Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1938. IMPROVING OUR TRANSPORT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1938. IMPROVING OUR TRANSPORT.

N"OW that, the construction of the Rimutaka deviation tunnel lias been authorised and an early start on the work is assured, the people of the Wairarapa would be exceedingly unwise to lend themselves to any reopening of the former “battle of the routes.” If that conflict were revived in full vigour, the effect probably would be to postpone once more, and perhaps for many years, any practical attempt to provide improved transport facilities between the Wairarapa and Wellington.

The selection of a railway route is best left to engineering and other experts. In 1923, the then Chief Engineer of Public Works (Mr F. IV. Furkert), following on the consideration of six major deviations of the Rimutaka railway, recommended the Mangaroa-Cross Creek tunnel deviation. It must be supposed that the present engineers of the Public Works Department have approved and confirmed the 1923 recommendation. It is admitted that several possible deviation routes have each their own claims to consideration, but the weight of expert opinion appears decisively to favour the tunnel deviation which has now been approved.

Whatever may have happened in the past, there is little enough modern justification for the assertion that polities have influenced the decision now reached. It has its bearing on financial and other considerations, as well as that of the selection of route, that in 1923, the year in which the Mangaroa-Cross Creek tunnel was recommended, Mr Coates as Minister of Public Works, stated that: “The Rimutaka deviation is recognised as a necessary work which should be put in hand and carried to completion at the earliest possible time,” and that the self-same work today is approved and is about to be put in hand by the Minister of Public Works in a Labour Government, Mr Semple.

Some attempts are being macle at present to raise other issues on which the people of the Wairarapa, if they want improved transport facilities, would be wise to turn a cold and indifferent eye. It has been asked, for instance, whether the proposed railway expenditure or the greater part of it could not be saved by merely affording greater facilities for road transport?

Those who ask this question apparently are not very well acquainted with the Wairarapa. Otherwise they would hardly overlook the fact that in the case of both railway and road transport between the Wairarapa and its port, the Rimutaka range presents itself as a barrier to be surmounted. “Greater facilities for road transport will hardly begin to rival those afforded by a tunneldeviated railway, unless a road tunnel is driven through the Rimutakas, or some similarly costly alternative is adopted.

Disregarding all red herrings and side issues of every kind, the fact of which firm hold should be taken is that the Mangaroa-Cross Creek tunnel deviation, now definitely authorised, offers the people of the Wairarapa anti others concerned a vast improvement in transport facilities they are not likely to obtain in any other way, at all events for a long time to come.

The financial aspects of the deviation project, as they were set out by Mr Furkert in 1923 were that, from a national standpoint, the resultant working savings would approximately equal interest on the cost of the work. As Mr Furkert pointed out, however, transport improvements give rise also to benefits and advantages which are highly important, economically and in other ways, though they cannot' be measured beforehand in pounds, shillings and pence.

Where the improvement of transport facilities is concerned, it. may be hoped that the people of the Wairarapa will be in no way inclined to let go the substance they have at last secured in order to pursue shadows of any kind whatever.