HUTT ROAD PAVEMENT

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 301, 16 September 1930, Page 13

HUTT ROAD PAVEMENT

Widening to Ngahauranga WORK IN NOVEMBER In. view of the ever-increasing traffic on the Hutt Road, the City and Suburban Highways Board decided last March to widen the bitumen track to 40tt. between the end of Thorndon Quay and that point where the Ngahauranga Gorge Road diverges from the Hutt Road. ine present track is 24£t. wide, so that the widening decided upon means the addition of an Bft. strip on both sides of the track and possibly the provision of a concrete kerb to obviate the expensive grouting of the macadam section of the road on the edges of the bitumen. This work was scheduled for the next paving season, due to next month, but it will probably be November before a start is made, as there is some preliminary work to be done with cross-drains And culverts before it will be expedient to go ahead with the new paving. When asked yesterday about the reported cracking of the bitumen track in places, the Mayor, Mr. G. A. Troup, stated that there was a series of small cracks in the pavement, but whether they would close up on the approach of warmer weather he was unable to say. It was futile, he considered, to use the cracking of the bitumen as an argument in favour of concrete pavement on heavy traffic roads, as there was plenty of evidence pointing to the .disintegration of concrete under the hammering of heavy traffic. There was a section of concrete road in Christchurch which was badly affected, and while in America he had travelled from Vancouver to Seattle on a concrete road in which there were many far-extending cracks in places big enough to put one’s fist into. “My belief,” said Mr. Troup, “is that in all cases where tar or bitumen is used there comes a time when the substance loses its elasticity, its resilience. It loses its life, so to speak, and when that happens a crack is likely to remain a crack.”