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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 4. 1966.

Growing problem

Growing problem

Now these plans, too, lie in some dark council pigeonhole.

In 1962 the Mayor. Sir Francis Kitts, mentioned the possibility of a second cable car—an alternate route had been considered from Dixon Street up to Easterfield building. He said that at the time governmental pressures were against the raising of loans by local bodies and this would make this kind of large-scale improvement unlikely in the near future.

Since then the passenger load has continued to increase.

But the council transport department's present ambitions don't go beyond a repaint.

The head of the department, Mr. R. H. Pritchard, says that the service is a swift one, taking only about four minutes for the run at peak hours, and that the queue is fast moving.

This may have some truth, but students would contrast waiting out in the alley on a wet day and then clinging to the present cars, none of whose seats are completely waterproof.

Improvements

A stopwatch check by one student has shown that an alignment of stops, with the car stopping at each stop, would raise the number of trips per hour from 13 to 17.

Mr. Pritchard does not think the expense of building stops out over the bridge-ways would be worth it.

The cable car is the one unit of the Wellington public transport system which has consistently made a tidy profit. The council has argued that it does not call for any special treatment as it is, just part of the overall transport system, even though it may run at a profit.

But a transport appeal court recently ruled otherwise, and this decision could hardly be discarded by the council in making its decisions.

commuters decanting from cable car