TRANSPORT PROBLEMS FOR COUNCIL

Taupo Times, Volume VI, Issue 286, 1 August 1957, Page 1

TRANSPORT PROBLEMS FOR COUNCIL

THE PUBLIO will await with eonsiderable interest the decisions of the borough council upon the proposals by Traffie Officer J. D. Marshall to reduee the traffie hazards in different paris oi the borough, to improve the parking faeilities, particularly in Tongariro Street, and last but not least the removal of two trees outside the council chambers in Story Lane. There is 110 doubt that the whole traffic-eontrol pattern in Taupo needs a complete overhaul. Through a y.ariety of causes — high, unkempt hedges, mounds of spoil, and so on — many of the intersections along Kifle Range Eoad and Kaimanawa Boad are almost completely blind, yet despite tliat too many drivers of motor-vehicles use those two outlets as speedways.

Taupo could well follow the eompulsory-stop system used so successfully in other towns. As Cr C. S. Currie said at a recen.t meeting of the borough council eoncerning another matter, this is no longer a hick town but an up-and-eoming munieipality As such, its traffie control system needs a thorough goingover. Miich of the material supplied by Mr Marshall in his survey of the town Is traffie system, which ajipears in a report 011 this page, is so obviously right tliat the council should find little difficulty in reaching firrn decisions. What may b other council] ors a little is his suggestion that the trees in front of the council chambers should be removed. From the purely aesthetic viewpoint the presence of trees gives unending pleasure to - passers-by, but when the trees grow in the roadway some distance from the kerb, and in a roadway which in the near future will be an outlet to the landing reserve, the issue takes a different complexion. Traffie Officer Marshall put the matter scjuarely to the council at its last meeting: "They are an obstacle, and it is an offence to have tliem there. They a're an obstacle to traffie 011 a public road. Sentimentality is very nice, but 1 thin.lv public safety is far more im- * portant. It is a nice point, and oue difficult to escape.