies should be grateful for the establishment of the Government In? surance Office, the Premier, Mr J. J. Cahill, said this week. The Government Insurance Office had saved them a loss of at least £3,100,000 on motor vehicle third party insurance, the Premier said. This was the amount the Government office had lost on this form of insurance. The Government Insurance Office’s general departments, in their 14 years of operation, had shown a net surplus of £2,837,000. ❖ * * One in every three people who took vision checks at the Sydney Easter show had defective sight. The tests were part of the Road Safety Council’s exhibit. More than 200 people took tests on each day of the 10-day show. ❖ ❖ ❖ A new type of lifeboat made from fibreglass was brought to Sydney in the Liner Oronsay. The lifeboat is moulded in one piece and can carry 144 people seated. It is 37ft 6in long and has a 12ft 6in beam. The lifeboat weighs five tons and has a three cylinder engine, which is capable of six knots when the boat is fully laden. The lifeboat has undergone extensive tests. # $ ❖ Youths from 18 to 22 were responsible for 80 per cent, of car stealing, a Judge said in Sydney Quarter Sessions this week. Theft of motor vehicles represented 15 to 20 per cent, of the crime in New South Wales, he said. * * * Eleven days after having been acquitted of the murder of her husband a •woman faced two shoplifting charges in Sydney’s Central Court. The woman pleaded guilty to charges of having stolen clothing from a city store. She was fined £5 on each charge.
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Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 8
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1,208Australian Letter Buses To Ease Traffic Troubles In Sydney Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 8
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