EVANS BAY ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 24, 30 January 1939, Page 10

EVANS BAY ROAD

WIDENING PROCEED-

ING

KIO BAY DIFFICULTIES

\ The widening of Evans Bay Road, which probably will carry the bulk of car and bus traffic to and from the Exhibition, has been a long job, largely because the walling work at the southern end does not permit of the employment of many men and also because of the delays in the shifting of boat sheds and shacks to the new alignment. The greater part of this section of wall building has been completed, for the wall will run out just before the Hataitai Bathing Club shed is reached. After the old flat road the super-eleva-tion of the formation on the sharper curves looks peculiar, but it will make for more safety in driving. The filling' is still in the rough but will be rolled and sealed when the power and telephone poles are moved back. Minor improvement only will be required as far as the Patent Slip, mainly by raising the outer edge to make the present width available, and at the slip itself not much more can be done than to widen the crossing on the seaward side, for the rail levels are fixed. In very high tides the water will rise probably half-way over the widened crossing, but there is no remedy short of a removable steel bridging, a very expensive matter. The Point Jerningham end of the road has now been sealed to its full width between hillside and kerbing, but the middle section has still to be tackled. Between Kio Bay and the buildings, near the Patent Slip there is something over a quarter of a mile of very narrow road, which can be widened only by filling behind a heavy seawall about sixteen feet out from the present formation, and for most of the way in water. There are, however, no engineering difficulties about this and as authority has been given the work should soon begin. Without this widening half the value of the causeway road and the money already spent between the causeway and the Patent Slip would be lost, for the volume of traffic would be determined by the flow which could get through the quarter-mile nec.k. Though at the Point Jerningham end the full road width has been treated for motor traffic the pedestrian is just where he always has been —still on the road —for the footpath, where a formation worth the description does exist, is exceedingly rough. Further along, the alleged path is in part a metal and spoil dump and in part a garden space for marshmallows; the plant of neglected and unused spaces. The path was promised when the road was first paved, ten or twelve years ago; it is now promised in time for the Exhibition. There are several sections of the Marine Drive which badly need a thorough cleaning, and this section is one- of them.