BITUMEN AND CONCRETE COSTS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 292, 10 September 1928, Page 13

BITUMEN AND CONCRETE COSTS

To the Editor. c; r —l thank you for showing my lets ter to* Councillor H. D. Bennett, and unreservedly accept that he was not the person who made the statement regal uing the wearing qualities of bitumen and concrete roads, but find it more difficult to credit that he, and those associated with him, have no information regarding this crucial point. Air. Bennett says that probably tbe information could be obtained from America, but this would lead, one to suppose that the Wellington City Council is so absolutely indifferent that no attempt-to arrive at the actual cost to the community of bitumen and concrete roads has been made. It is ridiculous to say that arguments regarding which is the better pavement will eternally go on because of the powerful interests involved in respect to both reading materials, and it is equally ridiculous to affirm that the conditions between one place and another vary so considerably that comparisons when made are of no value. I know that a material which may be a success at the equator would be a failure in the South Antarctic but no one could convince me that bitumen laid on a certain foundation in one town would act differently to bitumen laid on a similar foundation in another, provided the climatic conditions were approximately the same. The relative cost of making a road in concrete or bitumen is not nearly of so much moment as is the ultimate cost, and, if the primary cost of one is twice that of the other, the length of life and the cost of maintenance of the one may more than outbalance the extra cost at its • inception. I certainly do not credit that even in NewZealand it is impossible to form a fairly correct idea of the ultimate cost. The Hutt Road has been completed for several years, and its present condition enables one to estimate what will happen during the next five or six years. Yesterday, on one of the AVellington streets which has not been bituminised for a lengthy period, I counted 28 repairs within a quarter of a mile, and some of those repairs have been done for the second time, Auckland has had concrete roads for some few years, and it is unreasonable to affirm that an examination of those roads would not enable a competent person to be able to state what will be their condition in six or seven years. Air. Bennett’s statement only increases the existing feeling that things are being done in a haphazard, non-scientific manner. Alay I ask for a definite reply to the question: Is the council going to decide to accept a tender for paving in concrete or bitumen, and yet admit it has no reliable information about the life and cost of maintenance of a roadway made from the one material as against its life and maintenance if made from the other? —I am, etc., ARTHUR J. CAVE. Johnsonville, September 3.