A NOTABLE YEAR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 80, 28 December 1940, Page 11

A NOTABLE YEAR

Municipal Activity In Wellington MANY IMPROVEMENTS Long-Discussed Works Finished Wellington City marches steadily forward. Many of the visible improvements made in the last year were due to the Centennial Exhibition at Rongotai. New roads were built and existing ones were improved out of all knowledge. A new road entrance to the city was provided by the erection of the Thorndon ramp and the construction of Aotea Quay, and the Evans Bay Road was made a safe and comfortable harbour-side drive of great beauty. While some of the work in connexion

with the Exhibition, as far as the city engineer’s department was concerned, extended into the year now drawing to a close, particularly the partial upheaval which followed the close of the Exhibition, there was not a great deal of new work on the grounds. To the eastward, however, a 12-acre extension of the Rongotai Aerodrome was completed during the winter months. This necessitated taking in a portion of the Miramar golf links, near the golf house, but the greater part of the extension was the area situated immediately to the south of the de Havilland aeroplane works, on the eastern side of the landing ground. This area was grassed in the springtime and now shows a fair extent of level sward, which offers plenty of space at the point where the planes turn to take off against the northerly winds. There are signs that the aerodrome is to be extended to the westward, taking in Kingsford Smith Street and the area between that street and the Exhibition buildings. The cutting out of Kingsford Smith Street will be unfortunate for the people resident in the Rongotai area, as they will have to travel as far west as Onepu Road in order to reach the Lyall Bay beach, instead of cutting across the isthmus at a central point. But that is not all. One recommendation of the commission on the Rongotai Aerodrome was to take in land between the aerodrome and Evans Bay foreshore, so as to provide a sea to sea airport, free of all surface encumbrances. For the present this proposal is regarded as something that must come, as the a_ir services call for larger planes. New Incinerator. Two city works have been completed in this district during the year. One is the creation of a new district rubbish tip immediately to the west of Moa Point, among the sand hills, a ground which may be useful in two or three years’ time. On the other side of the hay (at Maranui) a new incinerator of modern design has been erected against the old quarry wall in the corporation depot, primarily to destroy by fire great quantities of waste paper and the like, which was formerly burnt in the destructor at Clyde Quay. This incinerator does its job efficiently, and the heat from the furnace is conserved for the drying of sand and gravel used in the aggregates for street paving. Still in the same district, the construction of a new Carlton Street on ■the heights above Queen’s Drive at Lyall Bay has been one of the big jobs of the year. A house was carried away in an earth slide there last December and the slide also cut away a section of Carlton S_treet. To permit the building of a better road on the solid, another house was acquired for removal, and on good firm ground a new road has been built to the great satisfaction of residents in that locality. Bowen Street Extension. The most important mid-city street improvement completed during the year has been Bowen Street extension, for years termed the “western access.” This curved roadway which sweeps around rising ground from Wellington Terrace to Tinakori Road was finished early in the year, and the first trams ran over it (hiring the winter months, giving the people of the western suburbs a shorter and much less tedious route to their homes. The new road is well-graded, and. people in a hurry may npw drive from Karori to Lambton Quay in ten minutes without breaking the by-laws. The tramway ride has been made quite a pleasant one by the change. Already the track has been paved, and the haunches have been sealed. Not till the made-up parts of the road have settled will the haunches be permanently paved. The footpaths will be sealed after the holidays. A Unique Wall. A picturesque feature of the new road is the manner in which the clay bank of the old cemetery has been hidden from view. Beyond the vertical concrete retaining wall, from the site of the University of New Zealand build- , ing westward, the sloping bank has ■ been neatly surfaced with blue stone (from the Hutt Road quarry), chipped to flatness on the one side and laid evenly after the fashion of crazy pave- i ment, the spawls being held together . with cement. At the foot of this stone , wall, at a height of about 12 feet above , the level of Bowen Street, there will , be a six-feet footpath, extending from , the northern end of Mowbray Street to ( a point opposite Parliament Street, In- ( serted in the stone wall every here and | there are stone setts*in the form of - seats. These are to be covered with wooden slats as a protection against the cold. This wall, which strikes a pleasing note, is the first of its class in 1 Wellington, 1 Right opposite the half-way mark in ( the new Bowen Street, across Sydney Street, are flights of steps which lead I to Parliament Street. For a genera- < tion these steps have received little or ‘ no attention from the City Corpora- 1 tion, but within recent weeks the city 1 engineer has turned his attention to ( putting them in order, and has made a capital job of it. With the use of 1 spawls (blue metal) and waste pink S pavement, the whole of these steps 1 have been refloored in attractive crazy £ pavement style, while the sides have v been packed with spawls behind an f ample water channel of earthenware c pipe. At the top Parliament Street is now to end in a nice little planted re- 1 serve, with a paved pathway leading ' to the steps on each side. Property- ( ' owners in that vicinity are naturally ‘ delighted will) the improvement. 1 The Alorton Dani. J

