MOTOR-CAR CONGESTION

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 345, 4 May 1928, Page 8

MOTOR-CAR CONGESTION

WHETHER the limiting by five minutes of the time which motor-cars may park in Queen Street will have any perceptible effect in reducing the congestion which has become such a nuisance is open to question. There are spaces in the main thoroughfare that are always in demand and that would continuously be filled if parking were restricted to even five minutes, instead of the ten minutes decided upon last night by the City Council. But it cannot be urged that motor-cars—indispensable vehicles these days—are responsible for filling the streets. As was pointed out by the chief traffic inspector, Mr. Hogan, a direct cause of the congestion in the principal thoroughfare is the routing of the main portion of the tram service through Queen Street, more than half the space being occupied bv tramcars. Mr. Hogan is of opinion (and there will be wide agreement with him in this) that either the tramway service in Queen Street should be reduced to a minimum or a terminus for the suburban services should be provided in the Civic Square. Present indications, he points out, are that trams will eventuallv have to be excluded from’Queen Street. If it were not that the mind of the general manager of the tramways, Mr. Ford, is at present fully occupied by the demands of the Royal Commission, it would be very interesting to obtain bis opinion regarding Mr. Hogan’s views. It may be well, while on the subject of Queen Street congestion, to press the point that when Mr. Ford saw a way to ease the difficulty by constructing a tramline up Albert Street, he was thwarted by the Tramways Committee. With the congestion growing more pronounced—and more dangerous—week by week, is the committee still of the same opinion regarding an Albert Street tramway? As the body which controls traffic, the Auckland City Council must do something more comprehensive than tinker with minutes on the question of parking motor-cars. It would do well to heed the advice of its experts and lessen the congestion in Queen Street by a bold move. Although the time mav not vet have arrived to abolish trams altogether from Queen Street, it is high time that tram traffic below tlie Town Hall, at least, was confined to one way only, on a single line, and that a “loop” was run back to Upper Queen Street via Albert Street.