MODERN TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 5 June 1923, Page 6

MODERN TRAFFIC.

NEED FOR CONCRETE ROADS. j Very few people realise how tremenI dous is the revolution that modern conI ditions have brought about ia road construction. A modern motor truck, weighing about 8 tons, and travelling at 12 miles an hour, is capable of doing 6-1 times as much destruction to the tons and travelling ataboutthreemiles roads as the old vehicle weighing 2 tons and travelling at about three miles an hour. Road authorities are no longer able to restrain traffic that damages the roads, and they are compelled to construct roads to meet the heavy conditions of modern freight. In the course of a paper on the subject read at the Victorian Institute ef Engineers, Mr. J. T. N". Anderson said the public demand was that the roads should be made capable to carry not only heavier traffic than was ever I dreamed of a few years ago, but also at speeds beyond the wildest imaginings of our forefathers. The general public was realising how radical had been the change, and how severely the transition from £1000 a mile roads to one costing ten times that amount was taxing the resources of every civilised country. The necessity for speed in modern "traffic had brought about the necessity for reinforced concrete in the road bed A •motor lorry running at 12 miles an hour might be expected, on account of the I speed alone, to do sixteen times as much damage to the road as the same vehicle loaded in the same way would do when running at three miles an hour Then to suddenly stop a vehicle niovin" at ;,"; ,le . 8 a " hour would give an impact equal to allowing the same vehicle to fall from a height of 4 f ee t. Increased -speed meant increased wear and tear on both road and vehicle. Th e ruination! of the streets under heavy and rapid authoritTr th ir te ™Z »OBt municipal authorities With insolvency. The time I had gone by when those controlHn-The I roads were able to prevent this des°tru C tion by restricting'the speed of traffic ' !or increasing the width „£ tyres On ■the contrary, the great public demand • fT,i.» sood „; l " ""•'••if «»