Grafton Bridge Riddle

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 310, 22 March 1928, Page 8

Grafton Bridge Riddle

BY-LAWS OPENLY FLOUTED Hanging Footway Suggested GRAFTON BRIDGE provides a riddle the solution of which will sooner or later have to be arrived at by the City Council. The sooner the puzzle is dealt with and solved the better. The present by-law is that pedestrians must cross on the right-hand side, but the difficulty for the pedestrians is to get to the right-hand side without being run down by one of the hundreds of vehicles that pass over the bridge every day. The result is that the pedestrians take the line of least resistance and the by-laws are ignored.

TTNFORTUNATELY tile Ignoring of the by-laws has, in itself, the elements of danger, particularly in that there are, daily, a great number of walkers on the narrow and crowded footpaths who walk with their backs to the traffic and are missed by short inches. The Sun has made inquiries among representative citizens. The general opinion seems to be that, sooner or later, one of three alternatives will have to he faced. The bridge will

have to be replaced; it will have to be duplicated, or it will. have to be altered structurally. Any of thise actions will involve considerable expenditure. Neither of the two firstm .itioned proposals is likely to be entertained in the present generation, and the regret is that the far-seeing Mr. Arthur Myers did no + fulfilment of his dream of a much e commodious bridge in the first place. ' r '’ -'on is therefore narrowed dc 1 -> the preset* possibilities for relief of this already-overburdened roadway. A study of the conditions

makes it obvious that the pedestrian traffic cannot be regulated as desired under the existing difficulties, nor can <he motor traffic be speeded up and congestion relieved, owing to the danger to foot traffic that would be involved. Three other schemes have been suggested. The first is that pedestrians entering the bridge from the city end should be provided with an overhead graded footway to enable them to reach the proper side of the bridge. The second is that a higher level footway should be constructed above and in addition to the present footways, or one of them. The first would be inexpensive, a make-shift, inconvenient, and possibly unsightly. The second would be expensive, a makeshift, and undoubtedly an eyesore. THE SUGGESTED SOLUTION

This leads to the third suggestion, which certainly would be expensive —though little compared with duplicating—and could probably be carried out without materially detracting from the beautiful appearance of the bridge. It is that the pedestrian traffic should be removed from the present surface altogether, and be provided for by semi-suspended footways on either side of the bridge, below the parapets which carry the present footways. These parapets jut out approximately to seven feet from the main pillars of the bridge, and the construction of the span is such that there should be few difficulties in the way of providing a sufficiently strong footway, a foot or two feet wider than the existing ones, which are between five and six feet wide. The provision of approaches at either end would be simple, and there would be no need for walkers to cross the lines of traffic on the city end at all. Other features would be that the footways would be greatly sheltered by the parapets, and an almost dry walk would be available in wet weather; the present congestion and danger would be eliminated; fine views of the beautiful valley under the bridge would be made available, and nearly 12 feet would he added to the width of the carriage-way. One expert considers that the beauty of the bridge need not be marred if there were good designing, and that the necessity for building another bridge could be delayed by anything from 15 to 20 years by adopting thissuggestion.