DANGEROUS RAILWAY CROSSINGS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9132, 3 July 1908, Page 4

DANGEROUS RAILWAY CROSSINGS.

The Railway -Department is slow to move in the direction of improving the position of the town's two chief railway crossings. Already hairbreadths escapes from a terrible deatn have been experienced recently at the Akura crossing, serious enough damage having, anyhow, been occasioned through the dangerous nature of the crossing. Then again the crossing near Kuripuni station, at Shoi't Street terminus, is a stant menace to users of the road—and they are many. Probably when human lives have been sacrificed through the authorities' dilatoriness these crossings will receive the attention they badly need. Short Street crossing is one that lends itself to material improvement by the widening of the road and the, alteration of the angle. It is the duty of the Borough Council to widen roads in its jurisdiction, and that of the Railway Department to insure that its engines are not a source of danger to human life. Perhaps if the Council took seriously in hand the question of widening the extx'emely narrow thoroughfare of Short Street, the Railway Department might see its way to do its duty in respect of the crossing. Several residents on the road in question have previously intimated their willingness to give the land required to make tHe road a chain wide, and their generous offer should be availed of while it is open. Regaining the Akura crossing, the duplication of the lines—part of the present scheme of improvements at the Masterton Railway Station —renders it more than ever imperative' that road traffic should be protected.