1925: Dunedin Council Anti-Motorcar?
January 31, 2025
By AHNZ
Some messed up government action going on today in Dunedin history back on 31 January, 1925.
Police Senior-Sergeant Mathieson and his officers were trying to bust people who parked outside His Majesty’s Theatre and failed to light their cars.
Magistrate (H.W. Bundle) pointed out that the area was well-lit already so there was no need to vexatiously prosecute users of motorcars. The police agreed but excused themself with the usual ‘just following orders’ line.
Why was the Dunedin City Council trying to make life hard on motorists this way? As cars parked on the street were some kind of hazard?
Of course having to find a way to light up one’s parked car would be a bother and expense. An extra liability imposed on drivers which would discourage them from taking their car into town. Instead, they were being nudged toward taking the government’s preferred public transport system.
“During the hearing of motor ear by- law cases at the City Police Court yesterday, Mr H.W. Bundle SM expressed the view that he did not think it necessary that every car parked outside His Majesty’s Theatre should be lighted. The parking area was well lighted, and he thought it an excessive precaution to have every car lighted. Senior-sergeant Mathieson said he agreed with the magistrate, but that the constable had received instructions to prosecute in every case. The Magistrate said it was a matter that the police should consider along with the City Council, and he requested them to take steps in that direction. The Senior- sergeant said he would take the necessary action. — ODT, 31.1.1925, ODT 31 January, 2025”
“The heyday of the tram came during the 1910s and 1920s. In Dunedin, tram usage was high at this time partly due to the fact the city had the country’s lowest fares..The glory years of the tram were coming to an end. With private car ownership and motorised buses on the increase, trams became less popular. As a result, the curtain began to come down on the tram system beginning with the closure of the Opoho service in 1950.” – Dunedin City Council, Wayback Machine
I remember something I read at Otago Settlers Museum: “Passenger numbers on Dunedin’s cable cars and trams peaked in the 1920s, then fell away as people turned to private cars for transport.”
Dunedin claimed to have more tramlines, in proportion to population, than any city in the world. They were ego-invested in having ‘won’ at something that was, in fact, fading away to be replaced by motorcars.
My thinking is that Mayor Harold Tapley’s Council at the time had a problem with cars per se. The local government had a heavy investment in trams and probably resented the motorcar revolution and were trying (by petty and pathetic means) to stop progress by being jerks about it. That’s my speculation but how else to interpret this fiasco?
The City Council and its clients in the public transport system had doubtless invested a huge budget in the old technology. It seems they even subsidised the fares since they were the lowest in New Zealand. Perhaps they even imported infrastructure for this dying industry even as other cities were divesting it and probably glad to have gotten rid of it to the suckers in Otago. My suspicion is that this government was engaging in unfair competition with other forms of transport by sicking the police force on its consumers.
Government crooks abound. That’s why we can’t have a State.
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Image ref. His Majesty’s Theatre, Dunedin, realestate.co.nz, What if? Dunedin (2015)
Image ref. Tapley as Mayor, Otago Witness, ODT (2023)
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