STREET WIDENING.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 413, 23 January 1909, Page 5

STREET WIDENING.

„.: WHY NOT MANNERS [STREET? J V'.,'/ ": The" published information 'th'aX'.a, new four-story .brick struoturo'is to. supplant one of the.oldest wooden' structures' in Manners Street (that ocpupied. by Mr. H.' Brittain, chemist) suggests the reviyal'of the question of .widening that -thoroughfare oefore; such a. step becomes prohibitively: expensive. It was thought at one time that muoh of the congestion .of trofflo in Willis and Manners Streets/would be diverted to Victoria Street and Jervois Quay, but warehouses sprang up. in both those thoroughfares, turning, them into wholesale localities, leaving the old line of the city proper to bear its over-increasing burden of what one might term' "popular" traffic. .'" ..;■■■•. /

: The .widening- of Adelaide'.Road was an expensive' process/,but .'who will 1 say now I thai'-it was'not ijustifiedi ' ■ Itf'th'e case of Willis Street i the progress made has not been so. rapid as it: might have "been. It is notable that a long strip of this'thoroughfare, could be: widened for; traffic at once, were, it not for a block of the city's own property which; projects to the old building line.. If some reasonable arrangement could be corned to with .the tenants -or lessees' of those places the cost of slicing-off the required 10ft. would bo well worth while; This would enable the authorities to widen the street by the distance mentioned as far up as the southern, end of the .Windsor Hotel block (which stands back to the new line).- A firo recoiitly occurred a little higher up. in onb of a number "of old wooden buildings, and the structure that. will eventually take its place must be erected with a frontage ten feet back from thq_ present lino. To revert toManners Street; a favourable opportunity offers for_ the wideniug of that street in : that, there, is-, a ' stretch of. old■ wooden structures for half of that portion between Willis and Cuba Streets.' Save for a one-storied-wall in: Mr. H. Fielder's building, there is not a brick structure, on the northern side of Manners Street between the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel and the New Zealarider Hotel. _ ', Last year a oommittee of the City Council was appointed, to go into the matter of too! widening;of Willis Street (on the motion of Councillor R. Fletcher), but" up to the present nothing has transpired to indicate that the matter has been considered. The council might ask for a report from its Manners Street Widening Committee as a preliminary to drafting a. scheme,- which might operate gradually as in the'case of Willis Street.