The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1926. ROAD FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 133, 7 June 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1926. ROAD FINANCE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that voe can do.

It is deplorable that every winter finds Auckland cut off from the North and left with road access to tlie South so indifferent that littlo short of compulsion will induce the motorist to | undertake the adventure of leaving the : concrete belt. Thus early in the winter the road to Whangarei is impassable; no driver is plucky enough to attempt to get through. Whangarei is in worse case than the city; south and north the roads are quagmires, in which cars slip and slide perilously, and only the expert can hope to win through. Motorists going north send their cars by rail to Kawakawa, beyond which there , are some passable roads, but most of these aro not used save under the stress of necessity. Motorists who have recently traversed these northern roadways have harrowing tales to tell. In many cases the cars cannot get out even when a horse , is available, and sometimes two have ■ failed to dislodge cars from the sticky j conglomerate in which they have become bogged, and timber jacks have perforce been resorted to. The roads j in some parts of the North are so I bad that even carts cannot get through, i and settlers have to resort to the I primitive method of forwarding their cans. to the factory by packhorse. ln other cases farmers living on what is euphemistically called a main road cannot send their young children to school; the mud is so deep that it would be too risky to send them even on horseback. The service cars in soma districts gave up their attempts to maintain their a month ago, and it takes a very bad road to check thes« j hardy and experienced drivers. I There are some fine stretches in the , North, well-metalled roads along which j driving is easy, even in the worst of weather. Unfortunately, however, there j are broken links in the chain, two or , three miles of clay which quickly be- i cornea impassable in wet weather and completely blocks traffic Good work has been done by the Highways Board in | many districts, but their powers arc , too restricted to allow the maximum j of efficiency to be attained. In the Southern districts, with their denser ; population and comparatively well off, county councils, together with their < easy access to shingle beds and other , road-forming materials,. there are miles of good road made with the co-opera-1 tion of the board. In the North different conditions obtain. Population is [ sparse, the councils are living a hand- j to-mputh existence, and they cannot j make the best use of the Highways Board subsidies, because they have so little to subsidise. The result is that year after year the main routes of communication are left unmetallcd, to become useless with the first of the winter rains, and to remain in that condition for months. The Highway. Board has no power to spend money except in co-operation with the county councils, unless those councils • make | default, and meantime the old conditions continue. Thus, while the board was able to do something to maintain the great South Road beyond Mercer it could spread no metal upon it, be- > i cause that involves construction. A conI siderable sum was spent in the autumn lin making the road passable, but now ■it is as bad as ever, the money having been practically wasted. > During the coming session opporI tunitv should be taken for speeding up | the operations of the Highways Board. Iso that before another winter set-; in a definite policy of improvement can be put in hand on the roads North and South. It. may be that the finance jin the hands of the board is insufficient for its needs; if so, it should be increased. To double the present tax of £2 for each car would not be very oppressive, but it would give the boards in the province another £80,000 with ■which to finance their operations, and I the effective expenditure of this amount would result in very considerable saving to all motorists who go afield during I the wet "season. j