NEW BRIDGES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 55, 8 March 1929, Page 11

NEW BRIDGES

WORK TO BE DONE

COST : £300,000

. "Greatest mileage at the least cost is a ■ well-known highway slogan, but achievements cannot be measured by miles in the matter, of bridge construction," reports the Main Highways Board. "The same expenditure as would bo sufficient to give road users a mile of sealed road surface would build less than a chain of bridge, while the expenditure involved in the construction pf a mile of concrete road, most expensive form of road pavement, represents slightly over four chains of bridge construction.

"The bridge construction carried on by the Main Highways Board during the four years the board has been in operation has absorbed a good proportion of the board's total expenditure. In the near future the board will have to appropriate large amounts for bridge work. While during the past four years the board's bridge .construction programme has. included several new bridge3.over rivers which had not been previously bridged, such as the Mokau Bridge on the Messenger road, the Selwyn Bridge on the main road south of Christehurch, and the Kopu Bridge on the Pokeno-Thames road, most of the expenditure in the immediate future will be on the renewal of bridges which have served the travelling public for many years.

"The original Main Highways Act provided for the payment of a subsidy 0f,,£1,.-for £1..0n bridge construction, but the board, realising, the necessity for giving greater assistance towards the cost of building bridges, more particularly large bridges, has now authority (given to it by amendment, to the original Act) to subsidise bridge construction on a more liberal basis. As an instance of the. board's liability the bridges mentioned hereunder are either now being reconstructed or will have to be reconstructed at a very early date.

The total estimated expenditure on fourteen bridges will approximate £300,000, or an average of over £20,----000 for each bridge, and the Main Highways Board will require to find about £220,000. The following fire the bridges referred to:—The Balclutha Traffic Bridge on the Dunedin-Invercar-gill Main Highway (this is the largest, and will cost between £50,000 and £60,000), the Eangitikei Bridge at Bulls, the Ashburton Traffic Bridge, the Aparima River Bridge at Biverton, the Ruaniahunga River Bridge at Te Ore Ore, near Ma3terton, the Aorangi Bridge at Feilding, the Waiwera and Puhoi Bridges' on the road between Auckland and Maungaturoto, the Kokotau River Bridge (Wairarapa South), the Parcora River Bridge (South Canterbury), the Whau Bridge at Auckland, the Motueka River Bridge, the Hurunui River Bridge (North Canterbury), and the Waipukurau Traffic Bridge. The Empire Bridge over the Waimakariri River, near Kaiapoi, is being rebuilt by the Waimakariri River Trust, and' the Main Highways Board is contributing about £13,000 towards the cost.

The foregoing are mentionod as the more important and largest bridges calling for attention, and every ease is a replacement of an old bridge. There are many smaller bridges, the expenditure of which in the near future will in the aggregate amount to many thousands of pounds.