ROAD IMPROVEMENT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XL, Issue 13250, 8 December 1913, Page 3

ROAD IMPROVEMENT.

VALUE OF TARRED MACADAM. Reporting to tlie Manawatu County Council on Tuesday the Engineer (Mr ■ Hickfordj stated: — j '"As instructed, by the Council, I made J an inspection of the tar macadamised I road m tbe' Eltham county. Mr F. I Basham, the County Engineer, under- j took to show me over the roads treated \ with the tar process and the machinery j and plant used m putting down tar j macadam. Unfortunately, owing to the unsettled weather, 1 did not have tinopportunity of seeing the machine at ] work. Mr Lasliiim luis tried various! experiments with tar.-coinpo on different j roads with great success. The. first we inspected was the Eltham-Opunake main road, which was treated by the tarprocess about 12 months ago, and is now j receiving another coat of tar and sand, • which Mr Basham considers will stand the traffic for several years without any heavy expenditure for maintenance. In addition to the surface spraying, an experiment has .-been made m tarring mac-! Adam m situ: that is to say, the metal laid down, and before being rolled m, j tar is sprayed on to the metal so as to ' get amongst the interstices of the stones, i and then the roller is run over it, and the whole bound down into a solid mass. About two miles of road has been treated by this method at a cost of £3 per 'chain.. This is considered to form as nearly permanent a road as it is possible to obtain. Mr Basham estimates the cost of each coating of tar spraying and ( sanding the surface of road at 12s per .; chain. After experiments it J Avas found tliat the cost of tar spraying and sanding tlie surface of roads' was well recouped m the longer ' life of the metal. Therefore, the Council decided to purchase a tar sprayer and , constructed a reinforced concrete tank to hold about 45,000 gallons of tar ami season for use, and also bought the necessary road sweeper and portable boilers for heating the tar, the whole plant costing about £700. Tar gives the road an impervious coating and eliminates internal friction or rubbing of the stones, one on another, under traffic. Tlus prevents wear and the formation of that dust m the crust of • a road which is inseparable from a road ' consolidated by ordinary methods. One thing is now universally recognised — that the roads of the future must be \truly bound together. Whatever kind of stone is used, that stone must be . held together by some pitchy or bitu- i minous material, so that it would be indeed a crust and something which had real cohesion and into which macadam's enemy, the water, could not make its way whenever water fell. The increasing motor traffic on our roads warrants that the roads of the future . must be plastic^ elastic, resilient, and > impervious, which could yield and ro- , cover, then the main crust might last ! efficiently for 'an indefinite period, and , the road would be less unkind than it often was to persons and vehicles. Every , , year we are spending money on blind- j I ing roads and metalling, which is beiu 1 ? swept away by motor traffic, and until'! , 'the Council decides to go m for up-to- ' date machinery for putting down moil- , \ em macadamised roads the expenditure 1 will increase every year." j ' A lengthy discussion took place v< - ' garding the tarred road. The Chairman 1 said the Overseer estimated the cost of , improving the main road from the Ran- { 1 citikei to the Oroua river was £2000. He believed if they could borrow the money it would pay to do it. The que.-;- ; 1 tion was whether the Council couki j ; borrow the money for the purpose. It was decided to write to the solicitor for the Counties' Association and get ■ an opinion on the matter.