PAVING OF AOTEA QUAY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 8

PAVING OF AOTEA QUAY

Work Done In Winter

Weather

USE OF CITY’S NEW MACHINE Aotea Quay is completed at last. The formation of this half-mile of city highway along the waterfront began during the construction of the big ramp last year. By the end of the year the road was levelled off and given a treatment of emulsion in order to make it available for the Christmas-New Year holiday traffic. It was never contemplated that this surface would last very long. As a matter of fact it began to pot-hole after a month, yet by; the end of February the road was still fairly good. However, it was decided that an effort should be made to complete the road, in conjunction with the complete reconditioning of Waterloo Quay. That policy proved a good one. In the late autumn the city corporation received its first paving machine, and after trials the job of paving Aoteii Quay was undertaken at the end of March, when the first course was laid down. This served to take the through traffic for a time, but, when the Waterloo Quay job was developed, it was decided that Aotea Quay should be closed in order to give the road gangs a, chance with the major job nearer the city. As soon as a half section of Waterloo Quay was down in concrete, however, Aotea Quay was opened up again. In May it was decided that the .task of applying the top course of Trinidad sheet asphalt could be begun. Aotea Quay is 50 feet wide, and the paver ten feet in breadth, so the job of laying the top course was carried out in ten-foot strips. The last of these was completed on Tuesday evening, -and Aotea Quay is at present pro■bably the most perfect piece of highway in the Dominion. The city engineer, Mr. K. E. Luke, considers it an achievement in road construction, “for never .before in his exper ion co haj an. important city highway been paved in the winter time. Hitherto, the quick-cooling of the bitumen when spread in the ordinary way has prevented much work of the kind being attempted later than April; but the possession of the mechanical paver, which deals with each batch within a few minutes, made the job possible. The city engineer said yesterday afternoon that all possible speed was being made with the completion of the section of Waterloo Quay between Bunny Street and Whitmore Street because it was desired /to clean up that section of the quay near the station and the ferry wharves as soon as possible. The first strip of concrete on the western side of the road has been put down only this. week. Only here and there sections of the stripped road have been left uncovered in order to provide for certain underground services iff connexion with the new Government Printing Office, which is to be erected immediately to the south of the Hotel Waterloo.

While the sections of six-inch concrete are maturing, it is proposed to push on with the surfacing in Trinidad sheet asphalt of the rest of the quay northward of the railway station, which is being finished in the same manner as Aotea Quay. As the concrete has. matured at tjae Whitmore Street end, the mechanical paver will be transferred there to finish off the joo. A large island has been provided mid-road opposite the Customs Office in order to divide the traffic and at the same time provide a safety zone fop people crossing over from the’railway to the ferry wharves. This island has yet to lie con-crete-flagged.