‘Need For Free Public Transport And Parking Ban’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30962, 19 January 1966, Page 8

‘Need For Free Public Transport And Parking Ban’

No parking of cars in city centres, but a free public transport system—with parking buildings on city perimeters—was advocated by the Minister of Transport (Mr McAlpine) in Christchurch yesterday.

He was opening a three-day conference of managers of the public transport systems of the main Australian and New Zealand cities, held at the Hotel Russley. Mr McAlpine said: “It seems to me that that might well be the answer to the transport system”—which Mr D. McNaughton, of Brisbane, described as one of decreasing revenue, increasing costs, and mounting losses. The public transport system should not be determined by its pront-andJoss accounts, but rather on its benefit to the community, Mr MaeNaughton said.

This idea had become a firm opinion in the United States —“and I hope we will see it here,” he said. Mr McAlpine said that the problems of traffic congestion and parking—‘‘costing £3sm a year in New Zealand”— offered a challenge to which

the conference might find a solution.

His suggestion would be that parking buildings should be on the perimeters of a city, with a free public transport system within. Mr McAlpine cited a parking building recently opened in Christchurch, costing more than £300,000 but providing space for only 300 cars. “The cost, in interest and maintenance, of this building would go a long, long way towards the costs of public vehicles, and the saving to the community for not using its private cars—because pariking, presumably, would be prohibited in the centre of the city,” Mr McAlpine said.

Mr McAlpine spoke to only nine delegates. The conference a very big agenda and may extend into Friday, according to Mr J. F. Fardell, general manager of the

Christchurch Transport Board, who is in charge of conference arrair .rents. Apart from the opening, the conference is not open to the newspapers, although a daily press release will be issued. The delegates to the conference are: Messrs S. B. Berry (Sydney), M. G. Collins (Dunedin), Fardell (Christchurch), C. R. Gribble (Auckland), F. R. Harris (Adelaide), A. W. Johnson (Hobart), MadNaughton (Brisbane), who is the conference chairman, R. H. Prichard (Wellington), annd I E. Thomas (Perth).

They were welcomed to Christchurch by Mr J. R. Smith, chairman of the Christchurch Transport Board. Mr McAlpine, in declaring the conference open, was also critical of the private car as being part responsible for ribbon development. A few people developed sections alongside a main road, and before long demanded a 30 m.p.h. speed restriction —“so that the whole country has to be governed to 30 miles an hour,” Mr McAlpine said.

"The private car—and everybody in this affluent modern society has a car—has made ribbon development,” he said. “If it were not for that, the need for public transport would force people to stay to the built-up areas.”

There were 700,000 cars in New Zealand last year, said Mr McAlpine—-a car for every 2.7 persons. This compared with a car for every 2.2 persons in Los Angeles, where traffic problems were just as evident as ever.