GOOD ROADS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2128, 21 April 1914, Page 5

GOOD ROADS

NEW ZEALAND'S NEED TO-DAY

WHAT MIGHT BE DONE

BYSTEM OF NATIONAL HIGHWAYS:

"~ [Bv Obserteb.] Tlio mocement for good roads liorn of the vast increase in motor tratite has not as yet been , much in evidence- in A'ew Zealand. The motor, as everybody knows, has put an entirely new complexion on' the problems of raadmaJdng, It has main roads an importance they have not possessed since the days of the stage coaches and wagoii teams, and it is causing a vastly greater number of persons to become directly interested in the subject of road, maintenance than was ever before the ease. Tho motor, particularly the commercial motor, will revolutionise tho conditions of farming life in New Zealand as-its possibilities become fully appreciated. The pleasure car trade has been well developed in this country, but we arc only, at the beginning of-things s-o far as motor transport is . consented. To. obtain full benefit from the ooEiiaere-ial motor, reasonably good roads are necessary, and tho question that will have to bo faced before long in many of tho Dominion'te outlyjing districts will be whether it is better business to build good _ roads for motor transport or to nin in light railways to servo tue country. ' When a district is asking for a railway, and a Minister suggests instead a motor service, tho proposal is not as a rule warmly received, tout this coolness on the part of inany ecn!,ntry residents towards commorcial motor transport is somewhat short-sighted. A motor .service is not at all likely to block the construction of a railway wiioii an outlying district is ready for one. The whole plant when that time tfonses can be moved to another district further back without any loss at all. In the meantime it will have aided in developing the district, and bringing it more rapidly - to the stage when a railwaywill pay.

Road Metal Difficulties. The crux of the motor transport problem is very largely road inetaL Good material for road-making is exceedingly scarce throughout large areas of tho North Island, and. notably so iu many of tho districts awaiting development. In one Jarge district, v/>th tft* opening up of which.. "Wellington, is closely concerned—that between, tlio New Plymouth and Main Trunk railways road metal is practically nonexistent over wide areas. The. difficulties in tho way of making good roads thero are so great that an oxporiouced engineer recently expressed the opinion that much of the country would never liavo metalled roads. The positip-n. in this stretch of country at tho present time is that over a dozen cmift.ty councils, each with its own engineer, we at work and grappling with tho problem with straitened iinances. Tbp qiialificittiphs of the engineers are divergo., as high salaries, are far from being t-ho rule, and thero is. little co-o.ftjiua.tioa between the roading plans of one county and tho next.

'In a country where road-making is so difficult and expensive, it-is possible to waste great sums of money in sma.ll amounts without having anything more than a.morass to show for it.' Th«re is tho classic example of the OngatifcOhura Ebad, on which, somothifig like £40,000 has been spent in tho last thirteen years, and of which ©illy half a dozen miles of tho total length of 30 miles have been metalled. The p.resent_ system of dribs,and drabs in rpack making cannot be expected to result in' iho creation of the good national highways that will enable tho settler to benefit by oheap motor hafllng*. In Victoria the Government has sot up a Main Roads Board to lay ont arterial roads to tho borders of the State and give that unitj- of purpose thftt is as necessary to a 'roading system as to a railway system. This Doard within tho next few years will be ontriust'ed with tho expenditure of some two millions. of money. "Whether a Main fioads Board would be a desirable tiling in New Zealand may be open to question; but there can bo no doubt that a. definite scheme for the construction and maintenance of a system of national highways is badly needed. ■• ' . Tho position at the present time in the North Island sol?" «r fho arterial roads aro concerned is ftat cii tv East Coast a good roaVi ruiis i.roin Wellington through the Wairaraps to Kapior, and on the West Coast to New lilymouth. Both these roads follow the railway lines closely, and consequently are not nearly So useful as they would be wero they serving districts Bomo little distance away fr-ora the Juies. It was inevitable from the eonditkins in tlio past that this should- he t|e but there is no reason why in the opening up of newer districts "the arterial road should not bo ftiiulo to servo one stretch of country a-tid therailway another. To return to the review of tho present position of the roads in this island; it may be said that Wellington, Hawke's Bay, aiid Taranaki—or rather Southern possess good main roads , but in North. em Taranaki and throughe-ftt tile greater part of Auckland province, the conditions are. far less satisfactory, Even to-day on tho main road from Auckland city into tho Waikato tho metal comes to an end somo thirty-five <jr forty miles out, and ono has then to tsfa-vfrrse fourteen miles of unmelaHcd cfey hiHs,

