THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1916 TUAKAU'S RAILWAY BRIDGE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 185, 23 June 1916, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1916 TUAKAU'S RAILWAY BRIDGE.

" We nothing extenuate, nor tet down auaht in malice."

The matter ot the site of the proposed overhead railway bridge at Tuakau is to be discussed at a meeting of ratepayers convened by the Town Board for Monday evening next. It is hardly open to question that the eminently practical, and from the general public point of view the most desirable, place for the bridge is that it should span the Harrisville road in substitution for the present level crossing, which is dangerous to a degree and is destined sooner or later to be the scene of some serious mishap. The preservation of life and limb should assuredly be the first consideration both from the Railway Departments and Town Board's point of view, and if an adjacent site nearer the station were selected tor the Incite it is a certainty that the direct ro3d would still carry the main part of pedestrian and vehicular traffic rather than a side and longer thoroughfare being resorted to. A by-road bridge would, it is true, be the means of averting the transit ot stock through the main street to the railway yards but whereas cattle only pass through the town at intervals the public use the road and level crossing throughout every hour of the clay. Again at comparatively little cost surely there would be no difficulty in a stock route bridge of small dimensions being constructed at some suitable paint in addition to an overhead structure on the darrisvillc road. The point theretore reEolves itself into the amount the ratepayers are willing to contribute towards the cost of construction of a bridge on the latter site, the contention ol the Kail way Department being that their outlay would be less, owing to the necessity of expensive approaches on the Harrisville road site, if a bridge was erected elsewhere. The Railway Department as a State concern has, however, a duty to perioral to the puhh: ami numerous fatalities on level crossings in all parts of the Dominion teach the ksEun that as population increases railway crossings un a road are a menace to lite and must be superseded by bridges. That the Railway Department should seek to evade its responsibilities by placing any burden od the district is hardly justifiable, but the position has to be laced that such is the case and that the Department is only prepared to act if a proportion of the cost is borne by local residents. Such being 10, the meeting next Monday would be well advised to agree to accept liability for some reasonable amount to bring about the prompt prevision ct a bridge-, which will in the progress of time become a vital reed to the district's development.