COST OF TRANSPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 10

COST OF TRANSPORT

THE ROADING BILL

73 MILLIONS SPENT

TRACK TO PAVEMENT

The provision of transport has apparently been responsible for about half New Zealand's National Debt. It was announced by the Minister of Transport (the Hon. R. Semple) at the opening of the Lewis Pass Road on Saturday that £73,000,000 had been spent in roading in New Zealand. Up to 1925 £50,000,000 was spent on roads. New Zealand had now 8000 miles of main highways and 33,000 miles of secondary roads. The taking over and declaration of 4000 miles of roading as main highways would save counties £800,000 in five years. If to the figures given by Mr. Semple are added the £60,000,000 odd spent on railways, it would seem as though the country's' chief national work has been to find means of interior communications to bring primary products to the coast and to give access and the amenities of life to those engaged in rural industries. The heavy traffic in the cities which have grown up as transport termini housing all the activities connected with the marketing and overseas shipment of produce has resulted in roads of special character, allocation of the cost of which between State and local authorities, in the aggregate, would be hard to determine, but the tendency is for such roads to set the standard aimed at ultimately for all heavy road transport.

Roading has passed through many stages in New Zealand. Bridle tracks were succeeded by sledge routes. Even today in some of the rough country in the Bay of Plenty milk is brought to the main road by sledge. A small amount of pick-and-shovel work will make a workable sledge road, but even a dray requires something better in grades and something more solid and smoother in surface, and so tracks grew into roads. Some of the earlier roads, before the country was developed, were made by farmers and pastoralists themselves. They invariably followed the route of least structural difficulty, and while they avoided the steeper natural grades, very little was done to shorten them or improve the grades. Many of these old roads have been retained so long that, with the growth of districts, some engineering work was necessary on them, and passing through the countryside one may often see long, grass-covered curves relinquished since they were cut out by small cuttings, and quite frequently one may see three roads at a glance, the third being the modern, easily graded, straightened, sealedsurface road, which motor, transport has made necessary.

There has therefore been much waste effort, but it was not.all of a nature that could have been foreseen, or if foreseen, obviated. The long wobbles round spurs of the early days were largely due to the tremendous expense that -would have been incurred in cutting through by hand or with drill and dynamite. Roading, where spoil had to be taken perhaps for long distances by dray, was in these circumstances.an expensive-job, and nobody could foresee the rapid progress of the Dominion. Methods have so changed that, if the tackling of the roading of New Zealand had to be done as a new proposition, with the mechanical aids now available, millions would be saved, but it is of hot much use to speculate on these lines, except to point out that, wasted as many parts; ot the earlier roads are now, in their'day they contributed to the opening up of the country. This, with the exception of instances, of political constructions, applies also to the railways. The Railways Department is still engaged in a process of relieving grades and curvies, and an instance of what all the lines in the Dominion would have been like if the modern methods had been available during their construction is afforded by the East Coast Railway, where tunnels and fillings are proceeding rapidly and the resulting grades are easy, through the use of machinery on a job that would have been prohibitive in cost with picks, shovels, arid wheelbarrows alone.

contribute materially to the cost of transport in a country seamed by gorges and more plentifully supplied with rivers than perhaps any i other of its . size. .As heavy motor traffic develops, with heavier and wider vehicles, it is necessary to provide stronger and wider bridges. Single-track jbridges between the raillings of whiifhy motor buses stick are no more desirable than two-way bridges .which cannot safely sustain two tenton lorries passing each other, and so to the cost of increased road widths iand surfaces, and the elimination of curves, is added a programme of bridge I reconstruction. Heavier locomotives | demand stronger bridges also.

There are still portions of New Zealand unroaded. Many of them are unproductive under present farming methods, while others are difficult of access. There has been' a change in the outlook upon clearing bush land, and where there are good stands of timber, it may become the policy to conserve them. Whatever the eventual action regarding at present unroaded lands, some roading will be necessary, and probably a few millions more will be spent upon it. Hand in hand with this position goes the increasing motorist demand for better and better existing roads, and the maintenance of existing ones. It seems that the standard for motor surfaces, at any rate on highways, is soon to be that of the cities.

"No road is good enough for a motorist" seems to sum Up the position. With the secondary roads of the year becoming the main highways of the next, if present progress is maintained, will make it probable that the cost of New Zealand's roading in another decade will reach the £100,000,000 mark, leaving out of the question what the State will be forced to spend on new roads in places such as the Bay it Plenty hinterland. When to the wear and tear cost of motor transport is added the cost of imported fuel,.it will be seen that the total burden of transport, which fortunately for industry is shared by the State, is the Dominion's heaviest, .