TRAFFIC CONGESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 22454, 26 September 1936, Page 14

TRAFFIC CONGESTION.

Three or four times a day the combination of trams, motor cars, and pedestrians may cause a brief congestion at Custom House Square. The precise times are not very definite, because at 1 o’clock, when observations wore taken recently, there was not a single moving motor car in sight in that part of Princes street, and at 10 minutes to 2, which might also have been expected to be a busy time, there was one. The excess of 'traffic, giving an appearance of lively activity, can bo inconvenient when it occurs, but an assertion that it was dangerous would not be supported by any record of accidents at the place. It seems, indeed, to have been particularly immune from them. The proposal has been advanced, and seems to have found favour with some city councillors, that this central passage-way might be made safer for pedestrians if all motor traffic along Princes street were prohibited for 24 hours of the day. Then the “ dead heart of Dunedin” might bo spoken of as one speaks of the “ Dead Heart of Australia.” Before this suggestion is adopted by the City Council it will do well to consider whether the end sought cannot be achieved in a much simpler way.

The ideas put forward by a respected member of the Automobile Association were elaborate. The tram stop at the Bank of New Zealand for trams going south would be abolished, and the trams would stop instead immediately on the south side of Rattray street, the Cargill Monument being removed to make room for two new shelter sheds, one for the south and the other for the Castle street line. The present stopping place at the Stock Exchange would also be abolished, and the shelter, formed by verandahs, which the council has now for nothing abandoned. Motor cars would have no option but to use Bond street, or Crawford street, or Cumberland street for this portion of their journey, so that a car from the north wishing to reach the front entrance of the new Post Office when it is completed would first make a detour of a block, however clear its natural route might be. An automatic tram point at Jacobs’s Corner would also make “hold-ups” fewer. Two-thirds of traffic would be accelerated at brief times of the day. It is quite clear, however, that all these changes would have their disadvantages.

The improved surface of Crawford street has diverted a great deal of traffic from the city’s main thoroughfare. The natural tendency of the motorist is to take his most direct way. If he is going north from Anderson’s Bay or south from Lower High street, five times out of six he takes Crawford' street. If he is in Princes street, going north or south, it is equal chances that he stays there unless he sees a, prospect of congestion ahead, when he will diverge usually as a matter of course. If he tends still to take the more crowded street more often than he should, there is k simple cure for that. It is practised now on big football afternoons, when a traffic officer is stationed at Manor Place to divert cars out of Princes street while congestion lasts. A constable or a traffic officer placed at Manor Place and another at Dowling street during rush half-hours on other days could keep the fairway at the Stock Exchange as clear as anyone could wish, with a minimum of inconvenience to natural traffic. Abolition of the tram stopping place where a descending grade ends at the Bank of New Zealand would have disadvantages for passengers connecting with Rattray street cars if the main stop remained at the Stock Exchange. If the main stop were removed to the present site of the monument it would be less convenient for visitors to the Post Office. There would be complications of traffic in either case, and a tram stop before an intersection at the bottom of a slope has been generally insisted on by the central authorities. An automatic tram point for trams turning into Castle street would probably cause the jumping off, at a rather risky place, of some passengers not intending to go so far. One suggestion that was advanced at the meeting of the Automobile Association which made too much of traffic congestion we would heartily endorse, but ii had nothing to do with trams or motoring. It was that the Cargill Monument should be cleaned.