BETTER ROADS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 260, 1 August 1939, Page 8

BETTER ROADS

Routes To The Exhibition

INSPECTION OF PROGRESS

Those who are hoping must earnestly for a fine winter end and early spring are the officers of the Wellington city engineer’s department, who are engaged in making improvements to the various highways leading to the exhibition at Rongotfti. The city engineer, Mr. K. E. Luke, tFbo accompanied members of the reserves committee of the city council on a tour of city works yesterday afternoon, said that, given a fine September and October, he thought they would be able to get through the work in hand. While inspecting the Evans Bay Road, Mr. Luke pointed out that the section nearest I-Ulbirnie now boasted a footpath, raifjpd some six or eightffnehes above the level of the road, flfncflseparated from it by a kerb of roWmted red bricks. All that Hie widened part of the road and the new footpath needed was a surface of light asphalt, but this could not very well be attended to till the spring. Further north, the engineer indicated where a crib wall had been byilt above adittle bathing beach much patronized summer by residents of The building of this wall g-ovided extra space for road widening. A wall and new jailing have also been provided on the seaward side of the road immediately to the south of the patent slip. The slipway itself cannot very well be interfered with to provide a better higtiway, but it is inteadeti to try to arrange for a wider traKe way across the slip-rails, and prouably, by the use of boards, for a smoother crossing during the period of the exhibition. Opposite the Union Company’s laundry men are engaged widening the road to a full 40 feet, and northward of that the work of building one of the longest seawalls in Wellington is still in prograss.

The weather has been against very rapid progress during the last few weeks, but the foundations of the wall have been built and there are now only the two top sections for a distance of about 40 yards to be done, when this job will be completed. The wall traverses the seaward side of what is known as the “bottle-neck,” and will, by providing for a 40-foot road, dispose of that term of opprobrium for ever.

Northward of Point Kio, the road has been uniformly widened for the best part of a mile, and piles of the red kerbing bricks are placed at intervals along the road, ready to be put in position when the footpath is formed. In Balena Bay a crib wall is being built, not without some difficulty, between the edge of the road and the yachts on the hard. This low wall is necessary to give support to the filling which is to constitute the new part of the widened road.

One of the finest road improvements done during the past year lias been the widening and surfacing of the Lyall Bay Parade, between Onepu Hoad and Kingsford Smith Street. The city engineer said yesterday that this road might not have been completed for years had it not formed one of the Hank approaches to the exhibition. It was now there for all time. There was a slight doubt in the minds of some of the members of the reserves committee as to the truth of that statement, for when the parade was reached yesterday it was found to be covered almost completely with fine saiki blown up from the beach. In places tlie sand was "five or six inches in depth, and as it extended for some hundreds of yards it looked as though the task of keeping the parade free of sand in southerly weather was going to be expensive.

Complaints have been made by residents of dust from Ruahine Street. So far this new street has not been paved. It is one®f the roads that will receive attention in the spring. 0