PREPARATION COSTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 30, 4 August 1925, Page 7

PREPARATION COSTS

TOO HEAVY IW THE PAST HIGHWAY BOARD'S POLICY FOR THE FUTURE. Several references were made at today's meeting of the City and Suburban Highways Board to th© unduly high cost of road preparation work. The question was opened by Mr. E. Windley (Makara County), who maintained that some limit should be placed upon that expenditure. The board should not be called upon to bear the whole cost where preparation work was heavy. If it did not draw the line somewhere it was impossible to say what the position would become. He did not think it fair, however, that the Makara County should be asked to bear so large a share of the cost of preparing the Ngahauranga Gorge road for paving. The past year's working had shown, said Councillor H. D. Bennett, that too much had been spent on preparation work, and the new policy, following the report of the Tarauaki delegation, would be that such heavy expenditure would not be incurred in the future. There was no doubt that too much had been spent on preparation; everyorte had complained about it. The Taranalci delegation had recommended that in future the money previously spent on reducing road crowns should not be so spent; that the ■well-compacted macadam or gravel surface 'should not be cut' up and replaced by a black base bituminous surface, but should be itself used as the foundation for a two-inch top course. A RECORD JOB. In many respects the Hutt road paving had been a record job; the men had given of their best, and it was not likely that the figures for that work would be improved upon, but as the new policy was that only the top course should be laid it was hoped that a much greater area would be laid in future seasons. In regard to the cost of preparation work in the Ngahauranga Gorge, Councillor Bennett said that the Makara County was in the- position of- being engaged in preparation- work at a time when the policy in regard to payment for such work had been changed. He thought, therefore, that the board might give consideration to Makara County in that regard. A 'report upon that matter could perhaps be presented to the board at its next meeting. Councillor W. H. Bennett expressed the opinion that there was no real change of policy as to alteration of road crowns. These would still have to be attended to where kerbs and channels flanked the road surfaces to be paved. When those lengths had been passed there would be no need to cut down road crowns. A good deal of the preparation work in the Ngahauranga Gorge road was in the nature of setting back corners, and in the drawing up of figures giving the cost of preparation a differentiation should be made. The proposal to lay a top course only was a complete departure from policy, said Mr. Windley. It was for the engineers to say what depth of pavement should be laid. Mr. A. Moore (Johnsonville) agreed with that view.AT DISCRETION OF ENGINEERS. Councillor H. D. Bennett said that the proposal was to lay a top course only where the macadam foundation was sufficiently strong and solid, but it was left to the discretion of the engineers to say whether at certain points, where the foundation was not deemed sufficient, a greater depth of pavement should be laid, as on the Hutt road. The theory, at any rate, was that a two-inch pavement upon a solid and satisfactory macadam foundation would never be worn through.