The city engineer and bis staff did a valuable job of work during the year in making repairs to the -Morton Dant al Walnut Thin great dam, which conserves 100,000.000 gallons of water, was thoroughly tested last December during a cloud burst when the spillway was unable to take the whole of the overflow, the water rising to witbin an inch of the top of the wall, to the great alarm of all concerned. The scour holes were opened at the foot of the dam to relieve the pressure, and such was ctio force of water they released that the concrete sides and floor of the

“aprou” were shattered in a remarkable fashion. Never has there been such an ilnxious time for those concerned with the city’s water supply; but the public was not allowed to share that anxiety. Nothing of the peril involved was allowed to be known till the damage was repaired, and the wall of the dam was raised another foot. Harnessing George Creek. Mention should be made of the city engineer’s plan to bring George Creek water into the city by more direct means than at present. George Creek now runs into the Morton Dam, and when the dam is full runs away to waste. The new idea is to divert it into the Orongorongo main (which comes right into the city and discharges into the Karori reservoir). It is not proposed to use the creek permanently, but when the Orongorongo water becomes too cloudy to run into mains (as is often the ease in stormy weather) that source of supply could be valved off, and its place taken by the waters of George Creek. Au intake dam is to be erected immediately after the holidays to provide for the harnessing of this alternative source of water. One of the decorative jobs- of the year was the utilization as an outlook of Point Jerningham, a couple of hundred yards or so from the tramway terminus at Oriental Bay. The sloping hillside beneath the foundations of Carlton Gore Road have been neatly terraced with stones, footpaths have been formed, arid red-painted garden seats have been placed here and there for those who would take their ease in the sunshine. The innovation has been a decided success, as this vantage point catches the last of the afternoon sun and commands a full view of Lambtou harbour. A work initiated during the year in which the city council plays an important part is the CarterTibservatory. Tenders were called for the erection of the observatory at Kelburn within the old. Botanical Gardens reserve, and there a site was prepared by the city engineer's department for the structure, now well on the way toward completion. The contractors are the Fletcher Construction Company and the architects Messrs. Gray Young, Morton and Young. Division of Traffic. Division of traffic in places where the width of street allows it has been given some attention, notably in Jervois Quay and lower Taranaki Street, with successful results. It is thought that this principle could be applied also in other places, notably in Jervois Qua}', near the Traffic Office. It is involved in the proposed new layout at the northern end of Kent Terrace, to be done as soon as funds permit. A minor street improvement has been the replacement of broken pavement slabs in the city by new pink ones. The new slabs are surfaced in brickdust and grit, which, under traffic, gives a nice warm glow to the pavement, a relief from the drab grey of the old-time concrete. In addition to the ordinary work, there has been the gradual extension el' the big intercepting sower under the city between Newtown and Thermion. This has now reached Sydney Street, hut it will be continued ton point under Hill Street before it: is finished, which will not be much before next winter. The city engineer, Mr. K. E. Luke, said it had been a notable year in that several long-discussed works had been brought to finality. Among these were the new entrance to the city and the completion of the formation of Aotea and Waterloo Quay, the completion of the western access, talked of for about 30 years, and the extension of the aerodrome at Rongotai. But really the biggest job of all. though not seen by the public, was the construction of the 'intercepting sewer, which was the largest undertaking of its kind yet attempted in New Zealand.