OVERCROWDED SYDNEY

Hokitika Guardian, 8 January 1921, Page 1

OVERCROWDED SYDNEY

INADEQUATE PUBLIC SERVICES

SYDNEY, Dec. 28

Sydney lias grown so rapidly ill the past fifty years that it has beeii^ 1 found impossible to make the various public services keep pace with the demands of the population. When; in 1914, the war came and put restrictions on the expenditure on public works, the problem was already troublesome. To-day, mainly as the result of conditions imposed by the war, it is most acute. The causes of the present embarrassment may best he shown by gathering under one head the various public services and utilities which now fail to meet re-

quirements : Houses. Transit facilities. Water. P.O. letter boxes. Roads and bridges. Telephones. Offices and shops. Electric power. Police protection. Refrigerated vehicles for perishable produce. Of these, those which are causing Sydney most concern are transit facilities and water. At busy periods now the Sydney tramway system reaches “saturation point”—that is to say, it arrives at that state when it is simply iifeapable of handling more traffic. The tramway system now is shockingly overcrowded. What it will be in a couple of years’ time the Sydney people hate to think. Had the war not intervened, we should by now be within sight of the completion of the underground city railway, which would have vastly relieved t-hp tramways. But that work is only now being talked of again, and, from the time it is recommenced, it will take from six to ten years to complete it.

There is plenty of water out, on the distant catchment area, and there is a good reticulation in the city, but between the two there lies a conduit system capable of supplying only about 54,000,000 gallons a day, whereas U’e normal requirements o! the million people who are now s.cived by this water system is 00,000,000 gallons a day. This city will probably know the most serious trouble in regard to water supply before this summer is‘over.

There are said to be 7000 people waiting for telephones—and most of them have been waiting nearly a ybsfr. There is a waiting list of 000 people who want letter boxes in excess of the number now available for renting.

The housing problem has 1 eon most acute, hut building lias been going on at such a rate that the demand will be somewhere near overtaken during the present year. The failure to reinforce khe City Council’s power station is likely to cause much trouble in the coming winter.