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Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1917, Page 4

MOTOR-BUS'SERVICE. The decision of the Borough Council last evening to dispense with the formality of taking a poll on the proposal to borrow £IBOO for the purchase of an electric motor bus for use in the suburbs, is a business-like one. Most people are in •avor of granting transit facilities to the suburbs, and to take a poll for an amount so small, and which unite properly can be found from overdraft, is to incur unnecessary expense. The only fault we find with the proposal is that it does not allow for the purchase of .two machines instead of one. One machine will be severely taxed, if the various suburbs are to be adequately provided for. It is well to have a stand-by. If the service is a success—and there is no reason why it should not be —another machine, of course, can be purchased, The suburbs have grown a good deal during the past three or four years, but they will expand much more rapidly when regular bus services are inaugurated. Some day the tramways will run up to We3town and down the Frankley road, Carrington road, and Avenue road, but it would be a mistake to wait until the borough is in a position to undertake the extensions, when other and cheaper means are at hand to develop all these promising suburbs immediately. Maybe the engineer's estimate of a loss over the working of the proposed bus service will materialise, but even if it does, there are indirect benefits that will sot it oil, The tramways have already justified their inauguration, and are playing an important part in developing the town, and there is no reason why the bus service should not prove equally satisfactory.