Travel By Cable

For as long as there has been a Victoria University (well almost) there has been a cable-car.

It Is on record that the man who gave £1000 to finance the purchase of the original Kelburn site was one of the owners of the private company which built that quaint little funicular railway which we call the cable-car.

Future owners have not been so generous — and students have reacted predictably. That April Fools Day not so many years ago when an unimaginative City Council raised the fares (and viewed with horror the escapades of student objectors) is still well known to many.

That this generation of the cable-car has survived last year's violent rise in fares can be attributed rather to apathy than to any sense that the car is indispensable. The rise in fares (up to 125 per cent) produced hardly a murmur from students too much involved in finals to protest.

Rumours of Executive action had a dampening effect on protests, too. And, indeed, some Executive action took place. A protective appeal was lodged with the Transport Licensing Authority, and negotiations began with the City Council for a student concession rate.

Negotiation went on for months holidays passed, the City Council went on collecting its 6d a trip. Then, in the middle of March, the City Council gave a definite "no" to the idea. Students could not have concession fares on City Council Public Transport. (The Council refuses to regard the cable-car as a separate transportation system—it is part of the whole scheme to them.)

Cr. M. N. Manthel told the council that "the students had not established they suffered hardship through the fares."

At the time of writing, the appeal is not vet heard. If the Authority can be convinced that the cable-car is a separate transportation system (and why not?—up till 1946 it was), a reduction in fares may be ordered. Assuming this generous concession can be forced on the City Council, students have a chance that, some six months after the new fares come into existence, they may be reduced.

Now may be an appropriate time to rehash some of the statements on the cable-car that the Mayor, Mr. Kitts, made in 1962. When the council took the cable-car over in 1946—they bought out a private company—there were plans for new 100-seater cars at the blue-print stage. They stayed that way—the same 75-seater cars still carry on.

Training College students may be interested to know that under the original plan for the cable-car, it was to have gone right over the hill and down into the Glen. The would have been achieved by using the normal cable-car principle—a single car which grips on to a continuously-moving cable to go, and releases it to stop.

In 1958, the City Council announced that "various type of cars were being considered for the modernisation of the cable-car." One plan provided 110 seats—a number more in keeping with present peak load demands on the service.

Mr. Kitts. Salient reported in 1962, mentioned that there was a possibility of a second cable-car—an alternate route had been considered from Dixon Street up to the Science block. However, he said that governmental pressures against the raising of loans by local bodies would make that sort of large-scale improvement /?/unlikely in the near future.