BUILD GOOD ROADS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 12 December 1923, Page 15

BUILD GOOD ROADS

WELLINGTON PROVINCE'S OPPORTUNITIES

SPLENDID METAL SUPPLIES.

Wellington provincial roads, or such as lie had seen so far, can be made excellent at very low cost, is the opinion of the American reading expert, Mr. T. \V. Patterson, who is in Wellington to advise the Gity Council on the preliminary Tunning of the Hutt road plant. "Tivent through to Palmerston," said Mr. Patterson to a "Poet" reporter today, "and I can tell you that in many places there lies ready for the gathering the finest material m the world. It's all ready, much of it needs no crushing at all, it could be lifted from the river beds 1, put through the grader, and then straight into the mixing plant. Quarrying and crushing costs are heavy, and if you have the right goods right on hand why quarry and crush and pay the bills?"

Mr. Patterson added that he quite realised that not many local bodies could face the initial expenditure <sf purchasing an expensive mixing plant, though undoubtedly-'theirs would be the gaiij in the long- run, owing- to the great saving in maintenance and repair costs, but two or more local bodies,, might join forces'and agree to place a plant at a, convenient point on their, boundary lines,' and thus build their roads together with' the load of capital expenses,divided between them.

The great factor in good road-build-ing was a sound foundation, and practically every mile of main road in the Wellington district he had travelled over since he arrived in .New Zealand very nearly approached the ideal in that respect. The actual surface might be worn out in potholes and be anything but ideal,'but a couple of inches down the metal was hard and tramped and rolled and pounded solidly together. That was what mattered when a bitumen surfacing was to be laid. - • •

"The brightest and best opportunity of all," remarked Mr. Patterson, "is your Manawatu Gorge road, but let me say that I don't hold with any speeding round those bends; the drop to the water is just too severe. There you have as fine a road foundation as anyone could find anywhere, and right handy there is metal all conveniently crushed and as clean and hard as may be, waiting in the river bed for someone to come along and build it into a road that would make the gorge drive a real delight." ■ .

Mr. Patterson, Mr. C. J. M'Kenzie, Assistant Engineer-in-Chief, and Mr. 6 ' I. Murray, Inspecting Engineer of Roads to the Public Works Department, were present on Monday at the meeting of the Lower Hutt Borough Council by invitation of the Mayor, Mr. W. T. Strand, to talk over roads and road-making. Mr. Patterson referred to the American concrete road, but maintained that bitumen built the road; it was the only material, to ; his mind, that would stand up to modern traffic stresses year'after year. Good roads were not an -expensethey -were a very sound investment A vast amount of the metal in the Hutt River bed, remarked Mr. Patterson, was almost ideal for first-claag roadmakmg, ■':"■ ' '"; -