Ferry Facilities

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 239, 29 December 1927, Page 8

Ferry Facilities

PROGRESS AT DEVONPORT

Improvements on Waterfront

THE year 1927 closes with prospect of better ferry facilities evident in tangible form. Substantial progress has been made with the new piers at Devonport, and when they are built a new city terminus for the vehicular service will be established near Luna Park, in a locality that will be the scene of radical harbour development in the next few years.

rpHB cost of the new wharves now under construction at Devonport will run to £60,000, and the new vehicular terminal will cost £20,000. With another vehicular landing, to be established at the end of the western reclamation, it forms part of the comprehensive plan of harbour development. Larger structures to be added under the same general scheme are a railway wharf, export wharf, and another general-purposes wharf, all sprouting from the eastern reclamation, which at present shows a 76. tK trt Tfi rft 511 m rrc

vacant breastwork to the harbour. The new vehicular landing, to be started very soon, wi . be the first structure in this part of the harbour. As an incidental, it will add to the tribulations of rowing clubs, and other maritime organisations established in the vicinity; but the members of those institutions realise only too well that their simple wants cannot stay the march of progress and its attendant harbour development. RAILWAY WHARF After the new ferry landing, the railway wharf, which will cost up to £300,000, will be the next work attempted. Though it will not be started for two or three years, at least, unless abnormal necessity arises, the lay-out of the railway approaches to it has already occasioned

concern among Auckland shipping interests, which assert that congestion will occur through the fact that there is provision for only one crossing over Quay Street. Chief need for the railway wharf arises from the large amount of rough cargo now landed in Auckland. Timber, coal and superphosphates are among the commodities covered by this classification. They require no costly shed accommodation, and with modern plant could be loaded quickly and economically, direct on to railway trucks. When freighters bearing this type of cargo are lying at existing wharves, they are keeping costly shed accommodation idle, and the principle that an open railway wharf would save this waste is one of the predominant advantages such a structure would confer.

With development on the eastern reclamation completed, a great proportion of the city's waterfront activity will be centred there. Improvements contemplated under the original plan of Mr. W. H. Hamer, and since endorsed with very little modification, provide for wharves spaced regularly along the stretch of waterfront between the western wharf and the eastern breakwater. Keeping pace with the expansion of the port’s business, the Harbour Board anticipates that the works outlined in Mr. Hamer’s plan will be completed in 1945. The cost will be at least five and a-half million pounds. WORKS IN PROGRESS To the casual observer there is at present very little evidence that a scheme so ambitious and costly is being followed. Nevertheless the system of new works now under construction it co-ordinated with development under the main .plan. During the year the St. Mary’s Bay boat harbour has taken more pronounced shape, and the rapid advancement on the ferry wharf undertaking at Devonport has marked a definite step toward the provision of better facilities for 2-rry passengers. Ferry traffic is at present using the new cargo wharf, within the shelter of which the decked-in passenger jetty will be built. Here, too, will be the terminal for vehicl&-ferries to discharge their freight on to a viaduct automatically adjusted by the tide.

The new jetties at Devonport should be ready before next winter’s wind and weather threaten Devonport residents with the seasonal discomforts they have endured in the past. By that time the new vehicle-terminal at the eastern reclamation should be begun. Though not works of major magnitude, these projects signify the activity of the artificial forces which have re-moulded the Waitemata waterfront.