The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1927. MAKING CITY TRANSPORT PAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 115, 5 August 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1927. MAKING CITY TRANSPORT PAY

THERE is great merit in any business scheme that almost guarantees the reduction of financial loss in the enterprise it covers from £40,000 to £5,000 a year. Such is the purpose, such the promise of the scheme adopted by the Auckland City Council last evening for vitalising a transport system which, for some time past, under imperfect control, has been afflicted with a wasting disease, a kind of commercial T.B. Since much is bound to be said about the defects of the scheme and its unpopular features, let us first look at its good points. These, it is true, are less numerous than its bad ones, but what is lacking in quantity is made up in quality. Their value is such as to encourage the overburdened ratepayers to forget a great deal of the administration’s notorious past. And this is, the outstanding merit of the Tramways Committee s drastic scheme for reorganising a rickety and deplorably unprofitable system of tram and motor-bus transport. The new proposals are based firmly on unassailable principles of business. So pronounced is this feature, indeed, that it almost seems as though Mr. J. A. C. Allum—one of a few municipal administrators who hate muddle and a waste of public money—has been courageous enough to put business first and to say bluntly: “To hell with politics.” There is nothing in the scheme to suggest that its promoters were actuated by a desire to please anybody in particular or generally to acquire an easy popularity. On the* contrary they have challenged unpopularity by seeking' to avoid further colossal loss of the ratepayers’ money and ultimate bankruptcy. Their policy is at long last the beginning of administrative wisdom. But in order to make the policy a living thing and a potent force for transport success, it will have to be supported quickly and quite ruthlessly wherever necessary with a thorough overhaul of the overgrown system of technical management, particularly in respect of bus services upon which £40,000 was squandered last financial year. If any special consideration has been given at all to users of the trams, which have never failed to pay their way, it takes the right direction—it goes toward providing some benefits for the city’s own ratepayers. It is a good fault. Briefly, the scheme coordinates the tram and bus services, increases the number of tramway sections by reducing the length of most of the existing sections beyond the first section, introduces the popular penny fare, curtails concessions (except for workers travelling within specified hours, and school children) and attempts to lift, the bus services out of the rut of ruin on to a firmer route to profit. Thus ratepayers within the city have no great cause for complaint. Beyond the city area the penalty is heavier and will occasion howls of protest. It is quite clear, of course, that the new committee has realised the danger of maintaining concessions at a ruinous rate. For ourselves we think that the scaling down is too severe. Still, it has to be recognised that, the administration could not face a loss of £54,000 this year on its transport system, and was compelled to change its policy. It is for the ratepayers now to consider whether or not the system should be made to pay its way. They will have little faith in the bus business.