ON THE RIGHT LINES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 128, 27 November 1923, Page 7

ON THE RIGHT LINES

THE CITY'S NEW ROADS HIGH PRAISE FROM AMERICAN EXPERT HUTT ROAD PLANS APPROVED, "I spent the best <part of yesterday running about your city," said Mr. T. W. Patterson, the American road expert, who has come to Wellingtonto supervise the erection of the big Cummer bituminous road-making plant at Ngahauranga, /and to advise upon its running during the next two or three months, "and. I must say that I was very much impressed with the quality of many of them. Your city engineers have evidently been experimenting pretty thoroughly with various road types and latterly with bitumen, and now they are right on the right lines. In America we believe that we are past the experimental stage, for we know from our own experience and from the experience of others, what bitumen can.do, and we see that it does it, but-let me say that, working with the small converted plant so far available to them, your engineers have laid down just as good a road surface as could be laid. This morning Mr. Patterson and Messrs. K. E. Luke, and J. F. Duncan, who, under Mr. A. J. Paterson, ActingCity Engineer, are supervising the general reading programme, paid a visit of inspection to the Hutt road, and the Ngahauranga quarry, a •'Post" reporter also accompanying the party. HUTT ROAD FOUNDATION.

Speaking of the work to be done 011 the Hutt road, Mr. Patterson Baid that the long life of a bitumen road must always depend upon the soundness of the metal base, and it appeared to him that the foundation • offered between Thorndon and Petone was a very good one, seemingly well laid in the first place and hammered and rolled and tramped to good consolidation by the traffic o? many years, and, that being so, the new roadway was making a very good start. * He had been very much impressed with the plan voiced by the Acting City Engineer as to the laying of a 21-foot two-course road this summer, and its widening by 10-foot wings on either side next year, the whole 40-foot surface to be later given its running surface. That plan, he considered, was, under the particular financial prospects, as 'good a plan as might be. The specification* seemed right to him, and if the new road was laid as had been proposed, th« Wellington district would have placed its money in a sound investment, and would set an example to other towns. There was no danger of the two-course bed giving out before the third and final top dressing surface could be given, n.V did he think that there would be trouble over a breaking away of the surface edges before the finishing courses were given. "BUILD IT OUT TO FORTY." The question of alternate width was raised by the "Post" reporter. Would an American municipality or other controlling body build a 20, a 30, or a i 40ft road in a length similarly situated, as was the Hutt road to Wellington. "If the money is available,", answered Mr. Patterson, "then why not the'4oft' road? Apart from its hard and matter of fact use, that road will be as fine an advertisement to Wellington as anythink you could think of. In the States we look quite as much to our good roads as to our boosting clubs for sound city and district advertising. And you have the money, those motorists' fees will bring it in, and will bring a whole lot more every year. In ten years' time you will find that a horse and cart will be just as great an oddity on the Hutt road as a, motor-car was on that road fif (feen or £wenty years ago. That is certain enough. In the States, I may say, there is one. car for every eight persons; in California there is "one to four; now your motor traffic is only just beginning, but it will keep right on, there is no doubt about that."

If the city wanted to kill the dust nuisance along the Hutt road, continued Mr. Patterson probably as good a plan as any would be to treat the ten-foot macadam strips that would be left with one or other of the oil dressings They were cheap and they killed dust dead and kept it dead. BUILDING UP FOB, THE FUTURE. Probably for the first ten years, • continued Mr. Patterson, maintenance charges would be very low, and the surplus \6ver those' outgoings, capital charges, and the like would build up I to a big reserve fund for a road rebuilding which would come some day,! perhaps, 20, 25, or 30 years ahead. A road was not something for to-day and to-morrow; one had to look forward a clear 40 or 50 years. American motorists paid their fees, and got their roads, and. knew, moreover, that as the maintenance and capital charges did not swalbw up .the whole amount collected, a fund was steadily building up for the future, and a big proportion was going towards more good roads. Good roads were not an expense; they were an investment, in hard cash, in comfort, and in the full interests of the body which put them down, but they must be good. WHERE BITUMEN LEADS. Bitumen, he maintained, was "the" road, for it " ironed out " at joints or small hollows, whereas other types, lacking resiliency, turned fast-moving ve- | hides into so many four-faced hammers, the blows running up, when the position of the body and springs were just right, to six times" the weight of the vehicle. Bitumen gave where the bump began; concrete gave where the car wheels landed. The ideal road surface was perfectly ttnooth, for theoretically the absolutely trne surface ..should wear Jor ever, and, if the ideal road could never quite be reached, at least bitumen came nearer than other types, since it smoothed and smoothed under traffic stress.

Wood-blocking, continued Mr. Patterson, was going in America. Chicago, for instance, had taken up her blocks and put down bitumen, for it alone could see modem traffic through year after year. He also mentioned that Japan had by now probably decided upon bitumen and bitumen only. He -was in Japan at the time of the earthquake, though not m the most affected districts a> the time o£ the shake, and had seen what had happened to the roads. Concrete surfaces had gone in the shaken parts, smashed and broken; the wood-blocking in TOW 9 had gone up in flames, but the bitumen roads were still there, damaged, of course, but at once repairable. Tdr macadam was of the past in the States. " It lasts to-day and to-morrow, and a week or tw o after that, but it is no cood for twenty years' service. QUARRY SUPPLY VERY GOOD. The metal supply at NgahauranSa Mr. Patterson rt&f after- J^SSfe of ithe Corporation quarry and crushers, !J" of, ve7 B°°d q^ity, and. mow im' panant, there wm any amount of it! larga took parUalw, fine ««ad and coarse iioni, wae- ofJkTjrute.t io^rtoSJ

and the very good "mix" which wag at present turned out might be improved by a readjustment of'the crusher. In answer to a question as to the speed at which Be considered the Hutt road surface could be laid down, the expert replied that the Cummer machine was capable of putting out 33 per cent", more than its guaranteed capacity, and a similar machine to that being erected at Ngahauranga had laid down 1100 odd square yards of three-course surfacing per day, 300 yards above its guaranteed capacity. It was largely a matter of the work that was put into the mixing ard v the laying, but if transport and quarry could keep step there should be no difficulty in laying as good a two-coarse surface as could be put down by anyone anywhere at the rate of 1000 yards a, day.