The Sun TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1927. BUSES ON A GADARENE SLOPE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 214, 29 November 1927, Page 10

The Sun TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1927. BUSES ON A GADARENE SLOPE

THE best that can be said about the vigorous protests of suburban residents in Ellerslie, the Mount Roskill district and Henderson against the exasperating inadequacy of the Auckland municipal bus transport services is that they have emphasised the disabilities thrust upon them as the result of ineffective administration and bad But after praise has been bestowed on these critics of a miserable business for their candour and complete unanimity of desire for better treatment, one must turn naturally to the question of what is likely to be the practical outcome of the keen protests. So far, a firm way out of the morass has not been revealed. It is as easy, as it is impressive, to pass resolutions (as in the Mount Roskill district last evening) invoking the Government to compel the City Council “to honour its public undertaking to maintain adequate services without an increase in fares,” but who is going to stand the immense financial loss in honouring the pledge, if, indeed, such a promise were ever made ? Unless conditions change for the better very soon, the aggregate loss on the municipal bus services this financial year will not be less than £50,000, and in all probability a great deal more. Does anyone in possession of common sense really expect that the city ratepayers, now the highest-taxed municipal group in the Dominion, will cheerfully lose £I.OOO a week in order to maintain adequate bus services without increasing the fares to and from more lightly taxed suburbs? Apathy may and often does make ratepayers as simple as sheep, but there is a limit to their docility. That limit has been reached in respect of the extravagant muddle of bus transport. City residents have been forced to pay a stiff price for such advantages as they enjoy. Their rates, and the rents they are charged for huddled houses and improvised flats, would make a Whitechapel Israelite green with envy. If suburban residents demand the same dubious advantages they, too, will have to pay for them. It is quite clear that the whole system of municipal bus transport will have to be remodelled and Set going on a new basis of maintenance and control. The present serviee is obviously beyond the capacity of the tramway authorities. Since the transport monopoly was given to them by the myopic Government, they have failed consistently to prove equal to the responsibility involved in it. In the first year of bus service, as a monopoly with the right to impose higher fares, they lost £48,000. Experience has not improved that lamentable position. ■ It has not taught wise administrators the trick of earning a pennyworth of profit. The miserable business cannot be allowed to go on until it runs down a Gadarene slope. It is obvious that the embarrassed administrators do not want it to run on. They are clearly willing to be rid of it, but, of course, they cannot afford to hand it back to private enterprise, on terms' that would soon revive the intolerable and ruinous cut-throat competition between trams and buses. In the meantime the Prime Minister has taken up the question, and will confer at Wellington to-day with a municipal deputation from Auckland on the necessity of devising a new system of bus transport control. It is probable that Mr. Coates s original idea of creating a National Transport Board will find some experimental exercise in straightening out the transport muddle in Auckland. If that be so, let us all hope that the scheme will not be a twin of that imbecile legislation the Motor-Bus Transport Act.