The Main Route North, Tho main nrferial load from Wellington to Auckland at t]i© present timo is that via Napier, Taupo, Rotonia, and Hamilton. On this route tb'o traveller has a good metal road from Wellington to a 'point about thirty miles beyond .Napier. Tlie"metal then ceases, and some stiff gr*Bcs follow on clay roads rising to a height of 2683 feet above sea level. Between fifty niid sixty miles from Napier the. pumice country is entered, and the Toai continues generally good on through Taup© to Rotorua. It is loose and dusty rn the dry weather, but after rain ffio wet Band is hard and iirm. From Retorua sa oxecrable stretch of clay road, practically impassible for motor traffic in win-" ter timo, runs to Tirau, 3S miles out, but from there the surface, a mixture of clay and pumice, is good for the fifty milo run through Cambridge and Hamilton to Ngannvaliia. The rcinainimr sevcnty_ miles into Auckland is a painful disappointment to those whe expect to find good roads once moro as they proceed through tho Lower Waikato, and it is a surprising thing that no effort should be mado to improve the grade over the Razorback at Bombay, 27 miles out from Auckland. The road l.iere runs" over some ridges following the natural surface of the ground wit'l little or no excavation.

This route from Wellington to Auckland is little more than a t-oiirisi route as.tho stretch from Napier to throng]* Taupo and Rotorua to the Watkato' is mainly monntairio'us or puinio** couiitry of no particular promist! at jiresent. Tliough in the. dovelopmmit. of a.rtefiai roads, that connecting t-ba two ciliief cities of the island takes first plawi, it is obvious that the expenditure of public money on such a road as this would do little more tlin.ti b'enelil well-to-do motorists on holiday bent.

On the western sido of the island there is a large area of excellent country ST. present uncferelopod, and it i«s i>ore that the national iiorth-and-soittli highway should undoubtedly be made, tho best route would probably bo from 7T» W , Plymouth to Waitara, aii4 to up the

coast to the Mo-kau River, thence on to Hamilton. Such a'road «**« a large- cHstriot whore ikS railway is contemplated at present, and would bo both of local and national importance. When, roads cost so much Ui maintain as in the North Island of New Zealand) every offort should Uβ made to ensure that- a zninitnttm of road is nuule to serve a maximum of country. This cannpt be dotio effectively by the present haphazard tiojitrol of arterial roads by tho local bodies. . It would ha a great step forward if a system of arterial roads were mapped out and assistance g.ivcn_ by the Ktato forwards putting them in first-cla&s order at the earliest possible moment-. Various views have been expressed as to ■ tlio proper sphere of tho State and the leeaJ bodies in tho nwkifig and maaiten* anc* of roa-dis. It might, perhapSj bo a happy solution of tho problem, if tho State- made it- its business Iβ sec that no set-tier had to travel '-more than ten miles to reach either a first-class road or a railway. This would mean iug the country with Sfote-mamtained arterial roads intermediate- between- the present and. proposed, lines of railway, The- amount of loading necessary to do this would not bo so great as might bo supposed. Such arterial roads coald bo twenty miles apart, and v/hen one comes to run out tho linos of the reads through the districts in course of settlernsut the burden on the Stato -would not appear to bo abnormally heavy. If tlie settlers had good national 'highways within at the most a few mflog of their fafms, 'it would not bo WireftsonaMoto leave tho local bodies to provide ti)o subsidiary reading out'of the fates. With a system -of Stato-waintairwsd arterial Toadj suitable for motor transport A vast improvement, in tho conditions of life in the outlying country districts should result, a»d a, great iw. petus he'given to settlement by ite pro* vision of better access to tie markets.