Access to Suburbs

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 337, 24 April 1928, Page 15

Access to Suburbs

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY

Big Private Interests

QUESTIONS concerning city traffic outlets with which the civic authorities have dallied for the past 20 years or so, will come before the City Council again shortly, though the prospects for any advancement in the proposals appear to he small. In the past year the position with regard to outlets has barely made any appreciable change for the better. Improvements to Belgium Street, calculated to relieve traffic in Symonds Street, and the linking up of Howe and Day Streets, with the object of removing western traffic from Karangahape Road, appear to be no nearer than they were two years ago.

The improvement of the grade from Stanley Street to Grafton Road lias removed little if any traffic from Symonds Street. In any case it is easier for traffic to reacli Grafton Road via Anzac Avenue. and once in Anzac Avenue drivers usually prefer to go on the concrete and over the bride instead of on to the questionable surface in low'er Grafton Road. The Works Committee of the City Council has recently dismissed, and will discuss again at its next meeting, the possibility of the outlets westward, particularly the long proposed joining up of Fans haw Street and Harbour Street, which would give direct easy-grade access to the whole of the Fonsonby-Herne Bay waterfront, obviating the present necessity of using College Hill. A piece .of road less than 200 yards in length, and offering a grade of one in sixteen, is all that is required. The proposal is that this should run from the present end of Fanshawe Streetg along the cliff face opposite the Victoria Cruising Club, joining up with Harbour Street. A sea wall and the remival of a house would be the b % gest obstacles from the engineering side. APPEARS EASY, BUT However, the simplicity of the idea is disturbed by the fact that the Auckland Gas Company, whoch owns the land which would be required, is definitely and decidedly opposed to givir|. u pits rights. It has been reported that the company places a value of £IOO,OOO

on the land, but this is denied by the general manager, Mr. Lowe, who states that the company will not place a value on the land. In the situation in which they are placed the ownership is of greater value than money. The company owns about 14 acres in the vicinity, is already cramped in its operations, and requires the land for future extensions. It could do with twice as much land now, states Mr. Lowe, and is working on as small an area as other cities with a much smaller population. SCHEME 20 YEARS OLD About 1909 the Harbour Board proposed to take the amount of land required for the road, probably with the idea of handing it over to the city, and actually took it under the Public Works Act. When the financial side cropped up for settlement the board decided to take the line of least resistance, and it. re-conveyed the land to the company. At that time the company agreed to the extinction of its riparian rights, and secured in return the right to all the area which is at present enclosed by the passenger gangway. As time goes on the company will reclaim this area. In the circumstances the city and the company are up against a difficult problem. The company and city engineer have recently discussed the position without result. Sooner or later the city will have to look to the southward exits, and a scheme which promises better results than Anzac Avenue or Grafton Road will be considered again. This is a proposal to continue Stanley Street to the left, cutting through the corner of the tennis courts, and almost straight /•.long the side of the hill to a cutting which would deliver traffic on the Domain Drive at this portion. The proposal is to carry the road straight into Park Road more or less across the area at present occupied by the main gates to the Domain cricket grounds.