CONCRETE VERSUS ASPHALT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1925, Page 9

CONCRETE VERSUS ASPHALT

(raoii on* own cobmsmitobnt.)

SYDNEY, 13th August.

In the .old battle of concrete versus asphalt, the engineer to the North Syd« ney Council, the principal local' governing body on the north .»hore o£ th» metropolis, has taken the. field with a report of especial interest to local government ■ throughout Australia and New Zealand, in relation to footpaths, because it deals not merely with the cost of construction but also with tint life and .maintenance cost of the two perplexing system*. In prime cost th» advantage is entirely with the tar-paved footpath, but over a period of years th» advantage gained at the outset ii entirely lost. The tar-paved footpaths cost only 4s per square yard, as against 01 for concreto. Once laid down properly, the concrete path costs practically nothing to 'maintain, but the engineer, u> be on the safe side, debits it with a maintenance cost of one penny por square yard. The asphalt path require* to be tar-painted every two years. «u----tailing a maintenance cost of 2d per square yard per annum. The estimated life of tar pavement he gives as ten years, and of the concrete as 25 years. Spreading the,cost, of construction and maintenance over the life of both paths, asphalt cost 7d per square yard per annum and concrete only 4d. The engineer incidentally instances the fact that the first concrete path' known to him was constructed in Brighton, England,' and that in 1923, after 42 years, it was still in existenoe, although a stone pavement adjoining it had been twice replaced. Concrete, on this showing, therefore wins.