WESTERN HUTT ROAD

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 115, 9 February 1938, Page 6

WESTERN HUTT ROAD

Bad Condition Of Portion

SURVEYING FOR OUTLET

It has not yet been settled that the new AVairarapa main highway, via the AVestern Hutt Road to Silverstream, there connecting with the present mam road via the new bridge which will span the road to the straight approaching bt. Patrick’s College, will go through to the AVestern Hutt Road at the Grand National Hotel Petone, thus dispensing with through tyaffic going through the Petone and Lower Hutt boroughs. Surveyors are now measuring up houses which would have to be moved and land which wojild be taken in the event of the road emerging at Petone. lhe AVestern Hutt Road has been sealed to within a short distance of Melling station at the south end and to the north. Two months should see the sealing completed to the approach to the new Silverstream bridge. The project which is understood to be in view would involve the moving of tbe railroad at points between Melling and Lower Hutt station to make room for the road. This would involve the removal of the bluff at Normandale crossing, which would present no engineering difficulties. The soil from this it would be possible to utilise for filing in other parts of the road section. The AVestern Hutt Road between Melling station and Normandale is in. a bad condition. There are scores of pot-holes and corrugations which place much more than average stress on motor traffic. The road is unsealed and pedestrians are showered with dust by passing traffic, and houses in the vicinity also suffer. From the viewpoint of the borough whose responsibility the road is at present the feeling is that it should, not be called upon t put and keep in firs-class rder a road that is to become a through highway, conferring no benefits on borough residents but instead creating past their homes a troroughfare for fast-mov-ing main route traffic -which will not go through the town, with some consequent loss of trade to business people. It is felt that the borough should not have to bear the cost of an expensive undertaking which will confer on it no otherbenefit than the relief of its main street from heavy through traffic. , The job from the borough point of view is connected with the possible shifting of the railroad and is a matter for the Public AAtorks and Railways Department.