From the Kearney Files
Sydney 26th June 1922.
BRIDGE V. TUBE.
Comments from Sydney resident (Anon).
I have followed with interest all the arguements that have appeared in various press sources over the past few months, on the respective merits of bridge and tube for spanning the harbour. If the millennium were imminent I should vote without hesitation for the bridge, but as a few bombs from the sky could wreck a £10,000,000 bridge in a few minutes, I am constrained to pin my faith to the tube as the only sensible and perfectly safe method of connecting with our northern suburbs.
The advocates of the Kearney tube system have the best of all arguments in their favour. A tube would be invunerable from any direction. It is generally conceded that a bridge will cost from £6,000,000 to £10,000,000, whilst the Kearney system would cost a mere fraction of this huge sum. Now , no known method of attack from air or sea could possibly interfere with the safety of the latter, whilst the expensive bridge could be wiped out of existence by a fleet of hostile aeroplanes in far less time than it takes to write these comments. On the score, then , of "safety first." I contend that the tube wins.
Again it is contended that a tube could not possibly cope with the traffic. I never did suppose that any single tube would carry the traffic a modern bridge would, but three tubes would do it easily, one for trains, one for motor vehicles, and one for horse vehicles and pedestrians. Supposing, then, that we built three tubes; we would have all the conveniences the bridge advocates demand at less than half the cost of the overhead structure. On the score, then of economy I contend that the tube wins.
I have no personal interest either in bridge or tube, but it is utterly beyond my comprehension that we should forget the lessons of the late war so soon. An enemy aeroplane could not miss the bridge; it could not hit a tube.
Sydney 26th June 1922.
BRIDGE V. TUBE.
Comments from Sydney resident (Anon).
I have followed with interest all the arguements that have appeared in various press sources over the past few months, on the respective merits of bridge and tube for spanning the harbour. If the millennium were imminent I should vote without hesitation for the bridge, but as a few bombs from the sky could wreck a £10,000,000 bridge in a few minutes, I am constrained to pin my faith to the tube as the only sensible and perfectly safe method of connecting with our northern suburbs.
The advocates of the Kearney tube system have the best of all arguments in their favour. A tube would be invunerable from any direction. It is generally conceded that a bridge will cost from £6,000,000 to £10,000,000, whilst the Kearney system would cost a mere fraction of this huge sum. Now , no known method of attack from air or sea could possibly interfere with the safety of the latter, whilst the expensive bridge could be wiped out of existence by a fleet of hostile aeroplanes in far less time than it takes to write these comments. On the score, then , of "safety first." I contend that the tube wins.
Again it is contended that a tube could not possibly cope with the traffic. I never did suppose that any single tube would carry the traffic a modern bridge would, but three tubes would do it easily, one for trains, one for motor vehicles, and one for horse vehicles and pedestrians. Supposing, then, that we built three tubes; we would have all the conveniences the bridge advocates demand at less than half the cost of the overhead structure. On the score, then of economy I contend that the tube wins.
I have no personal interest either in bridge or tube, but it is utterly beyond my comprehension that we should forget the lessons of the late war so soon. An enemy aeroplane could not miss the bridge; it could not hit a tube.
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