APPARENT TRAMWAY LOSS EXPLAINED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 1

APPARENT TRAMWAY LOSS EXPLAINED

HALF-MILLION LOAN GRAFTON LIBRARY MEETING An apparent loss of £4,038 In tramway finances for the first three months of the current financial year was disclosed at the fifth meeting to explain the half-mil-lion loan proposal, in Grafton Library last evening. The Mayor, Mr. G. Baildon, presided. Quoting figures to show the extent of the tramways undertaking Cr. J. A. C. Allum said that the wages bill for May, June and July of this year was £91,000 exclusive of salaries. That was at the rate of £7,500 a week. Could the people afford to jepardise a con cern paying this sum to the workers? he asked. The trams, 206 of them carried 65 million passengers a year. It was more closely interwoven into the lives of the citizens than anyone realised. Referring to the cross-over at the intersection of Quay and Customs Streets, Mr. Aluum said that it had been replaced at a cost of £12,000 or £13,000, the whole of which had been paid out of the revenue for April. May and June, and would not recur for 12 or 13 years. Tramway expenditure exceeded revenue for the first three months of the present year by £4,038, but it was not right to say that it had lost this sum. From a profit and loss standpoint there was a surplus on the three months of £5,000. NO LOAN, NO BUSES. The tramways undertaking was in a strong and sound financial position. Buses had to pay or go. He did not intend any threat in saying, as far as certain bus routes were concerned, “no loan, no buses.’* The committee was prepared to give tram fares and sections on these bus routes, but only until the trams were put on.

Community buses had hit the revenue seriously in the first, three months, but in July, the first month when the trams had had a free run, the figures were most satisfactory, though he could not divulge them. Tramways policy was dealt with by Mr. Crookes. There was an unfair competition handicapping the trams in that they had to pay for maintaining a third of the roadway. The cost was £2OO a tramcar, and 206 tramcars ran on the roads in Auckland. That was a heavy load for an undertaking. Buses, on the other hand, had only to pay heavy traffic fees. Quoting the cost per car mile Mr. Crookes stated that the figures were: Glasgow 4s lid, Auckland 4s 7id, Wellington 5s sd, Edinburgh 5s lOd. The conditions in these towns offered a fair basis of comparison.