DUST

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1923, Page 8

DUST

v SUMMER TIME IN i; THORNDON

A PROPOSAL TO STRAIGHTEN ;; THE QUAY

•i Thorndon residents, at any rate those •whose houses or:business premises front upon the. Quay, are resigning themselves to another summer, for sunshine to them iheans more than merely grateful heat, sea breezes more than pleasant coolness. Both spell dust, thick, cloying stuff, no end of it, distributed generously over quay properties when fast heavy traffic lucks it up on. calm days, scattered more iwulely, but still far too generously, when the wind 3>lows.-, It:does., not appear, that, .Thdfndori' quay will be given 1 a permanent bitumen surfacing juet yet awhile, unless it should be that the City CouncilVnew reading plant should find itself (ii'ith no other work to do, but there may lie ;a ray of hopef-aud pf clear and dust--less .sunshine—-for Thorndon ;people in the fact that the-Corporation is now trying out a special preparation, bituloid, i'o ascertain its value as a dust layer- in Bide'streets which cannot,, for the., time being, af. any ..rate, be treated with a full bitumen surfacing. This material, of .ivhich the main ingredients are bitumen and'green coal tar, is being experimented •frith; in „Clyde quay, one gallon being sufficient to treat eight or nine square yards of "surface. Dust laying "in Clyde <juay is purely in the nature of an extjentnent, but should bituloid possess all the claimed for it the process may lie applied in-a practical manner to city streets. : :

,; Itjlis claimed that one treatment of the road; will hold the dust in check • for about three weeks or a month, after iyhich a'"retreatraent. must be given; though presumably as the mixture sinks deeper into the road crust each application.- would rbecome more effective, and would bav.e-. a longer dust-killing life. The;;initial;treatm'eht is estimated tocost about £30 v ' 'and-subsequent-■ treatment jperhaps £20. or. so per-running mile. ,' Meanwhile, Thorndon residents carry en ill'a smother, of dust, and some residents are expressing heartfelt hopes that a little experimentation will also fee carried out in_their end of the town. The! Corporation, however, had but two barrels of-the mixture for its tests; and two; barrels might not go far in such, dust' as Thorndon's. The quay is definitely oa' the list of streets to be permanently paved, but its turn may not come this summer.

„: Apart from the fact that the roadmakine plant will probably be kept busy right through the summer, the only seaeon during which, bitumen roading can. be effectively laid, an important, question 1 has to be settled before Thorndon quay can be taken in hand. It lias been proposed that one big sweep should be cut out by road straightening, and that is a point which cannot be decided off-hand. '- Quite apart from the very heavy expenditure which the City Council would have to face for the buying of house property, and the construction of a' new road—which would, of course, be offset to some , extent by the sale' of the land now taken up by the roadway --there would be the additional expense to the city of transferring car lit.es, drainage pipesj'a'rid sewers, cables,' etc., ■which work would represent a very great Bum-in proportion to the length of road aetnaliy. dealt..with. The question is being- -fully inquired into.- If the straightening was taken in hand the ■v^rfc-WQuld^presrunably. have a. considerable bearing upon the big railway gcheme also.

iThe question if-of the value of the tightening, . '/admitted ' by the man who aßks- fhe^ question,; is -whether or not the- city-already has its'hands full, a&d whether, accordingly, the work, if' j£is tp^he don.c,. should not be held over for a year or two. Whenever Ihe work :s, done the mains and other reticulation cervices will, have to be shifted, andmute possibly the cost of that trsnsf|rence will form the greater part of the l^il for the straightening as a whole.-