OUR CITY STREETS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 104, 3 May 1911, Page 4

OUR CITY STREETS.

QUARTER-MILLION LOAN PRO-

POSED. A FIVE YEARS' PROGRAMME. £150,000 FOR PAVING. £100,000 FOR SECONDARY STREETS, In the (Kmrse of Ills speech, on his installation as Mayor of Auckland, this afternoon, Mr. C. J. Parr dealt exhaustively and interestingly <with the question of how the city streets may be improved. Notwithetanding the heavy increase in expenditure during the last seven years, the streets grew worse instead of better. The plain truth was that, with t)ie phenomenal growth of the •aity-during the past ten years, the traffic had increased to such an extent that the time had come when they must pave the great traffic arteries with permanent material. To continue the present policy of laying Mt. Eden scoria and stone ill streets like Symonds-street, Customsstreet, and Karangahape-road, was not only unsatisfactory in result, but wasteful and extravagant finance. Put' the main streets down at once in Neuchatel asphalte, or hardwood, or concrete, and they would not only have a magnificent roadway for more than twenty years to come, but it would cost' very little more nioney than putting on continual surfaces of spongy metal, which in a month or two crumbled into mud or was blown away in dust. They woijld better appreciate his point when he told.them that last year the Council spent no les3 than £ 1450 in maintaining SympndsTStreet. jjow compare the cost of permanently paving Symonds-street. The interest (at 4' per cent.) on the capital cost of. paying Syniands-street- permanently came to £800; maintenance (including renewals) would, according to Mr. Bush's estimate, be about £450 per.annum, ana a generous sinking fund, say a£ one per cent., would amount to £200 per annum; in all, £1460, which was just about the cum spent last year on Symonds-s.treet for a resujt which satisfied no ona Therefore he urged that they should pave the principal street's, and at oaee. Hpw was it to be done? Ohviously, they could not pave streets oat of ordinary revenue. A loan would be required. The questions then orose- — (1) How much should be borrowed? (2) How should it be spent? and (3) What provision for interest and ultimate repayment should be made? THE SCHEME DEFINED. In a recent report, continued Mr. Parr,! the City Engineer Buggested about £220,000 for paving certain streets, and about £100,000 for making and forming branch - streets, in ail about £400,000. He thought Mn Bush's- proposal a little too ambitious, having in view our finances and. other. public needs. After, careful study of the whole position he would propose for the Council's consideration a loan of a quarter of a, million for etreets; £160,000 for paving the principal Streets, and £100,000 "for making, forming, kerbing and channelling secondary streets. This money to be borrowed in instalments', beginning waffi, • Say, £?C5,0!00" during -the first year, and'the expenditure spread over a-period of- sis or seven years. Having investigated our financial position at was quite clear that we could finance this loan, including interest and' snnlHng fund, 'without imposing on the ratepayers any increase in "rates. A loan for street improvements (which necessarily could only be of temporary benefit and unproductive) should, in his' opinion, he repaid by the end of the life of the improvements.. Otherwise they saddled the next generation with their debt and give them absolutely nothing -in the shape of an asset for such debt Broadly speaking, 27* years or so. would.be the outside length oi. life of the contemplated street improvements. ROADS, OUT OF TRAMWAY PROFITS. It was their duty, as careful and' honest administrators, to make provision to enable the loan to be wiped out in about 27J years. A very feasible way to do it was to provide out oi ordinary revenue interest and a sinking fund of one per eeh£, which invested at four per cent would repay tie loan in about 41 years. Add to their sinking fund a sum of £5000 out of- the present accumulated tramway profits, and take £1750 a year for the next 21 years out of future tramway profits, (which..now amounted to nearly £4000 per annum), and they would find that this provision (assuming the sinking fund earns 4 per cent interest) would repay their loan of a quarter oi a million in about 28 years. STREETS TO BE PAVED. Continuing, Mr. Parr said he considered £150,000 (taking Mr. Bush's figures) sufficient to pave the following streets r-rrr Karangabape-road Fort-street Syihonas-street Gore-street Customs-streets East Grey-street (lower and West eadj Beach-road Hobson-street (part) Commerce-street ■ High-street Durham-street Khyber Pass Darby-street ' Part-road BUiott-street Patterson-street Quay-street Queen-street (part) Pitt-street Market Entrance" It might be well if the first three street? to >be paved should be laid down in asphalt, wood blocks and concrete respectively, so as to get parallel experience of the suitability or these much debated different materials. He would suggest that during the next six or seven years £100,000, the balance of the loan to be spent (together with the £14,000 in hand of our last streets loan) on the ether streets, which should be taken in order of Importance and urgency, according to schedule 11. of Mr Bush's report. Hβ could not agree with Mr. Bush's suggestion that they should continue to lay Mount Eden metal on our new streets, and suggested the advisability of going further afield and getting Moehau granite or Mercer bluestone for all new streets. CONSERVATIVE FINASTCE. In suggesting a loan of such short date for street improvement, with such a liberal sinking fund, he might be told that be was unduly cantious and careful, but he-was most strongly of opinion that in dealing with loans lor. street expenditure the soundest finance was conservative 'finance. Besides, they ought to bo honest with, those who come after them. TRAMWiAY COMPAiNTS POSITION. There were two considerations in respect of the paving questions which must not be lost eight of. First, all eewers and other underground facilities should be put down in each street before the pei manent pavement was laid on it. Otherwise fchev wou4d no sooner have a street well paved than the workmen would bo tearing it up agai»r-a procedure not unknown in thia city. Secondly: The wtreete which moat reqohed paving were. Unfortunately the street* through which tb» tramlines were laid. The Tramway -Soaqgui£ wm »©fc liable* ,to make %

change an the material u»i 3 could not the their portion (lo me 18 die of the street Merely Council desire to paveth* £****■ «* *c Tramway very heavy charge » * macadam, as at presenttv^f*>iti these streets, and he thoSt'ttT ot be in the interests' -of pave their portion of the *» Lastly rf the. citizens money it was the Council ffl* that rt was well Tney must have the moifc eS' , ***. neermg supervision they Tt**!> There must be some < «* that the ratepayers £??&»* their money. He had to «§l*£» * not at all satisfied th*«K**« ■been made of the mo ne y alfoSM year to street maintenance be the duty of the Co«n#&l|p carefully this matter, and it "S? that they would find t interests of efficiency and strengthen the engi^erinjj ■&£&:* on its roadtoaking side. ■ ' .^^"Sm